Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Christopher Sajewicz
I am disappointedin BOB Member Mallo's proposal, whichappears to move more students thanthe Superintendents. With all ofthe testimony about trying to minimize disruption, her plan completely ignores it.
In addition. There is an issue with Polygon 176 and 3176. In order for buses to reachpart ofPolycon 176, they need to traverse through Polygon 1376 (Preakness Circle Ln). These polygons are slated, under Mallo's plan to go to different schools. I hope this was oversight and not a rushed plan, like Dr. M's.
Here are some bullet points regardingPolygon 176 and 3176 that you may not know about:
The Walnut Grove andWalnut Creek communities are extremely tight knit and located on Sheppardlane, in Clarksville and Ellicott City . Walnut Creek starts from within Walnut Grove and several homes (over 20) can be drivento from the Grove entrance only which is via Preakness Circle Ln. . The first bus stop for both Grove and Creek is at the intersection ofPreakness Circle Ln and Clay Circle Ln. Kids from both the communities meet at this location. This bus stop is 1. 4 miles from RHHS. . Walnut Grove polygon is 3176 and Walnut Creek polygon is 176. Ms. Mallo's plan is keeping 3176 at RHHS and moving 176 to WLHS. The only feed from PQMS to RHHS would be from 3176. The feed from FQMS to WLHS would be less than 10%.
The numbers do not appeal to work I urge to review your plan and request that you keep Polygons 1 76 and 3176 together.
Dr. Wu's plan seems better suited address overcrowding, FARMs, and minimizes disruption. He actually listened to the hundreds of parents and students opposed to the plan appears to be more in touch with communities rather than trying to cram a political agenda down our throats.
-Chris
Christopher Sajewicz Polygon 176 12217 Hayland Farm Way Ellicott City, MD 21042 (516)819-0456 csaiewiczfaiemail.com Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Patrone, David M.
Dear Board of Education members,
We have been following the redistricting information presented for the last 6 months. Now, my understanding is that under a recent proposal that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently we attend Folly Quaner Middle School with a ~30% feed to River Hill High School and the remaining ~70% of FQMS going to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children.
We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed.
Thank you.
Sincerely, David Patrone
David Patrone Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723
(240) 228-8059, Washington (240) 778-8059 / Baltimore (240) 228-6904 / Fax dgvid. pgtrone@ihuaBl. edu Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Krishna Veeramachaneni
Hello,
This email is to support Dr. Wu's plan and oppose Ms. Mallo's plan. Here are some facts which weren't taken into consideration in Ms. Mallo's plan:
WALNUT COMMUNITIES
. Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek communities are extremely tight knit communities located on Sheppard lane, Clarksville. . Walnut Creek starts from within Walnut Grove. Several homes within Creek can only be driven to from the Grove entrance via Preakness Circle Ln. * Walnut Grove polygon is 3176 and Walnut Creek polygon is 176. . The first bus stop for both Grove and Creek is at the intersection of Preakness Circle Ln and Clay Circle Ln which is in polygon 3176. Kids from both the communities meet at this location. This bus stop is 1. 4 miles from RHHS. . Autumn Tree Ln, Basslers Way and Clay Circle Ln can only be accessed via Preakness Circle Ln which connects to Sheppard Ln. . Ms. Mallo's plan is keeping 3176 at RHHS and moving 176 to WLHS. . The only feed from FQMS to RHHS would be from 3176. The feed from FQMS to WLHS would be less than 10%. '--
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Please do not split our communities.
Thank you, Krishna Veeramachaneni. Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Jinghua Yan
Dear BOB,
First, I appreciate the hard work and dedication of the board members. I have been involved in HoCo's redistrictingproposal, includingthe last 2 work sessions.
Ms Mallo brought up an alternative plan in work session 2, trying to solve the "capacity" issue. However her plan involves moving students out oflow-capacity schools, splitting neighboring communities (within a mile) into different school areas, etc. All the above did not seem like a "well-thought" plan.
In my opinion, BOB should be focus on solving the high-priority issues like capacity and FARM rate, while minimizingthe disruptionto the communities. I strongly support Dr Wu's alternative plan.
Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Youdong Lin
Dear BOB members: PleaseAink the least disruptive p_lan. Both Ms. Malta's and the superintendent proposal will affectmore than looo-students'1 wanttoapplaud Dr- wubecause he has made tremendous effortsto come'upwith apian'that will only bemoving -3000 students. Dr. Wuhas demonstrated thatit ispossible to address'theovercM'aci^ i^wiAout moving -4000 more students. Pleasethink aboutthe cost whenyou think aboutredistfctk moving7000 students vs. 3000students. Wecan have a goodstart with Dr. Wu'splan7~-- -"~' "~"~"'""c" Pleaseconsider using Dr. Wu'splan as the starting point for further redistricting discussion. Thankyou!
Youdong Lin (Polygon 1186) Please allow our two neighborhood polygons 200 and 1200 to remain at the River Hill HighSchool. Ourtwo-polygon neighborhood is a land-island isolatedfrom anyother surroundingroads and both our neighborhood polygons 200 and 1200 are currently attending River Hill HS (RHHS). Wewould likefor our neighborhood kidsto remain at River Hill HS for the sense of stability and continuity that kids need for a healthy and stable childhood development. Both our neighborhood polygons currently have the same feeder schools and the same River Hill HSwhich allows our kidsestablish lifelong friendships from kindergarten through highschool andfor our families to build a more stable andstronger community. Undersome recent proposals our neighborhood would become separated from our surrounding sister neighborhoods (Figure 1) withwhom we have sharedthe same schools since kinde. Ow neighborhood polygons 200and 1200would beredistricted to Glenelg HSwhile surrounding neighborhoods wouldstill remain in RiverHill HS. Ourkids and the kFds from surrounding neighborhoods have been in school together since Kindergarten and allowing them to continue to attendthe same highschool lets them continue andthrive intheir friendships which have lasted almost their entire lives. Please allow polygon 200 and 1200 to remain at River Hill HS !°, t..at°urklds can continue 90in9to school together withtheir friends from oursurrounding naghborhoods. Both ourpolygons don't havemany kids attending highschool so keepingthem intheir current highschool would not impactthe overall numbers andthey could easilybe picked up by schoolbusses sent to surrounding neighborhoods that would remain at RHHS. K^ep'n9°l"'tw° nei911b°rhoodPOlygons 200 and 1200 at River Hill HS would not make a big difference in the proposed plan so please allow us to continue attending the River Hill HS!
Figure - Currentlybo P^S°"^2°^12M attend e Wver^HS, bu!would now be both po'ygons would be separated from >rneighborhoods who would remain al RHHS.and we would be sent to Glenelg HS^
Andrew Hlasko - Polygon 1200 13010 Red Maple Way Clarksville, MD 21029 Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Sheri Lee
Dear BOB members and Dr. Martirano,
for your rk on to education ?,alk. ^ou ?ard 'yo !his. redistricting process improve for our students. I was happy tohear from most ofyou that you believed ina true feedersystem to provide stability andpredictability. It ensures goodmental health, whichsupports goodperformance. Dr.Wu's redistricting plan is great for many reasons. Italleviates overcrowding while being the least disruptive. It keepscommunity together, whichencourages studentparticipation in after-school programs and parent- nvolwment'. It, iscost-effective, _because students aregoing to neighborhood schools. I ampartici^arly impressed by Dr. Wu's humble attitude. Despite beinghighly capable, heencourages andtruly listens to' community feedback. Hepractices democracy, transparency, andcivility. ThEmkyou Dr. Martirano, Ms.Delmont-Small, Ms. Cutroneo, andDr. Wufor being willing to investthe time to getthe most accuratedata and plan school attendance boundary right. Thankyou Chairwoman Ellis for li.ste"ingtocommunity/eedback and value Dr. Wu's input. Th'ank'you to all board members fo7working together to provide thebest education for our county. This is whyHoward County hasbeen rated top noTch. This is what our county is about.
Sincerely, Sheri Lee polygon 1188 and 65 Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Baskar Swaminathan
Hello I am Baskar Swaminathan from Polygon 183. 1 oppose Mallo's plan. After watchingthe last 2 BOBWorking Sessions,it hasbecome clearthat logistics anddata do not seemto be a priority for some.
To address overcrowding, Polygon 183 should be moved to Glenelg HS along with its sister polygon 1183, whichis closestto us andhas no lights at all. Thekids currently go to FQMSand most ofthis middle school goesto Glenelg, keepthem withthe largest feed.
