By Adam Pagnucco.
MCPS’s two boundary studies in the Woodward and Crown/Damascus vicinities are making big waves in the community. But here’s a question yet to surface:
How will this affect the Downcounty Consortium?
The Downcounty Consortium (DCC) was established in 2004 by former Superintendent Jerry Weast. It includes five high schools – Albert Einstein, Montgomery Blair, John F. Kennedy, Northwood and Wheaton – along with their middle schools and elementary schools. While elementary schools feed into middle schools on a largely geographic basis, rising middle school students can choose which of the five high schools they would like to attend. MCPS uses a lottery system to accomplish this, with students getting the base high school assigned to their middle school as a default.
The DCC therefore introduces an element of choice in high school assignments that is unusual in MCPS. (There is also a Northeast Consortium in that part of the county, but nothing comparable elsewhere.) Each DCC high school has a number of academies and programs designed to make it attractive to different groups of students. In actual practice, the degree of choice is limited because students often don’t get their first pick. Blair, for example, typically has many more applicants than its capacity can handle. But this is more choice than is offered in most other places in MCPS.
Whether the DCC has actually improved academics is a matter of debate. But one of its benefits is that it has reduced the stakes in boundary discussions. If a family wants its student to attend a particular DCC high school, it’s not absolutely necessary to live inside its base service area. Theoretically, no matter where one lives in the DCC – whether it’s Takoma Park, Downtown Silver Spring, Forest Glen, Wheaton, Glenmont, Aspen Hill or Northern Kensington – there’s a chance of getting into any of the five high schools. It’s not absolute, of course, but it’s not the same as the life-or-death boundary stakes sometimes perceived by parents in the western or northern reaches of the county.
But make no mistake – the Woodward vicinity boundary study is definitely relevant to the DCC. The four option maps include not just the five DCC schools. They also include four non-DCC high schools: Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Walt Whitman, Walter Johnson and Charles W. Woodward (a new school soon to open). And as seen in our earlier post, shifting high school and middle school boundaries often cross over the existing DCC boundaries. Such changes significantly affect the nature of the DCC.
This stretches all the way down to elementary schools. The Woodward vicinity study does not affect boundaries for elementary schools. However, it does affect boundaries of middle schools and high schools, so if elementary schools start feeding into different middle schools and/or high schools, the ultimate placement of students will vary even if the elementary school boundaries don’t change.
As it turns out, there are many examples of this in the Woodward maps. Consider these:
Bel Pre ES/Strathmore ES (Glenmont/Aspen Hill)
Current: Feeds into three middle schools (Argyle, Loiederman and Parkland), Base HS is Kennedy
Option 3 Map: Feeds into Argyle MS and Woodward HS
Flora Singer ES (Silver Spring)
Current: Feeds into Sligo MS, Base HS is Einstein
Option 3 Map: Feeds into Sligo MS and Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS
Glen Haven ES (Wheaton)
Current: Feeds into Sligo MS, Base HS is Northwood
Option 3 Map: Feeds into Sligo MS and Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS
Highland ES (Wheaton)
Current: Feeds into Newport Mill MS, Base HS is Einstein
Option 3 Map: Feeds into Silver Creek MS and Walter Johnson HS
Viers Mill ES (Wheaton)
Current: Feeds into three middle schools (Argyle, Loiederman and Parkland), Base HS is Wheaton
Option 1 Map: Feeds into Loiederman MS and Woodward HS
Option 2 Map: Feeds into Parkland MS and Woodward HS
Option 3 Map: Feeds into North Bethesda MS and Walter Johnson HS
Wheaton Woods ES (Wheaton)
Current: Feeds into three middle schools (Argyle, Loiederman and Parkland), Base HS is Wheaton
Option 2: Feeds into Parkland MS and Woodward HS
Option 3: Feeds into Tilden MS and Woodward HS
Option 4: Feeds into Parkland MS and Woodward HS
Woodlin ES (Silver Spring)
Current: Feeds into Sligo MS, Base HS is Einstein
Options 1, 2 and 4: Feeds into Silver Spring International MS and Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS
There are also issues of changes in split articulations (in which elementary schools feed into multiple middle schools), but isn’t the above complicated enough?
That’s not all because this can work both ways. Because some DCC elementary schools could now feed into non-DCC high schools, some non-DCC elementary schools could feed into DCC high schools. This is especially true in the Option 3 map, which would see parts of Kensington and Chevy Chase served by DCC high schools. In such cases, not only the boundaries but also the fundamental student composition of the DCC could change. The same could be said about the non-DCC high schools.
Under such a scenario, what would happen to the DCC? If many of its students are sent elsewhere while other students are sent in, would it even have a reason to exist? Let’s remember this rationale quoted by the Washington Post all the way back in 2002, when the DCC was being designed:
The consortium plan for Montgomery Blair, Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy and Wheaton high schools, and for Northwood High when it reopens in 2004, centers on four principles: make these massive schools, which range from 1,300 to 3,000 students, smaller and more personal; get great teachers and principals; offer an engaging curriculum; and raise expectations.
Has that happened? Does it need a consortium to make it happen?
Those are questions that should be pondered at the highest levels of MCPS and also at every Downcounty MCPS family dinner table. But if the consortium is eroded, watered down or outright abolished, it could very well bring the kind of high-stakes boundary wars known in western MoCo to an area that has been less plagued by them.
As if that’s not enough, there is one more shoe to drop.
As it conducts its far-ranging boundary studies, MCPS is also engaged in an academic programs analysis. Here is what MCPS’s website says about that:
MCPS is conducting a districtwide analysis of academic programs available to students. The goal of the study is to ensure that all students have access to high-quality programs and that programs available meet the needs of our community, industry demands, and maximize the use of resources.
This work has begun at the secondary level. The analysis includes middle and high school application regional and countywide magnet and lottery-based programs, Career and Technical Education programs, as well as access to Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and Dual Enrollment courses.
Any fair reading of that language holds that the DCC, as well as the Northeast Consortium, are under full scrutiny. Anything could happen.
This is a hugely momentous time for MCPS, and with it, for the county as a whole.