Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

I don't remember there being any easily-created options. Just lots of different options that all had advantages and disadvantages.

If you start with a blank slate then you can create better options.

MCPS started with current boundary as base.

If there's one thing a blank slate isn't, it's easy. Mathematically, yes. When you're dealing with the real people it affects? No way.

BOE should stick to 4 criterion defined in FAA. MCPS was trying to move least amount of kids and that's not a criterion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boundary change needs to happen and while doing it if we can avoid situations like two ES in the same cluster ending with 7% and 70% FARMs then we should surely do that.

BOE in their infinite wisdom decided to create boundary with 7% and 70% in RM cluster when new ES came online.

This just goes to show that some folks think the BOE don't do enough to spread diversity and others think they are doing too much like busing.

I was part of that boundary study. If you are referring to Twinbrook with 70%FARMs rate, the TB community didn't want to split up, and part of the reason was due to losing their Title 1 funding. The option that would've split up TB left the school at 40% FARMS rate (still waaay too high for the cluster) but not high enough to get Title 1 funding. That was a lose-lose proposition for them.

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

PP here... ITA, it was handled terribly. I emailed the BOE as much.

The problem was that

1. the actual numbers came out too late to redraw the boundaries
2. they tried to not have too many knock on effects and splitting zones. That IMO was too confining. I hope they learned their lesson.
3. they weren't looking at neighboring clusters, which after this discussion, they said they will in future, and now they are.

That's not even a criterion for boundary decisions and it seemed it was made the top priority due to no one wanted to move.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the people giving them a hard time for not giving their name on an anonymous forum.

Post your name here folks, if you would do it there, do it here.

In the mean time, someone please explain to me how an under-performing student is suddenly going to do well in an over-performing school.

Does BoE draw boundaries based on student test scores? I don't remember student test scores being a factor in boundary decisions.

If they did not claim certain SES groups did not perform well and they wanted to help those groups performing, there would no point in making such SES considerations at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is asking to "shove more kids" into an already over crowded school.
The question is how many kids of which neighborhood can be moved to which other school, or, maybe building a new school instead.

A lot of logic problems.

Anonymous wrote:
If you are refusing boundaries to be redrawn to alleviate crowding then you are basically saying to shove more kids into an over crowded school.

Do you understand what "more" means? 160% would be more than 150%. Keeping it at 150% cannot be called "shove more kids into". I am not saying it is good to keep it at 150%. But apparently you feel that is not enough to establish a valid argument, and you had to interpret other people's view of "not changing" as "putting more into"?

Anonymous wrote:
If you agree that boundaries should be redrawn to alleviate overcrowding in neighboring schools, then you must know that this could include you and your's. Otherwise, you're the worst kind of NIMBY.

Of course it could include any neighborhood near the boundary. But people can certainly express their willingness or unwillingness to contribute, right?

Anonymous wrote:

The question of "which neighborhood" boils down to this:

1. BOE wants to spread out FARMs because studies have shown that low income kids do better in schools that have a FARMs rate of 23% or lower, while the upper income kids are not hurt by the presence of more low income kids

Bogus study. People doing research are well aware of the problems in interpreting these kind of studies. But that's fine. Politicians do things based on studies much less reliable so this is no surprise.

Anonymous wrote:
2. some people don't want their kids to go to school with more low income kids

Getting more low income kids is fine. Getting kids from different race is fine. Getting more low performing kids? Is there anything wrong with trying not to have that?

Anonymous wrote:
3. some people don't care about #1 or #2. They just don't want their kids to be bused to the neighboring school, which could be like 2 miles away, thus adding a few minutes to the commute time, which makes one suspect of whether they really don't care about #1 or #2.

If they like their current school, is there anything wrong with not wanting to go to another school which appears not as good?

Anonymous wrote:All the people giving them a hard time for not giving their name on an anonymous forum.

Post your name here folks, if you would do it there, do it here.

In the mean time, someone please explain to me how an under-performing student is suddenly going to do well in an over-performing school.

Go read some studies. Start with this one that's been cited a few times:

https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

Anonymous wrote:All the people giving them a hard time for not giving their name on an anonymous forum.

Post your name here folks, if you would do it there, do it here.

In the mean time, someone please explain to me how an under-performing student is suddenly going to do well in an over-performing school.

Does BoE draw boundaries based on student test scores? I don't remember student test scores being a factor in boundary decisions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

I don't remember there being any easily-created options. Just lots of different options that all had advantages and disadvantages.

If you start with a blank slate then you can create better options.

MCPS started with current boundary as base.

If there's one thing a blank slate isn't, it's easy. Mathematically, yes. When you're dealing with the real people it affects? No way.

