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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Meeting Offers Bethesda Residents Opportunity to Weigh in on Elementary School Zoning Changes

Monday May 16, 2011
New Boundary Study Presents 5 Options Affecting Bethesda ES, Chevy Chase ES, North Chevy Chase ES and Rosemary Hills ES

On Monday, May 16th at 7:30pm, a Public Information Session at Rosemary Hills Elementary School offers residents their last opportunity to provide feedback to Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) regarding proposed changes to elementary school zoning, and have this feedback included in a formal study reviewed by the school Superintendent. The proposed changes affect children currently zoned to attend elementary school at Bethesda ES, Chevy Chase ES, North Chevy Chase ES and Rosemary Hills ES.

In March 2011, MCPS kicked off a boundary study for these Bethesda-area elementary schools to help alleviate over-crowding and to facilitate decisions about constructing school additions. MCPS has also been tasked with putting an end to articulation patterns established 30 years ago, but which now result in busing children to schools miles from their neighborhoods on increasingly congested roads.

The MCPS Superintendent will make a recommendation to the Board of Education (BOE) in mid October 2011, and the BOE will take action on boundaries and additions after a public hearing in late November. While there will be one more opportunity to provide public comments, the May 16 meeting offers the last opportunity for residents of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Silver Spring to formally contribute feedback to the boundary study, through an evaluation sheet provided at the meeting and included in the formal report for the Superintendent.

Five Options up for Discussion

The following five options for Montgomery County Elementary School articulation have been presented in the boundary study. Incoming superintendant Dr. Joshua P. Starr (beginning July 1, 2011) will review the boundary study and accompanying public feedback from the May 16 meeting, and recommend one of these five options to the Maryland Board of Education:

Option 1: Neighborhoods form School Communities
-       All of East Bethesda goes to BE K-5.
-       Paddington Square Apartments (8800 Lanier Dr Silver Spring) and Navy Medical area (no students currently) to RHPS K-2, NCC 3-5 (6).

This option allows most children to attend the elementary school in their own neighborhood, and does not segregate communities by busing children to schools further away.


Option 2: East Bethesda Divided
-       East Bethesda Chestnut Street and south goes to BE K-5.
-       East Bethesda South Chelsea Lane and north (Glenbrook Village).
-       Paddington Square Apartments (8800 Lanier Dr Silver Spring), and Navy Medical area (no students currently) to RHPS K-2, NCC 3-5 (6).

This option divides East Bethesda in half, sending students on the south half to nearby Bethesda Elementary, and their neighbors one block south to Rosemary Hills in Silver Spring.


Option 3: East Bethesda and Silver Spring Cross-Bussing
-       All of East Bethesda and Navy Medical area (no students currently) go to RHPS K-2, NCC 3-5(6).
-       Paddington Square Apartments (8800 Lanier Dr Silver Spring) to BE K-5.
-       The portion of Summit Hills Apartments at 1703 and 1705 East West Highway Silver Spring to BE K-5.
-       The portion of Summit Hills Apartments at 8508 and 8510 16th St.Silver Spring to BE K-5.

Option 3 buses all of the children in East Bethesda several miles to Rosemary Hills in Silver Spring instead of allowing them to attend nearby Bethesda Elementary, and at the same time buses students the same distance from Silver Spring to attend BE.


Option 4: East Bethesda and Silver Spring Expanded Cross-Bussing
-       All of East Bethesda and Navy Medical area (no students currently) go to RHPS K-2, NCC 3-5(6).
-       Paddington Square Apartments (8800 Lanier Dr Silver Spring) to CC 3-5(6).
-       The portion of Summit Hills Apartments at 1703 and 1705 East West Highway Silver Spring to BE K-5.
-       The portion of Summit Hills Apartments at 8508 and 8510 16th St. Silver Spring to BE K-5.
-        The Barrington Apartments with addresses at 1900 - 1970 Rosemary Hills Dr and 1901 - 1929 East West Hwy Silver Spring to BE K-5.

Option 4 starts with the bussing of Option 3, but buses even more children from Silver Spring to Bethesda Elementary.


Option 5: Summit Hills Apartments to CC instead of NCC
-       All of East Bethesda goes to BE K-5.
-       Paddington Square Apartments and Navy Medical area (no students currently) to RHPS K-2, NCC 3-5 (6).
-       The portion of Summit Hills Apartments at 1703 and 1705, East West Highway to CC 3-5 (6).

Option 5 is very like Option 1 in that most children attend the elementary school in their own neighborhood. The exceptions in Option 5 are the residents of Summit Hills Apartments in Silver Spring. Instead of attending North Chevy Chase Elementary School 3-6, these children attend Chevy Chase ES instead. Children in neighboring homes are not affected by this articulation.


