Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love it, the truth is coming out bit by bit based on many of the comments in this thread. The Wootton cluster is fine with diversity as long as those kids come from well to do families and their kids are smart. Throw in some Gaithersburg kids and now you’ve got some of the undocumented and poverty level families that will bring your top performing school down a notch. You scream about the importance of equity and equality until you are directly impacted and then you don’t want it.

And no, East County schools DO NOT want to be bused your way. East County wants access to the same classes and opportunities in the eastern part of the county.

I call BS on saying the Wootton families are trying to avoid FARMS populations. Wootton Cluster sends the most students to Blair's magnet, a school that has a sizable FARMS population.

Yah, those magnet classes are filled with FARMS kids.

Honors and AP classes also often create a school within a school. I went to Wootton and it was more than obvious that this was the case and, unfortunately, it often did correlate with class. Point is, honors/AP classes at Wootton will likely continue functioning as a school within a school...and with FARMS increasing by 4% the change will be fairly mild.

The people worried about FARMS increase can't seriously be worried about it in terms of the "educational experience." Their fear is simply that Wootton will drop from being ranked #191 in the country to #400 and that their home value is going to drop because of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love it, the truth is coming out bit by bit based on many of the comments in this thread. The Wootton cluster is fine with diversity as long as those kids come from well to do families and their kids are smart. Throw in some Gaithersburg kids and now you’ve got some of the undocumented and poverty level families that will bring your top performing school down a notch. You scream about the importance of equity and equality until you are directly impacted and then you don’t want it.

And no, East County schools DO NOT want to be bused your way. East County wants access to the same classes and opportunities in the eastern part of the county.

I call BS on saying the Wootton families are trying to avoid FARMS populations. Wootton Cluster sends the most students to Blair's magnet, a school that has a sizable FARMS population.

Yah, those magnet classes are filled with FARMS kids.

Anonymous wrote:I love it, the truth is coming out bit by bit based on many of the comments in this thread. The Wootton cluster is fine with diversity as long as those kids come from well to do families and their kids are smart. Throw in some Gaithersburg kids and now you’ve got some of the undocumented and poverty level families that will bring your top performing school down a notch. You scream about the importance of equity and equality until you are directly impacted and then you don’t want it.

And no, East County schools DO NOT want to be bused your way. East County wants access to the same classes and opportunities in the eastern part of the county.

I call BS on saying the Wootton families are trying to avoid FARMS populations. Wootton Cluster sends the most students to Blair's magnet, a school that has a sizable FARMS population.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that the new middle school plan is terrible.

The high school plan splits off Cold Spring but from everything I am hearing Cold Spring doesn't actually care. They are at Hoover and Churchill now, shorter commute and great schools.

Other than that, the Wootton cluster remains together and adds some new students.
The Wootton community within walking distance is so mad they are planning to tie this whole thing up in litigation for the foreseeable future, hopefully to draw it out long enough to have a new board and no vote. Great use of our tax dollars.

Cold Spring isn’t exactly happy because parts of it are within the Wootton walk zone. Likewise, Wootton is higher ranked nationally than Churchill, so many families chose to buy in Cold Spring.

That said, carving out Cold Spring makes sense because it is the furthest south neighborhood of the Wootton cluster.

I am pretty sure Coldsprngs is fine with this. Ranking is unreliable and changes often. For us the main thing is distance. This is what the community proposed anyways when asked for feedback.

Yeah Wootton and Churchill have often shifted spots in the rankings. Also, Cold Spring is in Potomac anyhow. Culturally/geographically it's definitely the Wootton feeder that is most similar to Churchill district. Besides, for many people going to a school in Potomac (despite ranking) is more important than anything else. If that weren't the case then the Wayside people wouldn't have freaked out about potentially shifting to Wootton.

On a more serious note, I think that because Cold Spring asked to be moved to Churchill if Wootton were to be relocated to the Crown Farm site, the litigants will have a tougher time arguing this was capricious and didn't use proper community feedback. DuFief and Cold Spring are both sure to favor Taylor's plan at this point...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that the new middle school plan is terrible.

The high school plan splits off Cold Spring but from everything I am hearing Cold Spring doesn't actually care. They are at Hoover and Churchill now, shorter commute and great schools.

Other than that, the Wootton cluster remains together and adds some new students.
The Wootton community within walking distance is so mad they are planning to tie this whole thing up in litigation for the foreseeable future, hopefully to draw it out long enough to have a new board and no vote. Great use of our tax dollars.

Cold Spring isn’t exactly happy because parts of it are within the Wootton walk zone. Likewise, Wootton is higher ranked nationally than Churchill, so many families chose to buy in Cold Spring.

That said, carving out Cold Spring makes sense because it is the furthest south neighborhood of the Wootton cluster.

I am pretty sure Coldsprngs is fine with this. Ranking is unreliable and changes often. For us the main thing is distance. This is what the community proposed anyways when asked for feedback.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just say it like it is. Many Wootton families were all for moving to Crown until they found out that their uppity SES school was going to have to bring in some lower SES areas. Personally, I thought Crown should have been Crown/Rio area and Wootton should have stayed Wootton but it almost seems like this decision a big F-U to the Wootton community from the superintendent for changing their minds once they heard his plan.

I don't see any issue with FARMS going from 14 to 19%. As long as it's around 20, it won't be having any negative effect on school.

It will have a huge affect

More importantly I don’t want my kids driving to Crown period.

Good job MCPS closing one of your top performing schools fabulous idea

Time to move on.

Amazing response. Crown in 5 miles away, and in a fantastic neighborhood!


I think your optic is off. Wooton kids will be getting a brand new, huge school in a fast growing UMC neighborhood that offers a mixed-use blend.

