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Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

So let me make sure I understand this correctly... After calling families whiny and entitled and giving a short history lesson on how those families benefited from racist exclusionary zoning policies to get over their concerns... You want those same families to be open minded and embrace boundary changes that appear to have no meaningful benefit? Good luck with that.

Maybe try a different approach instead of being dismissive and condescending towards people that disagree while simultaneously looking for their support. Some of the people you are labeling as whiny and entitled that have unfairly benefited from exclusionary housing policies are the elected officials responsible for making the final decision on the boundary change.

There is no possibility of getting support from people who are so entitled that they think the government should not even DISCUSS options for improving MCPS's ability to effectively educate our kids, for fear of even temporarily impacting their property values. Gmafb. Some people are trash. They can stop being trash if they want but these folks sound way too far gone in their self-centeredness.

This is why progressives lose.

I'm not that progressive actually. But should Democrats appease people who tried to overturn the 2020 election? No, those people should be in prison.

People who can't handle a discussion about boundaries and argue that even just the discussion should not happen, should be laughed out of the room. It really is that extreme.

No one is actually telling you or anyone to stop talking. That’s a straw man you’ve invented. Based on your straw man you are calling people “trash” and likening them to the J6 traitors. You’re the one that is extreme.

I think that shutting down a discussion about public schools because it might harm your property values is very extreme. Sounds like you disagree.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep it clean folks. Be kind. There’s a long time between now and when this goes into effect - 3 years. Plenary of time to sort things out.

Predatory capitalism is not something that can be "sorted out". It is immoral. It needs to be outright rejected. It is fundamentally undemocratic to say we cannot discuss how to draw boundaries for public schools because you are worried about your property values.

Anonymous wrote:Keep it clean folks. Be kind. There’s a long time between now and when this goes into effect - 3 years. Plenary of time to sort things out.

Anonymous wrote:Keep it clean folks. Be kind. There’s a long time between now and when this goes into effect - 3 years. Plenary of time to sort things out.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

So let me make sure I understand this correctly... After calling families whiny and entitled and giving a short history lesson on how those families benefited from racist exclusionary zoning policies to get over their concerns... You want those same families to be open minded and embrace boundary changes that appear to have no meaningful benefit? Good luck with that.

Maybe try a different approach instead of being dismissive and condescending towards people that disagree while simultaneously looking for their support. Some of the people you are labeling as whiny and entitled that have unfairly benefited from exclusionary housing policies are the elected officials responsible for making the final decision on the boundary change.

There is no possibility of getting support from people who are so entitled that they think the government should not even DISCUSS options for improving MCPS's ability to effectively educate our kids, for fear of even temporarily impacting their property values. Gmafb. Some people are trash. They can stop being trash if they want but these folks sound way too far gone in their self-centeredness.

This is why progressives lose.

I'm not that progressive actually. But should Democrats appease people who tried to overturn the 2020 election? No, those people should be in prison.

People who can't handle a discussion about boundaries and argue that even just the discussion should not happen, should be laughed out of the room. It really is that extreme.

No one is actually telling you or anyone to stop talking. That’s a straw man you’ve invented. Based on your straw man you are calling people “trash” and likening them to the J6 traitors. You’re the one that is extreme.

Anonymous wrote:Keep it clean folks. Be kind. There’s a long time between now and when this goes into effect - 3 years. Plenary of time to sort things out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they go with option 3 and move the Chevy Chase students from, Bethesda Chevy Chase to Blair, with they rename Bethesda Chevy Chase to Bethesda?

As someone who lives a third of a mile directly south of B-CC (and thus by Option 3 would have to send my kid by bus to Blair instead of them walking to B-CC), I appreciate this query. It would be quite cheeky to keep Chevy as part of the school’s name if MCPS forces most Chevy kids to bus six miles east!

I'm curious. If you were zoned to Blair and Takoma, would you move out of Chevy Chase and somewhere closer to Blair? Or, if you had known that Chevy Chase south of East West was zoned for Blair, would you have even bought in Chevy Chase to begin with? If you were living in DC before, would you have even bothered to move out of DC?

I live in a different part of Chevy Chase but the issue isn’t that Blair itself is undesirable. It’s a good school! The issue is really the very far and complicated commute from that neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

So let me make sure I understand this correctly... After calling families whiny and entitled and giving a short history lesson on how those families benefited from racist exclusionary zoning policies to get over their concerns... You want those same families to be open minded and embrace boundary changes that appear to have no meaningful benefit? Good luck with that.

Maybe try a different approach instead of being dismissive and condescending towards people that disagree while simultaneously looking for their support. Some of the people you are labeling as whiny and entitled that have unfairly benefited from exclusionary housing policies are the elected officials responsible for making the final decision on the boundary change.

There is no possibility of getting support from people who are so entitled that they think the government should not even DISCUSS options for improving MCPS's ability to effectively educate our kids, for fear of even temporarily impacting their property values. Gmafb. Some people are trash. They can stop being trash if they want but these folks sound way too far gone in their self-centeredness.

This is why progressives lose.

I'm not that progressive actually. But should Democrats appease people who tried to overturn the 2020 election? No, those people should be in prison.

People who can't handle a discussion about boundaries and argue that even just the discussion should not happen, should be laughed out of the room. It really is that extreme.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

So let me make sure I understand this correctly... After calling families whiny and entitled and giving a short history lesson on how those families benefited from racist exclusionary zoning policies to get over their concerns... You want those same families to be open minded and embrace boundary changes that appear to have no meaningful benefit? Good luck with that.

Maybe try a different approach instead of being dismissive and condescending towards people that disagree while simultaneously looking for their support. Some of the people you are labeling as whiny and entitled that have unfairly benefited from exclusionary housing policies are the elected officials responsible for making the final decision on the boundary change.

Anonymous wrote:As a dual-working family whose life would be completely upended by the logistics of anything that looks like Option 3, I attended one of the in-person meetings this week. It was not well attended so it gave attendees access to directly speak with the FLO people that developed the maps, MCPS officials and a BOE member.

These four maps are not the options - they are solely to demonstrate what each map could look like if they prioritized each of the four factors. I think they did a terrible job communicating that. That said, I left with an understanding that they want to balance the FARMS rate and I'm not totally convinced that some of our kids may be sacrificed to do it. Maybe not to the extent of Option 3, but some form of that.

Based on what I heard at the meeting, most parents, no matter where they lived, are worried about lack of proximity. Parents whose children were being bussed into a "W" school were just as upset as those being bussed out.

I hope parents are loud enough now that our voices are considered in developing the actual options that will be released in the fall. And if you get the opportunity to go to an in-person, I highly recommend it. In-person conversations seem much more productive in showing that our kids are more than just a set of demographic numbers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

So let me make sure I understand this correctly... After calling families whiny and entitled and giving a short history lesson on how those families benefited from racist exclusionary zoning policies to get over their concerns... You want those same families to be open minded and embrace boundary changes that appear to have no meaningful benefit? Good luck with that.

Maybe try a different approach instead of being dismissive and condescending towards people that disagree while simultaneously looking for their support. Some of the people you are labeling as whiny and entitled that have unfairly benefited from exclusionary housing policies are the elected officials responsible for making the final decision on the boundary change.