You should ask how much money they spend on transportation. A quick look
DKFI (K-8) - 680 students - 28 morning bus routes
Samuel Maisie Academy (preK-8) - 480 students - 2 morning bus routes
Cherokee Lane ES (preK-5) - 816 students - 12 bus routes.

So the specialty program schools probably cost 4-10 times more with respect to neighborhood schools with respect to transportation.

I would say more middle class rather than white kids...but agreed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally believe that elementary school is the best time to offer language immersion. I live in one of the best elementary school zones, but I have my kid on the waitlist for both immersion schools.

I would love it if the neighborhood schools were equally good and immersion was for those who truly desire second language fluency for their kids.

And if you live within a great elementary and middle school pyramid, I would never recommend going to a specialty program unless you child is really interested in it. Transportation will add an extra hour or two onto your kids day and for the K-8 schools, the school day is already longer. The stress involved in dealing with the bus can be terrible.

Which is why I want to see a breakdown of transport costs for specialty programs! It's ridiculous kids attending their boundary school can't get transport but we can transport kids across the county so they can go to a publicly funded private for essentially. .. white kids based on the stars.

And as far as keeping them in the county call their bluff. Most people refinanced and have low interest rates and interest rates are too high for them to buy with the house prices in the surrounding counties are too high so play them like Texas hold'em and start giving resources to all elementary schools

Anonymous wrote:I personally believe that elementary school is the best time to offer language immersion. I live in one of the best elementary school zones, but I have my kid on the waitlist for both immersion schools.

I would love it if the neighborhood schools were equally good and immersion was for those who truly desire second language fluency for their kids.

And if you live within a great elementary and middle school pyramid, I would never recommend going to a specialty program unless you child is really interested in it. Transportation will add an extra hour or two onto your kids day and for the K-8 schools, the school day is already longer. The stress involved in dealing with the bus can be terrible.

Anonymous wrote:I personally believe that elementary school is the best time to offer language immersion. I live in one of the best elementary school zones, but I have my kid on the waitlist for both immersion schools.

I would love it if the neighborhood schools were equally good and immersion was for those who truly desire second language fluency for their kids.

Elementary school is the best time to offer language immersion but should we be investing resources in separate language immersion programs or should we redirect those resources to our local elementary schools who really need it.

If parents want language immersion, they can always go to private school. The vast majority of public schools in the country do not offer language immersion. It was started as a way to keep white families in the County.

I personally believe that elementary school is the best time to offer language immersion. I live in one of the best elementary school zones, but I have my kid on the waitlist for both immersion schools.

I would love it if the neighborhood schools were equally good and immersion was for those who truly desire second language fluency for their kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

You can compare the FARMS rates on the Great Schools and the MD Report Card. There is a huge disparity.
The FARMS rate of elementary schools with no specialty programs is double the schools that are specialty programs with no comprehensive kids.
FARMS Rate:
PGCPS Elementary as a whole: 63.5%
Specialty Program only schools: 35%
Non-Specialty Program Elementary Schools - 70%

Wowwww thats some BS.

I'm a teacher at a specialty elementary school. If we required parents to transport their kids to school, our already low FARMS rate would plummet.

As it is, low income parents have a tendency to prefer neighborhood schools, just because of the difficulty of picking kids up from aftercare or after school activities, and a distrust of schools that are a further distance away. I mean, higher income parents also prefer neighborhood schools for the same reasons, but they generally are more willing to tolerate the difficulties of a far away school as a tradeoff for a program they like.

Be that as it may, I dont want to hear about transport issues when 50% of the student body is NOT going to be receiving transportation but the higher income lottery families are. The problem with your viewpoint is that the reality ALREADY isnt addressing equity and transportation is provided. But transportation for the system overall is not equitable. I would bet dollars to donuts that a majority of the walkers in most PG schools are FARMS. And its not safe to walk so how are they getting to school? These "leaders" need to walk these routes themselves and actually make real improvements in pedestrian safety. In my own higher income neighborhood, people wont stop for pedestrians, there are no crossing guards, and the pedestrian crossings dont have stop signs. So I can only imagine the lack of safety in lower-income, more urban settings.

I am not really sure what the purpose of the specialty programs are to begin with, its essentially a private school education funded by taxpayers. It is a liberal take on vouchers IMO.

100%
I totally get it in high schools and to some point middle schools because those programs are generally ability based. But there is zero reason that we need to provide a Montessori, CPA or language immersion options at elementary level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

You can compare the FARMS rates on the Great Schools and the MD Report Card. There is a huge disparity.
The FARMS rate of elementary schools with no specialty programs is double the schools that are specialty programs with no comprehensive kids.
FARMS Rate:
PGCPS Elementary as a whole: 63.5%
Specialty Program only schools: 35%
Non-Specialty Program Elementary Schools - 70%

Wowwww thats some BS.

I'm a teacher at a specialty elementary school. If we required parents to transport their kids to school, our already low FARMS rate would plummet.