Traffic going west is not as congested as going east. Sending our polygon to Wilde Lake which is the 4th closest school to the community is a waste of time and financial resources. The BOB needs to imderstand there aremultiple pickups to fill the buses every morning in our sparsely country road communities. Our children spend over 25 minutes on the bus for a school that is 3 minutes awayjust picking up kids, because they are picking up 3 kids from 1 place, 12 from another, 5 from another etc. They do not needa longer busplan. Pleasereview the current busplan to understand number of stops. Thedata collected from our plan revealed 30% fewer students than you were calculating. Thedata you are using is inaccurate, please see table below.
2020 school year 19 students 2021 school year 20 students 2022 school year 28 students 2023 school year 24 students
Driving East on either Homewood and/or Shepherd are both very congested, especially when there is anaccident on 70, people get offon 32 and go easton homewood or take shepherd. There have been many complaints made to county about this issue. Traffic has been less due to construction on Folly Quarter, but will increase dramatically oncethat bridge allowtraffic west. Wehave spent many morning sitting in 20 minutes of traffic driving east for less than 1 mile near the circle. Pleasedo not consider Mallo's or Martirano's plans. They will causea busingnightmare.
Thanks Baskar Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Svenja Bauer
Good Afternoon, ^would liketo showmy support forthe attached plan and highlyencourage the BOEto take a look at : Sarama's proposal as it makes the utmost sense. With the currenttensions that have taken a over many communities in Howard County with regards to the redistricting, I believe that this sticks to the facts without disparaging any specific'schools or neighborhoods" Fnstead'it' on geographical dividers such as major highways. This plan has my full support. Thank you for yoiir time and consideration.
Svenp BaucT Transaction Coordinator & UcuisedcZ^Z^"6^" Real Estate Agent ^1SCHETT1R I'fc' r~' Sven)a@JayFi8chetti. com www.JayFischetti.com Subject: Optimal Choice for Northeast Attendance Boundary Adjustments
Summary: Feasibility Study Northeast Option #1 (FS-N01) is the optimal plan for Howard High School according to Policy 6010. It corrects a terrible, 2-polygon 9% feed from ELMS to LRHS that has existed for several years. It strengthens this small feed with neighbors and students who attended EES and ELMS together. This was the recommended boundary adjustment of the 2017 AAC, that was well-vetted by the community. The FARMS difference between the Superintendent's Proposal (SP) and FS-N01 is within the margin of error.
Supporting Facts: The SP for polygon movement from HoHS to LRHS suffers from several issues listed below:
. The polygbns proposed to move are isolated by significant geographic barriers (see red oval). The Superintendent proposes:
Howard HS Long Reach HS 233 44, 86, 87, 299, 1086, 1087, 1299, 2087, 3087, 4087
HS13 1 of 4 These polygons aregeographically isolated from every other LRHSpolygon by 1-95on the east side and Rt 100 on the west side (thick blue lines on map). This was a main consideration forthe 2017AAC when they rejected moving polygons in this area. Lt.splits^T RESfeed' wh'ch has a nearly 1 00% feedto ELMS(excepts for two polygons, 91 and 3091. 3091 hasno students). The RES/ELMScohort then hasa 1 00% feed"to Ho'HS (wherethey also meet back up with polygon 91). This is an ideal situation thatdoes not have to be broken because FS-N01 does a better job following Policy 6010. 3. Currently, the EESto ELMSto HighSchool feed is split between HoHSand LRHS,with a small ELMSfeed (9%) going to LRHSconsisting ofonly two polygons: 43 and 1 043 (see green circle above). THIS SMALL FEED SHOULD BE STRENGTHENED WITH STUDENTS FROM NEIGHBORING POLYGONS who all attended EES and ELMS together.
4. According to FS-N01 and SP FARMS numbers, the two plans are within the margin of error in terms of^ARMS improvement to LRHS, making equity differences between the plan negligible. The FS-N01 map includes a largeswath of <5% FARMSpolygons that reduces the level of poverty at LRHS.These polygons are mainlyeast of Route 1 (See Dr.Wu's exceHent FARMS map). This is why both plans scored equally in FARMS reduction at LRHS. Additional low FARMS polygons also border this proposal in the EES/ELMS attendance area, in case further adjustments are needed.
