Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why people will think having their house zoned for Woodward will make their property values go down. A new school with a clean slate that doesn't even have a reputation yet. If anything, that should increase your property values. Your real estate agent can say "zoned for new state-of-the-art Woodward HS!" in the listing and all the out of area families will jump on your house.
Rather than acting like you're doomed for being zoned for a brand new high school in one of the richest counties in America, put your effort towards being involved in Woodward and ensuring that the school has the reputation you want it to have the day it opens. The good thing about being rezoned to a brand new school is that you and your children will define the school's culture, choose its mission, and will direct the path it takes. How good Woodward will or will not be will be is in your hands. Woodward easily has the potential to be one of the best high and most sought-after schools in MCPS if the families who are rezoned to it have a positive outlook towards the school. Woodward being brand new makes it so much easier.
Some of you guys are acting like having DCC kids attend your kids' school will give it the cheese touch from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. BCC has a mix of affluent and higher poverty elementary schools feeding into as well, and guess what? It's still a wonderful school and people pay $$$ to send their kids to BCC. My guess is that Woodward will be similar to BCC demographically. And as others have mentioned, Woodward is in a popping area of MoCo, and it's going to pull from some of the wealthiest areas in MoCo. If UMC DCC families who get rezoned to Woodward pull their kids out of private and send their kids to Woodward, and WJ families approach Woodward positively and they all work hard to get involved in the school and invest in a community around it rather than abandoning a school that has a higher number of POC children, Woodward will be on par with other "W" schools.
I am a UMC DCC parent with kids going to private. Most of us can afford to live in Bethesda but don't want to send our kids to public school. Not everybody thinks that "W" schools in MCPS are the holy grail of education. Woodward doesn't need people to pull their kids out of private to be a good school. It will mainly pull from North Bethesda (even if they add it to the DCC). It will offer a similar education and experience to other Bethesda area public high schools.