As it is, low income parents have a tendency to prefer neighborhood schools, just because of the difficulty of picking kids up from aftercare or after school activities, and a distrust of schools that are a further distance away. I mean, higher income parents also prefer neighborhood schools for the same reasons, but they generally are more willing to tolerate the difficulties of a far away school as a tradeoff for a program they like.

Be that as it may, I dont want to hear about transport issues when 50% of the student body is NOT going to be receiving transportation but the higher income lottery families are. The problem with your viewpoint is that the reality ALREADY isnt addressing equity and transportation is provided. But transportation for the system overall is not equitable. I would bet dollars to donuts that a majority of the walkers in most PG schools are FARMS. And its not safe to walk so how are they getting to school? These "leaders" need to walk these routes themselves and actually make real improvements in pedestrian safety. In my own higher income neighborhood, people wont stop for pedestrians, there are no crossing guards, and the pedestrian crossings dont have stop signs. So I can only imagine the lack of safety in lower-income, more urban settings.

I am not really sure what the purpose of the specialty programs are to begin with, its essentially a private school education funded by taxpayers. It is a liberal take on vouchers IMO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

You can compare the FARMS rates on the Great Schools and the MD Report Card. There is a huge disparity.
The FARMS rate of elementary schools with no specialty programs is double the schools that are specialty programs with no comprehensive kids.
FARMS Rate:
PGCPS Elementary as a whole: 63.5%
Specialty Program only schools: 35%
Non-Specialty Program Elementary Schools - 70%

Wowwww thats some BS.

I'm a teacher at a specialty elementary school. If we required parents to transport their kids to school, our already low FARMS rate would plummet.

As it is, low income parents have a tendency to prefer neighborhood schools, just because of the difficulty of picking kids up from aftercare or after school activities, and a distrust of schools that are a further distance away. I mean, higher income parents also prefer neighborhood schools for the same reasons, but they generally are more willing to tolerate the difficulties of a far away school as a tradeoff for a program they like.

There are a variety of reasons that lower income families do not participate in specialty programs. Some of it is a cycle. Specialty programs do not have a lot of students with non-English speaking parents so they don't direct resources to ESL or spanish speaking liasons. Because they do not have these supports in place, these families might not feel as supported as they do in the neighborhood schools.
Also, navigating a lottery system is hard enough for parents whose primary language is English and who might have advanced degrees.
They whole lottery system is an example of economic segregation that no one wants to talk about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

You can compare the FARMS rates on the Great Schools and the MD Report Card. There is a huge disparity.
The FARMS rate of elementary schools with no specialty programs is double the schools that are specialty programs with no comprehensive kids.
FARMS Rate:
PGCPS Elementary as a whole: 63.5%
Specialty Program only schools: 35%
Non-Specialty Program Elementary Schools - 70%

Wowwww thats some BS.

I'm a teacher at a specialty elementary school. If we required parents to transport their kids to school, our already low FARMS rate would plummet.

As it is, low income parents have a tendency to prefer neighborhood schools, just because of the difficulty of picking kids up from aftercare or after school activities, and a distrust of schools that are a further distance away. I mean, higher income parents also prefer neighborhood schools for the same reasons, but they generally are more willing to tolerate the difficulties of a far away school as a tradeoff for a program they like.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

You can compare the FARMS rates on the Great Schools and the MD Report Card. There is a huge disparity.
The FARMS rate of elementary schools with no specialty programs is double the schools that are specialty programs with no comprehensive kids.
FARMS Rate:
PGCPS Elementary as a whole: 63.5%
Specialty Program only schools: 35%
Non-Specialty Program Elementary Schools - 70%

Wowwww thats some BS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

You can compare the FARMS rates on the Great Schools and the MD Report Card. There is a huge disparity.
The FARMS rate of elementary schools with no specialty programs is double the schools that are specialty programs with no comprehensive kids.
FARMS Rate:
PGCPS Elementary as a whole: 63.5%
Specialty Program only schools: 35%
Non-Specialty Program Elementary Schools - 70%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What PGCPS needs to do (and no one wants to talk about) is eliminate the specialty programs at elementary school level. That eliminates a ton of bussing and the county would have more than enough drivers.

As someone who works at one of these specialty programs, I 100% agree. These programs tend to perform higher academically that the regular public schools and its free! The least the parents can do is provide transportation.

Correct. Its INSANE to me that kids who attend their boundary school dont get transportation but "specialty program" kids do. It is "in the name of equity" but I would be really interested to see how many FARMS kids actually attend the specialty programs and furthermore, how many kids who are walkers are FARMS.

Removing the waivers means PGCPS would only provide transportation to 50% of the student population and I wonder what percentage of it is specialty program kids and how much impact they have on the routes/times/distance.

Anonymous wrote:My elementary school start time is 9:30 AM (teacher report time 8:30 AM) so a switch to 7:30 AM would be crazy! But I won't deny, as a teacher, I would like to be able to leave work at 2 PM instead of 4 PM.

DCPS teacher spouse here. You have to report a full hour before kids show up? Wow!!