FS-N01 Map:
aisi 208(. .. 2088 SIM1 WSS 108S 84 USI ^
. ' 86 1086 1087 IIM1 <642 4087 M39 2B41 W41 «> . am is 1083 1299"' "'44 s/ u<< ..mt Wl-~ ." >/ 2S9 . W4i Mil 3087 K mr 10^, y v ' , -iU . 1;< . iu am "° jioo' uoo '"~. From: Howard HS n ' I2M "- 37 "*3 '''''» To: Long Reach HS mu 2037 2(I3» tOUJ-O. "2 f 2038
2081 Mtet
M36 11s HS " M" .J35 ; U< 2 of 4 Support for OSP Northeast Option #1: 1. First, HoHS has the largest capacity issue and this is the best option for HoHS, ELMS, RES, and EES.It is the FeasibilityStudy's first option for manyreasons: A. It corrects a small feed of only two EES polygons going from ELMS to LRHS. B. The feed is strengthened with students that went to the same elementary and middle schools (EES and ELMS). C. It does not break RES/ELMS into more feeds and it avoids moving students geographically isolated by the 1-95 and Rt 100 barriers. D. Change in FARMS is essentially the same (according to OSPand Superintendent's reports). E. Community is strengthened F. Commute times do not change .Note: The community benefits of FS-N01 outweigh the small disadvantage of the potential risk of polygons along the Rt 1 corridor being moved twice with HS13 because thesame H13 students don't get moved twice. The CURRENTstudents are helped far more in the short term. Fix the feed! 2. The 2017AAC cameto the same conclusion. Seetheir recommendation map below: u The 2017 AAC plan wasWELL-VETTED by the community because HoHS attendance issues we',esuchan. ""ltesral partofthe dis(:ussi°n that year. Many people spent many hours studying andreadln9,tesl'm°"y re9ard"19 this situation and they came to the conclusion that keeping" more EES/ELMSstudents together wasthe best outcome for relieving HoHSattendance area problems. 3 of 4 Conclusion: When comparing the two options, the choice is clear. FS-N01 (also 2017 AAC Plan) is better for students according to Policy 6010 factors. This correction to the SP ;s low- hangingfruit as it hasalready beenvetted and does not requirea cascadeof otherchanges to be made. Please strengthen the ELMSto LRHS feed by including more long-time school" friends into thatfeed and not moving students isolated from the LRHSattendance areaby 1-95 and Rt100. Policy 6010 Factors FS-N01 Facility Utilization No Significant Difference Community Stability Greatei Benefit Feeds Greater Benefit Contiguous Communities Greater Benefit Frequency Reassignment Not Applicable (No student moved twice) Transportation No Significant Difference FARMS No Significant Difference Racial/Ethnic No Significant Difference Race/Ethnicity Data: American Indian or Black or African Asian Alaska Native American Hispanic HchSdwot Proposed Base Proposed Base Proposed Proposed Base Proposed | &asi d I BE <=5K <=5% 17% 17% 21% FS-N01 "°w"d "s 21% <=5W <=5% 7% 7V, 7% 7% 47% Long Reach HS <=5K 14% IS% 31'. 3S% <=5K <=5M 20% 15% 6i; m 24% . HouxsrdHS <=5;"; 17r.; 18-,* 21"a 23% <=s^ <=5;4 7',t 7% 7-6 47;-, 44,; Lor% Reach MS <=S96 <=5". Wi- ly.-i 3S'-.- 29% "SK <=s% 20% i9;i 7% 24% 32» 4of4 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Andrew Chiang Dear Howard County Leadership Team: Please allow me to begin by thanking you for the willingness to serve our community and I know you have a very difficult job because whatever decision you made; you can't possibly please 100% of your constituents. I am a second-generation immigrant and my parentswere originallyfrom a tiny island county in South EastAsia some forty years ago. They were blue-collar workers and earned honest hourly wages to give me and my two sisters the best education asthey possiblycould. It wastheir dream to make sure that we would have a much better lives than theirs and I must say their dream had been realized. As I stated earlier, I know you guys have a difficult job and it requires lots wisdom to make choices that potentially impacted thousands of lives and the future of this county. So, I will not bore you with a similar email which you already received. But simply askingwhat will HowardCounty look like in 10or 20years after this redistricting plan has been implemented? There was a magazine that featured Howard County as the second-best county to live few years ago and that caused my wife and me to move from Virginia because we have two youngsters. The best characteristic of Howard County is perhaps its quality of education as the key reason most of my neighbors moved here in the first place. My neighbors andfriends are middleclass who holds a steadyjob butwilling to payoutrageous housingprices and expansive property taxes to make sure their kids are in a good school district. With the new redistricting plan, they will haveto find an alternate plan fortheir children's education and no doubtwill impactthe interest ofanyone whoare currently consideringmoving to thiscounty. So, by upsetting the base- the families who made up the backboneof the community, our future looks bleak because it will have a snowball effect and even the problem the Board is trying to solve today may look good in the short-term statistics, but likely not have enough