Discuss: Takoma Park/East Silver Spring School Boundaries: Welcome to the conversation!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Welcome to the conversation!

Montgomery County Public Schools is proposing changes in our school boundaries. If these changes are implemented, current school assignments for our children could change, affecting East Silver Spring ES (ESS), Takoma Park ES (TPES), Piney Branch ES (PBES), Sligo Creek ES (SCES), Takoma Park Middle School (TPMS) and Silver Spring International MS (SSIMS).

We are asking for the support of the Takoma Park City Council and the mayor to support our rejection of Options 4 and 5 proposed by the MCPS boundary study committee.

Questions? email tpkboundaries@gmail.com

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Welcome to the Discussion

Montgomery County Public Schools is proposing changes in our school boundaries.

If these changes are implemented, current school assignments for our children could change, affecting East Silver Spring ES (ESS), Takoma Park ES (TPES), Piney Branch ES (PBES), Sligo Creek ES (SCES), Takoma Park Middle School (TPMS) and Silver Spring International MS (SSIMS).

We are asking for the support of the Takoma Park City Council and the mayor to support our rejection of Options 4 and 5 proposed by the MCPS boundary study committee.

Questions? email
tpkboundaries@gmail.com

Blog moderators reserve the right to remove comments that are inflammatory, abusive, and/or disrespectful to members of the community. Play nicely!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are the boundaries changing?

After Takoma Park unified about 10 years ago, the students from the PG County portion of Takoma Park were added to the MCPS system. The influx of students was one of the reasons that Sligo Creek ES and SSI were opened on the old Blair HS premises. Eventually this led to overcrowding in all of the elementary schools in the study. With TPES and ESS undergoing significant expansion, MCPS now needs to evaluate the school boundaries to determine the best way to distribute the student population and assure that overcrowding is not longer an issue.

When will the boundaries change?

The changes will take effect with the 2010-2011 school year.

Who decides what the new boundaries are?

In November 2008, the Board of Education authorized a boundary study. The boundary review process begins with a community advisory committee. The committee consists of members of the MCPS Division of Long Range planning as well as 3 representatives from each school involved in the review process.

These representatives are selected by the PTAs from each school. The committee makes a report to the Superintendent. After receiving the report, the Superintendent submits a recommendation for new boundaries to the Board of Education. The Board of Education then votes to accept or refuse the recommendation.

What Options are currently under consideration?

Options 1-3:
In March 2009, the County presented three options to the school committees. None of the three impacted either ESS or TPES in a significant way.

TPES stood to gain the SC students living on the other side of New Hampshire as well as the students in a small section of the ESS area on the other side of Piney Branch.

This small section, known as ESS3, has long had the option of choosing either ESS or TPES and MoCo wished to recognize that most of the residents in this area have been choosing TPES by making them officially part of the TPES district.

ESS remained largely untouched other than losing the small ESS3 area. Option 2 and 3 merely shifted which sections of SC would become part of TPES and there was general agreement that Option 1 made the most sense in terms of walkability and keeping neighborhoods contiguous.

See the map showing the current districts and zones here

The committees presented these three options to their PTAs and, not surprisingly, neither TPES nor ESS found any real concern with any of these options. The main concerns were raised by TPMS, SSIMS and SC. TPMS noted that their projected enrollment under these options would result in what they feared was overcrowding. SSIMS noted that their own enrollment would fall as low as %70 before climbing back up to around %79 in five years. They feared this would result in a loss of resources. SC fears that the enrollment for their Academy program would drop so low it would be unviable. The County was asked to present three more options and, this time, to look at the possibility of making changes to the ESS boundaries as well as the other schools.

Options 4-6:
The County returned with three more options two weeks ago. In these three options, the County reconfigured the zones within ESS and made more changes to all the schools' boundaries, shifting areas back and forth.

Options 4 & 5 are the two options that have raised the most concern for TP residents. In both options, ESS3 loses its option to pick TPES .

In addition, a small adjacent section of TP (TP1b) that lies on the other side of Piney Branch would become part of the ESS district.

ESS loses larger sections of their community to SC (these comprise the difference between Option 4 and 5). Both options also place the sections of SC on the far side of Takoma Park into the TPES district.

Option 6 took chunks of ESS students and half the SC students on the far side of Takoma Par and rezoned them to TPES. The other half of the SC/Takoma Park students were rezoned for ESS. ESS also loses sections of its students to SC. This basically results in ESS being divided into two disconnected islands.

These options were presented by the committees at their various PTA meetings. Since TPES didn't have a PTA meeting scheduled within the time frame, we called a special meeting earlier this week.

The call was also sent out to the takomapakk list, as well as the TPES list because we wanted to give more residents a heads-up as we approached the next public meeting with the County (May 27).

Several parents who live in the TP1b and ESS3 area are, undertandably, concerned about the proposed changes to their district. We had a really terrific meeting where these and other parents came forward and laid out their concerns and arguments for keeping these two areas within the TPES boundary.

See all six options and tables showing projected enrollment numbers under each option over the next five years as well as demographics changes in the current numbers under each option.

Who can I contact with comments and concerns?

Send your letters and comments to:

Josh Wright, Councilmember, Ward 1 (TP/PB 1b)
7401 Maple Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912
Phone: 301-312-2717

City of Takoma Park Mayor Bruce Williams
326 Lincoln Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912
Phone: 240-676-6234
Fax: 301-891-1771
E-mail:

Christopher S. Barclay, Board of Education, District 4
Carver Educational Services Center, Rm. 123
850 Hungerford Dr., Rockville, MD 20850
Phone: 301-431-7736
Fax: 301-279-3860

Find additional BOE members

Jerry D. Weast, Ed.D., Superintendent of Schools
Carver Educational Services Center, Rm. 122
850 Hungerford Dr., Rockville, MD 20850
Phone: 301-279-3381
Fax: 301-279-3205
E-mail: Suzanne_Peang-Meth@mcpsmd.org

Discuss: Takoma Park/East Silver Spring School Boundaries

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Welcome to the conversation!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to the Discussion

Related links & documents

Schools in the Boundary Review Process

Blog Archive

About Me

Critical Dates

Frequently Asked Questions

Discuss: Takoma Park/East Silver Spring School Boundaries

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Welcome to the conversation!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to the Discussion

Related links & documents

Schools in the Boundary Review Process

Blog Archive

Subscribe To

About Me

Critical Dates

Frequently Asked Questions