All the people giving them a hard time for not giving their name on an anonymous forum.

Post your name here folks, if you would do it there, do it here.

In the mean time, someone please explain to me how an under-performing student is suddenly going to do well in an over-performing school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boundary change needs to happen and while doing it if we can avoid situations like two ES in the same cluster ending with 7% and 70% FARMs then we should surely do that.

BOE in their infinite wisdom decided to create boundary with 7% and 70% in RM cluster when new ES came online.

This just goes to show that some folks think the BOE don't do enough to spread diversity and others think they are doing too much like busing.

I was part of that boundary study. If you are referring to Twinbrook with 70%FARMs rate, the TB community didn't want to split up, and part of the reason was due to losing their Title 1 funding. The option that would've split up TB left the school at 40% FARMS rate (still waaay too high for the cluster) but not high enough to get Title 1 funding. That was a lose-lose proposition for them.

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

PP here... ITA, it was handled terribly. I emailed the BOE as much.

The problem was that

1. the actual numbers came out too late to redraw the boundaries
2. they tried to not have too many knock on effects and splitting zones. That IMO was too confining. I hope they learned their lesson.
3. they weren't looking at neighboring clusters, which after this discussion, they said they will in future, and now they are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

I don't remember there being any easily-created options. Just lots of different options that all had advantages and disadvantages.

If you start with a blank slate then you can create better options.

MCPS started with current boundary as base.

+1

Then MCPS tried to move 150 kids in one block. You can't balance that way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

I don't remember there being any easily-created options. Just lots of different options that all had advantages and disadvantages.

If you start with a blank slate then you can create better options.

MCPS started with current boundary as base.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WJ and RM cluster is over crowded. Boundary change needs to happen immediately to distribute kids to other schools.

It's better to have 105% in 10 schools than having 100% in 9 and then having 150% in one school.

People from that 150% school may agree. But those from the 9 100% schools may not. It is a balance of different interests and no absolute rights or wrongs.

It is morally wrong to shove more kids into an already over crowded schools while the rest of the school surrounding it aren't over crowded.

DP.

No one is asking to "shove more kids" into an already over crowded school.
The question is how many kids of which neighborhood can be moved to which other school, or, maybe building a new school instead.

If you are refusing boundaries to be redrawn to alleviate crowding then you are basically saying to shove more kids into an over crowded school. If you agree that boundaries should be redrawn to alleviate overcrowding in neighboring schools, then you must know that this could include you and your's. Otherwise, you're the worst kind of NIMBY.

The question of "which neighborhood" boils down to this:

1. BOE wants to spread out FARMs because studies have shown that low income kids do better in schools that have a FARMs rate of 23% or lower, while the upper income kids are not hurt by the presence of more low income kids

2. some people don't want their kids to go to school with more low income kids

3. some people don't care about #1 or #2. They just don't want their kids to be bused to the neighboring school, which could be like 2 miles away, thus adding a few minutes to the commute time, which makes one suspect of whether they really don't care about #1 or #2.

Anonymous wrote:

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

I don't remember there being any easily-created options. Just lots of different options that all had advantages and disadvantages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boundary change needs to happen and while doing it if we can avoid situations like two ES in the same cluster ending with 7% and 70% FARMs then we should surely do that.

BOE in their infinite wisdom decided to create boundary with 7% and 70% in RM cluster when new ES came online.

This just goes to show that some folks think the BOE don't do enough to spread diversity and others think they are doing too much like busing.

I was part of that boundary study. If you are referring to Twinbrook with 70%FARMs rate, the TB community didn't want to split up, and part of the reason was due to losing their Title 1 funding. The option that would've split up TB left the school at 40% FARMS rate (still waaay too high for the cluster) but not high enough to get Title 1 funding. That was a lose-lose proposition for them.

Entire process was joke. Faulty data, MCPS staff created options and told parents can't come up with any suggestions and then BOE took parents suggestions to create boundary. It was a huge mess.

All the talk about distributing FARMs and then BOE reduced RP FARMs rate from 20+ to 7%. You could easily create different options to balance it better, but MCPS was not open to take any parents input initially. I live in CG and I wasn't happy with the entire process.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WJ and RM cluster is over crowded. Boundary change needs to happen immediately to distribute kids to other schools.

It's better to have 105% in 10 schools than having 100% in 9 and then having 150% in one school.

People from that 150% school may agree. But those from the 9 100% schools may not. It is a balance of different interests and no absolute rights or wrongs.

It is morally wrong to shove more kids into an already over crowded schools while the rest of the school surrounding it aren't over crowded.

DP.

+1

It's horrible to push kids in over crowded schools.