resource to continue because parents are taking them elsewhere. There are some good recommendations out there that favors steady and reasonable approach which should be thoughtfully considered rather than outrageous experimentation. The current redistricting plan is not new, and I am sure other counties had tried in the past and failed. So, I am asking our community leaders to exercise prudence when making their decision. Thanks again for reading my email and appreciate the works you do. Sincerely, Andrew Polygon 183 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Pam Hasson I live in Polygon 1 100, Wheatfield. My kids will most likely not beimpacted by this, butplease please do not breakour little neighborhoodin 2 and send us to different schools. I walk my dog everyday from one end of our community, Wheatfield & Long Gate to the other end Wheatfield & Montgomery Road. I encourage you to come anddo the same. It will only take 10-15minutes roundtrip. It is a single neighborhood, as you will see if you visit. Splitting us into different schools is absurd. Pleasecome out anddrive or walkthrough our neighborhoodbefore decidingthat we areto goto two different schools. Pam Hasson Cedar Post Kathleen V. Hanks From: Tricia Mercy Dear BOE members, The plan that Dr.Wu presented atthe Working Session last nightmakes more sensethan anyother plan that hasbeen presented to date and isthe least disruptive to Howard County students and families. Or. Wu's plan moves less than half ofthe students inthe county while addressing overcrowding and improving FARMrates at most schools. Hisplan keeps neighborhoodstogether and keeps strong feeds. I amespecially concerned about the feed for my polygon 183.The plan that Ms. Malta presented last night results in a high school feed ofwell below 10%for our polygon. Finally, Dr. Wu's plan isthe most fiscally responsible plan I have seen to date. Since it moves halfas many students, the transportation costs will be significantly lessthan other proposed plans. In light ofcurrent HCPSSbudget shortfalls, this isvitally important. Sincerely, Tricia Mercy Polygon 183 Sent from Mail for Windows 10 Dear Members of the Board of Education, I am a resident of polygon 1186 and am concerned with the plan suggested by Board Member Mallo at the October 28 work session. Under Dr. Martirano's plan, the polygons slated to go from CMSto HCMSare polygons 28, 185, 186, 1028, 1185, 1186 and 2028 for a total of approximately 207 students. Per Dr. Martirano's Plan, this would comprise a 36. 6%feed from CESto HCMS. 1 From HCMSto RHHSis an 18. 1%feed. 2 I computed this to be about 30 kids. Letthat sink in, 30 kidsgoing from one middle school will go to a high school of almost 1, 500 kids. Board Member Mallo's proposed plan removes polygons 28 and 186from the group going to HCMS. Instead she moves polygons 126and 127from CMSand sends them to WLMS. As an aside, polygon 127 was redistricted in 2017 to CMS. Doesn't that violate policy 6010 regarding subsequent redistricting of the same polygon? By removing polygons 28 and 186from the group goingto HCMS, she is making the feed from CESto HCMSapproximately 139 kids. My assumption when you remove 2 polygons from a feed that wasalready only 18%, that you are goingto end up with a small feed under 15%and in violation of Policy 60101VB. 2. a. As this directly impacts my children, I would expect to see the feed percentages from HCMS to RHHS under her plan. As an aside, I am struggling to seethe transparency in this process. From a Community Feedback Survey that has been blatantly ignored to proposing "alternative" scenarios with 3 weeks left in process and no public engagement other than "send an email" which I fear will most likely go ignored. Don't you realize that you are making decisions that will impact children's lives and their families' lives? You were elected bythe citizensof this County to makethis important decision. Thisis notsomething that can be crammed into the next 3 weeks. Please take this seriously and let the Pheasant Ridge community stay together. Sincerely, Robert Sager Resident of Polygon 1186 Formiddle school feeds, Dr. Martirano'splan reflects that 33. 9%will go to CMSand 36. 6%will go to HCM5. See Superintendent's Attendance AreaAdjustment Planat p. 19. It is not clearwhere the additional 29. 5%of children leaving CES go, perhaps private school? ;5eeSuperintendent's Attendance Area Adjustment Planat p. 20. It is not clearwhere the additional 51. 