Complete details about the boundary study process and the proposed options are at the Montgomery County Schools website:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/CommunityInfo_Boundary2.shtml

Public Information Meeting Date, Time, Location

Boundary Review for Bethesda, Chevy Chase, North Chevy Chase & Rosemary Hills Elementary Schools
May 16, 2011, 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Rosemary Hills Elementary School, All Purpose Room
2111 Porter Street, Silver Spring, MD

12 comments:

  1. The description of Option 1 above states that it "does not segregate communities by busing children to schools further away."

    Using the word "segregate" in this context is highly misleading.

    The current boundaries were set 30 years ago to counter racial segregation. Option 1 would undo this and lead to a greater concentration of minorities and underprivileged students at RHPS/NCC while dramatically reducing the percentage of minority and underpriviliged students at the other elementaries. Thus, Option 1 could more fairly be characterised as "re-segregating" the community.

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  2. It's not up to the schools to de-segregate. If Montgomery County wants to accomplish more balanced demographics, they should make efforts to do so at the community level, not by school. Busing children out of their own communities is so disruptive and alienating socially that the benefits are outweighed.

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  3. Bussing for less than 10 miles is not disruptive and is in line with what happens in the rest of the country. The argument that children should go to school in their own neighborhood is disingenuous at best. It does not account for where their parents work or shop for example.

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  4. The concept of the "neighborhood school" no longer exists, at least not in lower MoCo. With the advent of magnet and charter schools, and with the high percentage of children attending private schools, kids no longer walk down neighborhood sidewalks to their nearby school - they attend school all over the place.

    I'd be shocked if people in East Bethesda actually consider Bethesda Elementary to be a neighborhood walking school. Their neighborhood walking school was Lynnbrook, which no longer exists.

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  5. Increased traffic from NIH and developments slated for CT Avenue are variables we can't predict, and there's no reason to take that chance with highly trafficked routes when a perfectly good neighborhood school is nearby, at half the distance. It is completely arbitrary to pull kids out of their neighborhoods and shuttle them needlessly across town instead of letting them attend school with the children they see on their streets and in their parks. If Bethesda children had never been sent to Rosemary Hills it wouldn't even be considered a reasonable suggestion, so why should the fact that it's been done at all be used as a precedent for continuing to do so?

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  6. The way that this selection is written is definitely in interest of one community at the expense of what is best for the entire BCC cluster. The first two options limit diversity, both ethnic and socio-economic, in both the RHPS and BE elementary schools.

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  7. The shift in demographics is negligible in comparison to other MoCo schools.

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  8. ... but this isn't other MoCo schools - it's a mini-cluster with unique school pairings that have created nationally recognized successful integration. There aren't many clusters with such high density of poverty right beside such high density of wealth.

    Didn't you research this before you bought a house in East Bethesda? Why should you be able to come along and undo something that's working for the cluster as a whole for more than 30 years? Your children could make friends with their diverse classmates - they don't have to befriend only those who play in their neighborhood park.

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  9. This is absolutely not working for the cluster as a whole. MCPS acknowledged that when they launched this study with one of the objectives being specifically to unravel the unfortunate articulation patterns of East Bethesda. East Bethesda children have paid for this outdated integration long enough. And in fact the disparities no longer exist. If you actually study the options, demographic balance is achieved even without busing children back and forth. Though I suppose if it's other people's children, you find the busing, the split articulation and the splintering of neighborhoods to be irrelevant, and would prefer that the minorities be transferred out of your own local elementary school.

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  10. "Your children could make friends with their diverse classmates - they don't have to befriend only those who play in their neighborhood park."

    To the person who made that comment above - it sounds like you're not someone with school age children. If you did have them, you'd know that the best friends our kids have are those they see in school AND in the neighborhood park. Or school friends who live close enough to arrange an ad hoc play date for a couple hours after school, or even just pop over unannounced because they live a block away. That does still happen, even in this day and age - and when it does, that's what makes a neighborhood feel like a community.

    To the person who said "I'd be shocked if people in East Bethesda actually consider Bethesda Elementary to be a neighborhood walking school" - that's not quite the point. It's not about being able to walk to school - it's about your kids seeing classmates and friends in the neighborhood park, or grocery story, or walking around downtown. There's value in that, and creates a sense of community, making the town feel smaller despite all the growth and traffic.

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  11. To 11:50 above - With all the options, the Rosemary Hills/NCC articulation would still have the highest level of diversity and FARMS/ESOL burden. Option 3 just levels the playing field and prevents Bethesda Elementary from having virtually no low income students in the school.

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  12. "To the person who made that comment above - it sounds like you're not someone with school age children."

    Actually, I do have a child in the BCC cluster who attended a magnet school and capably made close and lasting friendships with magnet classmates who came from all over the county. Maybe it's time to admit this isn't small town USA and accept the community you bought into for what it is. Regarding a "sense of community," you aren't acknowledging that your children DO run into their classmates around town because they are part of a lovely, large, urban and DIVERSE community that spills well beyond the confines of the EBCA neighborhood signs.

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