Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

I am from Massachusetts and strongly agree!!

It's funny how often the MA model is brought up in this forum as an amazing example of how to run schools, but my sister and brother in law hate the system in MA. They feel like the curriculum is lame and their kids are not challenged at all. There are no magnet programs, there is no access to gifted education. DCUMs would be bitching their heads off about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

There are more sections of Kensington and the 20895 zip code but I guess those don't qualify in your mind. Not everyone wants to be a part of the Town, which is why we bought out of bounds.

You misread my post. 20895 is coterminous with all areas that have a Kensington address. Much larger than the Town. I also don't live in the Town and none of the schools I mentioned are actually in the very small Town boundaries. I was suggesting a different form of political governance, based on large towns rather than a county. This is common in other parts of our country, like in New England. There are positives and negatives of each approach, but people tend to be more involved in local government if power is devolved, so on the whole that would be my preference.

The Town right now is really silly, it's only 2,000 people and had no real power. I was envisioning a larger incorporated area of 25,000 with its own schools, police, etc. But I was also suggesting this will never happen, so given the county's current governance structure there is no logical reason to reorganize school boundaries without devolved political power to run the new Kensington schools that PP was envisioning.

Also, for other PP, my post was incorrect when I said it was three "districts." I meant three clusters. Thanks for clarifying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

I am from Massachusetts and strongly agree!!

Is it possible that kids in Sumner and Woodacres might go to Westland in the future?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

This isn't semantics: you aren't bisected by three different districts. We are all in one district called MCPS. It's like McDonalds. We all go to different franchises of McDonalds but they all serve the same stuff. Some have nicer furnishings and more rich people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

There are more sections of Kensington and the 20895 zip code but I guess those don't qualify in your mind. Not everyone wants to be a part of the Town, which is why we bought out of bounds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The BCC middle school is clearly in Kensington, even the BOE recognizes this fact as stated in their report.

There are different sections of Kensington to include a town. It is in the BCC attending southern part of the area but not the town.

just like kids who live East of Connecticut are not in the Town of Chevy Chase, they are Sect 3 and Sec 5 and east of Brookville is Martin's Addition and South of the CC county club is the Village of ChCh.

We are all CHCH and yet we are not. Did you know that at different times kids living in ChCh have gone to different elementaries and middle schools? Some kids go to Sometset. Some kids went to Rollingwood. Some kids went to Leland MS and others went to Western MS. It sometimes happens that a whole community doesn't get to go to school together.

Kensington and Silver Spring are very large areas composed of different sub-neighborhoods.

Leland closed 35 years ago so there is no relevance to the discussion except why the school wasn't rebuilt so kids could go to school in there neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

I should also add that it doesn't bother me at all that are demographics of new middle will be "worse" than Westland now. That's just a reflection of the what the demographics of the different areas are.

Now that MCPS has finally used a bit of common sense, maybe we can get rid of the whole Rosemary Hills thing and my kids can just go to their local school (NCC) for K-5 like everyone else on earth. One can dream.

Anonymous wrote:There are always people who live close to a school who aren't zoned for it-- it's almost mathematically impossible to send everyone to the closest school. I know families a couple blocks from Westland that go to Pyle. Complaining about that at this point is beside the point.

Yes. I live in Kensington. We are bisected with three different school districts.

If Montgomery County was structured at the town level rather than the county level, like Massachusetts, then we could incorporate all of 20895 plus whatever Garret Park into our own little city and then all go to Kensington Parkwood, New Middle School and Einstein together. That would be great. But that is not reality and no other area in Montgomery County is structured like that.

Anonymous wrote:I'm very sad that immersion students have to stay at Westland. I can't believe that 50 kids, tops, is too many for the new school. I think there are only 30-something in this years' 6th grade class. Many parents decided to send their children to SSI, a magnet or their home middle school. I'm considering requesting a COSA for SSI next year. Westland is so far away and most immersion students live in Silver Spring. I really believe that this, along with the impending end of sibling preference and automatic high school matriculation, is an effort to keep non-neighborhood children out of the Bethesda schools (and basically giving up any pretense of school desegregation).

AS an RCF Immersion parent you can choose to go to either Westland or SSIMS , your admitted magnet school or your home MS, you fill out a form in late April/ Early May and MCPS does the rest of the paperwork

Well, will kids from the new Westbard development be going to the Westland middle school? It will be up to capacity soon.
There should be some affordable housing in the new development as well.

For all those people saying they're happy about Bethesda lacking diversity - not everyone agrees with you. It's pathetic, it's not how I want to raise my kids (when we moved here it was a lot more diverse and that's one reason we chose it) and it makes people hate people from Bethesda.
Not only that but it causes the county to discriminate against us from the looks of things. We have no community centers, no new parks, the infrastructure in many areas is severely lacking and many of the schools are jam packed (Ashburton? ). The county puts all of their funds into the less advantaged areas and the quality of life of the non rich Bethesda people (the ones who can't afford country clubs and golf outings...) suffers. We're paying huge property tax bills each year to support infrastructure and a good quality of life for the rest of the county bug never here.

PP, you bring up an interesting point. Under Option 7, MS#2 will be at full capacity practically from day one, while Westland will be well under capacity. Given what you say about end of sibling preference, travel distance from Silver Spring for immersion students, and the like, Westland will likely be even MORE under capacity (since not all the immersion students will actually transfer there) and will have even LESS economic diversity (since immersion students probably provide some economic diversity) than projected. And personally, I think the MS#2 enrollment projections are likely well below reality given the forthcoming Chevy Chase Lake development (which has begun) and the trends we've seen on the eastern side of the cluster, and MS#2 easily will be OVER capacity from day 1.

I'm very sad that immersion students have to stay at Westland. I can't believe that 50 kids, tops, is too many for the new school. I think there are only 30-something in this years' 6th grade class. Many parents decided to send their children to SSI, a magnet or their home middle school. I'm considering requesting a COSA for SSI next year. Westland is so far away and most immersion students live in Silver Spring. I really believe that this, along with the impending end of sibling preference and automatic high school matriculation, is an effort to keep non-neighborhood children out of the Bethesda schools (and basically giving up any pretense of school desegregation).

Anonymous wrote:When will the final decision be released?

In November the board will take up the issue.

When will the final decision be released?