5%of children leaving HCMSgo, perhaps private school? While fullysupport equity, I summarily rejectJen Mallo's Test Plan. Herproposal focuseson onlytwo (2) Policy 6010 factors while violating many 6010 factors and does nothing to solve the true root cause of achievement gaps due to socioeconomic disparity; her plan simply moves thousands ofstudents(by herown admission,~7300) to achievemarginal percentage decreasesin FARM,which does nothingfor the children. While she does not mention exact FARM statistics in her plan, the "spirit" of her plan does not differ much from the Superintendent's, which didn't drastically decrease FARM %. Also, and again, a proposal was made without any mention of the increased transportation costs. It is WELLknown that HCPSShas sizeable and significant budget issues therefore -> HCPSSshould NOTbe "writing checks that cannot be cashed". I fully support: Dr. Wu'sproposal. Dr. Wu'splan takes the following into consideration: . Makes most over-capacity schools the highest redistricting priority * Impacts MANY less students (1000s less) . Maintains more contiguous communities * Minimizes school commutes - more class time / more family time / more sleep time / less bus time . Maintain more feeds over 15% * Maintains attendance at closest "Community" school . Supports extracurricular participation Does NOT ignore the BoE's fiscal responsibility to the HCPSSOperating Budget . SeeksCommunity input/ buy-in to ensure long-term success COMMUNITY- Excerpt from 6010 Policy Statement - "The Board believes that staff analyses and recommendations, as well as public advice and comment, are Integral to its deliberations and decisions related to school attendance areas". During the Public Input Timeframe from July '19 through August '19, individuals were asked to participate in a Survey. The following question was asked of Howard County Citizens: 'Thestandards listed in Policy6010 are shown below. Select upto three (3)of the standards you believe are MOSTImportant for considerationduring the Boundary Review Process. " The top answerswere: 1. Keeping feeds ofstudents together from one school to the next (e. g. Largergroups of students moving together from ESto MS and MS to HS) (Policy 6010 IV. B. 2. a) 2. Maintainingcontiguous communities or neighborhoods(Policy 6010 IV. B. 2. b) 3. Transportation considerations (e. g. walkers, bus routes, etc. )(Policy 6010 IV. B. l. d) Jen Mallo'sTest Plancompletely ignoresthe top three (3) factors/ standardsfrom HowardCounty residents! Further, after the Superintendent's proposal was released, the Community came out in vast numbers opposing his plan (written / verbal testimony) while those in favor paled in comparison. Ms. Mallo's plan is worse so why do certain members ofthe BoEfeel that "public advice andcomment" are NOTan integral component to its deliberations and decisions (per your own 6010 Policy)? I understand why the BoEwants to address socioeconomics factors (it isa noble cause and I fully support achieving equity) BUT the Superintendent's recommendation and Jen Mallo's Test Plan are NOT doing anything to close achievement gaps. That is not equity. Jen Malta's plan (like the Superintendent s) simply moves percentages around and puts Band-Aids on issues. These plans just lower averages and does nothing to actually help the children. and can actually do more harm. Instead of increasingtransportation costs, certain members ofthe BoEshould stop "hoping"that simply swappingstudents between schools will causetest scoresto increase as research supportingthat approach is inconclusive. Instead of unnecessarily increasing the transportation budget, to achieve equity (and while it would not be feasible to do all), please look into some of these activities which are data and evidence based: Provide resources directly to students in Title 1 schools and / or all high FARM % schools: . Development of full-dayPre-K . Development of school-basedafter school mentoring/ study hall program (education based aftercare) Development of Summerlearning programs (opt-in for year-round) . Invest in additional School resources / lowering teacher to student radio Vocational career track curriculum development Faculty based: . Promote diversity in HCPSS hiring / recruitment of bi-lingual faculty * Cultural & bias training for faculty at high FARM schools * Additional mental health and family care counselors . Hiring Family engagement professionals While could write to the BoEand just saythat I am againstJen Mallo'sTest Plan based on my own polygon (much longer commute -4rd closest HS by distance & 5th closest HS by travel time, tearing apart my community, having a small FQMS ->WLHS feed below the 15% threshold, etc. ) as well as sharing concerns from other residents' impacts based on this ill-advised Test Plan, that could almost be construed as legitimizing Ms. Mallo's plan as a starting point. The Board should either accept Dr. Wu's plan as it s by far the least disruptive and costly, start from and then make some changes to Dr. Wu's plan, or push back the 11/21 decision date and start from scratch because ALL students of Howard County Public Schools deserve better from our elected and appointed officials. Regards, Christ! Snyder Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jessica Barnes Good afternoon Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently our community attends River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly QuarterMiddle School The remaining-70% of FQMS goes to'Glenelg High School. Bykeeping polygons 3176and 176at RiverHill HighSchool and moving onlyour~3 polygons to wi'lde Lake'Hiah School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed