I have 2 kids at RCES and it's crazy. The school has capacity of 650, had about 800 5 years ago, and shot up over 1000 kids without any development. People just really like the neighborhood and how walkable it is... and it's not only rich people here - there are plenty of rental apartments in the neighborhood as well as fancier spots (I rent a small townhouse). And, the education is good/teachers are great. The kids leave well-prepared, except...

We're nearing 400 kids overcapacity - my daughter eats at 10:45 and there is barely any space for recess with 11 portables. Most other schools in the general area are overcapacity and the 3 schools undercapacity (Dufief, Darnestown, Travilah) have less than 250 seats available between the three. Fields Road now is over 100 overcapacity, Rosemont is getting Crown and is projected to be nearly 300 overcapacity soon... ugh. They can't build additions fast enough.

Also, other MoCo schools are fantastic, but it will take 5-7 years to develop space to send our kids and there is so much new development coming that will eat up those seats before our kids can get there. There is no answer - it's like a cat chasing it's tail. This is why we've been asking for MCPS to build another new school in the general neighborhood - we can quickly use up the seats at a brand new school, and it's the only way to ensure that our kids get those spots rather than kids from newly built developments. Dufief will get an addition in 5-7 years, and will soon be overcrowded after that - Science City is coming with 6000 new homes! In the next 5 years, EVERY seat in the Gaithersburg/Rockville area will be filled and ALL schools will be overcrowded.

Plus, we like having a walkable community. Isn't that what MoCo talks about with Smart Growth? If so many people are enjoying a walkable community, MoCo will then talk about busing them across major roads? Doesn't make sense...

If MCPS does not want to redistrict, then maybe they need to offer enmass COSA to RCES students to shift to Dufief and provide transportation.

Anonymous wrote:DDT is "safe?" PML!

In WW2, millions of Gi's and tens of million of civilians were sprayed with DDT to delouse themselves… Yes, SAFE!

Anonymous wrote:DDT is "safe?" PML!

Not just safe. The safest pesticide ever! An organochlorine pesticide. Good grief.

http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/info/ddt.html

DDT is "safe?" PML!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rachel Carlson isn't anywhere.

Rachel Carson is in Gaithersburg.

You must be a blast at parties!

Yes, I am a lot of fun at parties!

What's depressing is that so many people apparently have never heard of Rachel Carson -- the person, not the school.

NP but she's my hero! Truly an amazing person and scientist.

Hate to rain on your parade but Rachel Carson used incomplete data, provided fraudulent analysis and results such that her 'science' has been proven wrong. Her ‘advocacy’ fueled the banning of the safest and most effective pesticide ever known, DDT.

Loss of DDT has led to the preventable deaths of hundreds of millions these past 50 years from Malaria, Yellow Fever, Onchoceriasis and many more vector borne disease.

She is not to be celebrated but censured.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I don't get is why the county doesn't do a better job of planning ahead. They knew these communities were being built and had to at let have a sense of how many kids would be added to the school system. After all they had to approve the construction. They could have zoned better or prepared for overcrowding at some schools. I know it is not an exact science but their planning is way off the mark in a lot of clusters.

There are several "they"s here. MCPS did not approve the construction.

Also, Rachel Carson ES opened in 1990. I don't know how long the school has been over capacity. What new construction is contributing to Rachel Carson being so over capacity?

And finally, MCPS has limited capital funds, so they have to set priorities. What do you think should be a higher priority -- building new schools to accommodate future planned enrollment, or renovating and expanding existing schools that need it now? For example, Seneca Valley High School was built in 1974 and has a leaking roof, lead in the pipes, a terrible layout, and a terrible ventilation system. For years, modernization has been moved one year further into the future, every year. Is building a new high school at Crown Farm a higher priority than modernizing Seneca Valley?

Actually, I was taking about the county in general and not just MCPS. Just seems the council and whatever planning commission could coordinate better with MCPS when approving new construction. While I have issues with how MCPS is addressing overcrowding, I also realize that other public officials, like the county council, share a lot of the responsibility. In many ways, MCPS has to deal with the mess others leave behind. But rezoning as some have mentioned send like a good and necessary idea
to address this.

Why? Do you know more about school zoning decisions and the MCPS boundary-change processes and considerations than the people who do it at MCPS? How did you come by this knowledge?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like redistricting is cheaper than putting additions on or buying more portables.

Rezoning. MCPS is the school district.

And I look at it this way:

1. Either rezoning will solve the problem and is cheaper than building or adding portables, but the people who run MCPS are just too stupid, lazy, incompetent, etc., to realize this, or
2. The people who run MCPS know more about this than I do, and they have reasonable reasons for not rezoning, which I don't know about.

#2 is funny. I actually just laughed out loud. Literally.

Anonymous wrote:Seems like redistricting is cheaper than putting additions on or buying more portables.

Rezoning. MCPS is the school district.

And I look at it this way:

1. Either rezoning will solve the problem and is cheaper than building or adding portables, but the people who run MCPS are just too stupid, lazy, incompetent, etc., to realize this, or
2. The people who run MCPS know more about this than I do, and they have reasonable reasons for not rezoning, which I don't know about.

Anonymous wrote:Seems like redistricting is cheaper than putting additions on or buying more portables.

+1 This is what I keep saying about all of the over crowded ESs with neighboring under capacity ESs.

Anonymous wrote:This is 23:54. It is a sense of entitlement. You are enjoying a nicer than average lifestyle in the zone that typically feeds to RC. The bottom line is you don't want to give up your neighborhood and latte drinking-yoga pants wearing Stepford neighbors in order to move to another neighborhood where the zoned school is not at full capacity. Meanwhile me and MY neighbors chose to buy in the neighborhood zoned for Dufief because we know it is a good school that is small and not over crowded. That was a big selling point for us. I can't believe how much you guys scoff at "those children" being bused in when you are essentially seeking to do the same thing to another elementary school. Your choices are to MOVE or just deal with it.

How about we settle it this way? The Rachel Carson parents who live in Kentlands/Lakelands don't say that their kids have a right to Rachel Carson and the kids from the Governor Square apartments don't, and the Dufief parents don't say that their kids have a right to Dufief and the kids from Kentlands/Lakelands don't.

Seems like redistricting is cheaper than putting additions on or buying more portables.

Anonymous wrote:What I don't get is why the county doesn't do a better job of planning ahead. They knew these communities were being built and had to at least have a sense of how many kids would be added to the school system. After all they had to approve the construction. They could have zoned better or prepared for overcrowding at some schools. I know it is not an exact science but their planning is way off the mark in a lot of clusters.

There are several "they"s here. MCPS did not approve the construction.

Also, Rachel Carson ES opened in 1990. I don't know how long the school has been over capacity. What new construction is contributing to Rachel Carson being so over capacity?

And finally, MCPS has limited capital funds, so they have to set priorities. What do you think should be a higher priority -- building new schools to accommodate future planned enrollment, or renovating and expanding existing schools that need it now? For example, Seneca Valley High School was built in 1974 and has a leaking roof, lead in the pipes, a terrible layout, and a terrible ventilation system. For years, modernization has been moved one year further into the future, every year. Is building a new high school at Crown Farm a higher priority than modernizing Seneca Valley?

But when you bought a house in MoCo there was no guarentee that your children would even attend any particular school. Just a guarentee that they would attaned a MoCo school. MoCo should not allow hugely overcapacity schools to be just next to under capacity schools. It is not like you bought in a different county that had smaller schools.