I’m at Crown daily. It continues to grow for the better.

This move makes sense for the county as a whole.

Anonymous wrote:I agree that the new middle school plan is terrible.

The high school plan splits off Cold Spring but from everything I am hearing Cold Spring doesn't actually care. They are at Hoover and Churchill now, shorter commute and great schools.

Other than that, the Wootton cluster remains together and adds some new students.
The Wootton community within walking distance is so mad they are planning to tie this whole thing up in litigation for the foreseeable future, hopefully to draw it out long enough to have a new board and no vote. Great use of our tax dollars.

Cold Spring isn’t exactly happy because parts of it are within the Wootton walk zone. Likewise, Wootton is higher ranked nationally than Churchill, so many families chose to buy in Cold Spring.

That said, carving out Cold Spring makes sense because it is the furthest south neighborhood of the Wootton cluster.

Anonymous wrote:I agree that the new middle school plan is terrible.

The high school plan splits off Cold Spring but from everything I am hearing Cold Spring doesn't actually care. They are at Hoover and Churchill now, shorter commute and great schools.

Other than that, the Wootton cluster remains together and adds some new students.
The Wootton community within walking distance is so mad they are planning to tie this whole thing up in litigation for the foreseeable future, hopefully to draw it out long enough to have a new board and no vote. Great use of our tax dollars.

Yes it seems that they decided to make this plan in order to make elementary school boundaries contiguous but I agree this is not a good idea. I would say both Stone Mill and Travilah should be sent to Hoover and just keep Cold Spring at Cabin John even if it makes the boundaries non-contiguous. Hoover is closer than Cabin John for both Stone Mill and Travilah and at that distance (over 15 min) the slightly closer school makes a difference.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean all cabin John students go to Churchill except stone mill kids? So those kids get extra screwed?

Would stone mill kids prefer to go to Churchill instead of wootton?

That’s not an option. Churchill was supposedly overcrowded to begin with. That was part of the justification for building this school. But the presented options are taking what was already a bad split and making it worse. The other options put stone mill back into frost and kept the Wootton cluster together. That is way better.

Yes Churchill is overcrowded but I think they will probably just move Seven Locks to Whitman in a few years to deal with that. Whitman is at 80-83% capacity for the next several years and Seven Locks is both in Bethesda and slightly closer to Whitman than Churchill anyhow. They can't do that now because Whitman was part of the downcounty boundary assignment, but since they're about to do another elementary school boundary soon, this would be my bet as to what happens.

I agree that the new middle school plan is terrible.

The high school plan splits off Cold Spring but from everything I am hearing Cold Spring doesn't actually care. They are at Hoover and Churchill now, shorter commute and great schools.

Other than that, the Wootton cluster remains together and adds some new students.
The Wootton community within walking distance is so mad they are planning to tie this whole thing up in litigation for the foreseeable future, hopefully to draw it out long enough to have a new board and no vote. Great use of our tax dollars.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean all cabin John students go to Churchill except stone mill kids? So those kids get extra screwed?

Would stone mill kids prefer to go to Churchill instead of wootton?

That’s not an option. Churchill was supposedly overcrowded to begin with. That was part of the justification for building this school. But the presented options are taking what was already a bad split and making it worse. The other options put stone mill back into frost and kept the Wootton cluster together. That is way better.

The original A-D did not keep the cluster together, they split off Dufief in all options and Travilah in one or two.

Anonymous wrote:I love it, the truth is coming out bit by bit based on many of the comments in this thread. The Wootton cluster is fine with diversity as long as those kids come from well to do families and their kids are smart. Throw in some Gaithersburg kids and now you’ve got some of the undocumented and poverty level families that will bring your top performing school down a notch. You scream about the importance of equity and equality until you are directly impacted and then you don’t want it.

And no, East County schools DO NOT want to be bused your way. East County wants access to the same classes and opportunities in the eastern part of the county.

Kinda like Martha’s Vineyard?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean all cabin John students go to Churchill except stone mill kids? So those kids get extra screwed?

Would stone mill kids prefer to go to Churchill instead of wootton?

That’s not an option. Churchill was supposedly overcrowded to begin with. That was part of the justification for building this school. But the presented options are taking what was already a bad split and making it worse. The other options put stone mill back into frost and kept the Wootton cluster together. That is way better.

I love it, the truth is coming out bit by bit based on many of the comments in this thread. The Wootton cluster is fine with diversity as long as those kids come from well to do families and their kids are smart. Throw in some Gaithersburg kids and now you’ve got some of the undocumented and poverty level families that will bring your top performing school down a notch. You scream about the importance of equity and equality until you are directly impacted and then you don’t want it.

And no, East County schools DO NOT want to be bused your way. East County wants access to the same classes and opportunities in the eastern part of the county.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just say it like it is. Many Wootton families were all for moving to Crown until they found out that their uppity SES school was going to have to bring in some lower SES areas. Personally, I thought Crown should have been Crown/Rio area and Wootton should have stayed Wootton but it almost seems like this decision a big F-U to the Wootton community from the superintendent for changing their minds once they heard his plan.

Can you blame them? Lower SES kids cause all kinds of problems. That's why so many people from east county wanted bussing....to spread them around into west county.

Practically no one from the east county wants to bus their kids to the west. Can’t have it both ways saying lower SES kids aren’t the type of students who want challenging academic environments and then say they want to be bussed west for a challenging academic environment. W side doesn’t want to take any FARMS student from immediately contiguous areas. MCPS didn’t go far enough.

This, we want the classes at our schools and not to be bussed across the county to schools we purposely avoided.