ofstudents traveling alone to Wilde Lake Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children of ourWoodmark communit deserve better than this. My sonjust started at RHHSthis yearand am concerned aboutthe impact ofa potential change in high schools next year. I respectfully request consideration of not disrupting any high school students who are already attending their home school. I am perfectly finewith my younger children attending a differenthigh school but I wantfor my son to continueat the school where he started. Thehigh school years are critical. I respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a largerfeed. Jessica Barnes 12226 Carroll Mill Road Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Korin Sharp Dear Dr. Wu, I learned of your new plan this morning that includes polygons 12, 46, and 2046, and I have some concerns. While this proposal seems to appease those on the west side of the county and reduces the number of students affected, it would instead tear apart my community in an illogical way and with questionable benefit. Forest Ridge is anexample ofhow HoCo schools could be with diversity ofrace and socioeconomic background. It is not overcapacity. Howare FARMS rates, diversity, andeven capacity positively affectedby your proposed moves for these polygons? Where is the data for your entire proposal? Additionally, carving out 1/3 ofa community to attend a different elementary and middle school, when changes are already coming for High School 13, is overly dismptive to a small group ofkids. I felt this waybefore it directly impacted my community and I feel this way now. At the end ofthe day, if these proposed moves accomplish the goals stated for the redistricting process, I know my kids will be fine to move to another school. I am not going to print t-shirts and hold protests. However, if these new moves are simply to pacify those in the west and shift the burden ofchange to the less well-connected of us in the southern part ofthe county without accomplishing these goals, I will be extremely disappointed in your role andthe process itself. Thank you. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Paula Buchiane Dear BOB members, I believe it would be prudent to wait until after the 2020 elections to act on the proposed redistricting plan. Otherwise you risk losingvotes to candidateswho will NOTbe looking out forthe very childrenthe proposals strive to help. Andthis could happennot just locally but acrossthe nationas it wouldbe the perfect scaretactic for candidates who do not championdiversity asmuch aswe in Howard County do. This is an ill-timed proposal that attempts to solve a problem in the wrong way. The obvious solution isn't forcefully moving a bunch ofkids around, but rather forcing developers to include affordable housing across Howard County (don't worry about the developers - they will still make huge profits, but not at the expense ofour children). The current approach to address this problem by social engineering and forced bussing will be used in campaigns at local and national levels. And it will work! Peoplewho care aboutdiversity shouldbe PULLING TOGETHER to fight for it right now,NOT CREATING DIVIDES within our richly diverse community which will ultimately hurt the most vulnerable children in the long run. I strongly urge youto think aboutlong-term, REALsolutions to the REALproblem andtake the time to consider theNATIONAL-LEVEL repercussions - notjust local or polygon-level impact - before moving forward with this misguided and ill-timed proposal. Thank you, Paula Buchiane (Polygon 180, withkids whohave already graduated from HCPSS schools, andwere redistricted many times since we bought our previously-owned, older home 28 years ago - before RHHS, MRHS, MWES, TRES, and DOES were even built. It's incredible howmany times HCPSShas redistricted ourpolygon. Better planning is clearly needed to solve attendance and socioeconomic problems) Kathleen V. Hanks From: Laura Cavanaugh Dear Board Members, Thank you for your continued efforts and attention to this matter. I have been tuning into the working sessions and am so encouraged by all our board members who seem to be thoughtfully and carefully considering their options aroundredistricting. As I've saidbefore, I knowits a difficultjob andI appreciate all your efforts. I wmted to provide some feedback on the individual plans shared by Ms. Mallo and Dr. Wu at last night's session. First ofall, thankyou bothfor taking so much ofyour time to put together these scenarios. Withregards to Ms. Mallo's plan, I have a fewcomments. Ms. Mallo's plan, like the superintendents, redistricts my polygon (1066) from demons Crossing Elementary School to Swansfield. This is a cause for concern in my commimity since it sends us to a school outside the Hickory Ridge village and separates us from an Elementary school thathas been woven into the fabric ofour neighborhood for decades. That said, I appreciate that Ms.Mallo's plan makes corresponding moves atthe Middle andHigh Schoollevel to keepour communities in a feedwith the other familiesredistricted to Swansfield. Ratherthan creating a very small feedfrom Swansfield nto Wi de Lake middle and Clarksville Middleschool (which is what happens under the Superintdents plan), Ms. Malta's plan moves all these students together to Clarksville Middle'and Riverhill. I appreciate that this strengthens the feed. As I mentioned inmy prior written testimony, my largest concern about the superintdents p.anls that it recreates a very. very small feed at the middle school level that wasjust resolved last redistricting. Ms. Mallo^s efforts to improve that areappreciated. That said, changingour community atthe Elem, Middle, and High School level is a major shift that I do not take lightly. Again, ourpreference is to stay in our community schools but if that is not possible I support Ms. Malta's plan over the superintendent's because it seems comprehensive and doesn't create secondary problems that would need to be corrected in future rounds of redistricting. I very much want to minimize the continued disruption andsend my sonto thepublic school system without the fear of continuous redistricting. With regards to Dr. Wu's plan, if I am understanding correctly this appears to keep our polygon at our current schools wUch I wholeheartedly support as these schools are closest to our home, provide robust feeds, and are part ofthe DNA of our community. Thanks again for all your efforts Kind Regards, LauraCavanaugh Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jeffrey Heiges 29 October 2019 Dear Board of Education Members, After watching the work session last night, I have some concerns about Jen Mallo's plan. - First, the plan moves even more students than Dr. Martirano's proposal CdisreBardinePoli< 6010's intent). - Second, the plan moves students out of an under-capacity school (RHHS). As such, if capacity is the overarching driving factor ofpolicy 6010, why move students from a neighborhood that is less than 2 miles from RHHS to a school that is over three-times as far? This unnecessarily places our children on the road muchlonger twice a day, whetherit's on a bus or as a newdriver. The safetyand well-being of our children should be our number one concern! - Third, the plan divides up neighborhoods. Part ofWalnut Creek (same HOA) would stay at RHHS, while part would move to WLHS. Policy 6010 recognizes the importance ofcommunity stability, maintaimng contiguous communities and neighborhoods. - Fourth, Policy 6010 recommends (and taxpayers demand) fiscal responsibility by minimizing capital and operating costs. Both Dr. Martirano's and JenMallo's plans significantly increase the transportation budget (three-fold, by some estimates), at a time whenthe school budgetis already strained. No additional money should be spent onbuses, butrather onthe students thatneed assistance (additional programs, more teachers, etc. ). Ideally, any moves should be avoided until High School 13 is built, in order to comply with another Policy 6010 standard, decreasing the frequency withwhich any one student is reassigned. Barring this, Dr. Chao Wupresents a plan that is far less disruptive (only 3000 students moved), supports a feeder system which eliminates small feeds (<15%) to high schools, and costs much less to taxpayers. We should highly consider his plan, while extending the vote date in order to make the best decision for all students. Christina Delmont-Small also discussed her support last night for a feeder system, which helps create continuity / stability in our school system a"d for our families. Minimal dismption, while keeping communities together, to ease overcrowding should be the objective. Chao Wu's plan does this. Please work with him to form a better solution. Thank you, Jeffrey 0. Heiges Polygon 176 Re: Support Dr. Wu's Redistricting Proposal Dear BoE board members, Many thanks for your service andtremendous effort on our school redistricting during last two months. It's long process andhard time for both Howard Countypublic andBoE boardmembers. I deeply appreciate your work. Actually, I went through all ofthe public hearing andpast two work sessions; and it appears that the superintendent's redistricting proposal initiated huge heat and led to historic massive opposition due to selective data driven, lack of evidence, poor in logic, underestimatingthe consequence, short ofbudget and overlook of residents' interests. I deeply appreciate the willing and engagement ofthe BoE on making the redistricting process right to best fit the interest andbenefit ofHoward County kids. I deeply appreciate that both Ms. Mallo and Dr. Wu put a lot ofeffort, and presented separate proposals on school redistricting. By comparation with the superintendent's redistricting proposal, it appears for me that Ms. Malta's proposal is the revised version of the superintendent's redistricting proposal, and the massive redistricting nature is not changed. Thus, I would suggest the BoE not following Ms. Mallo's proposal in following work sessions. On the other hand,Dr. Wu'sproposal considered HowardCounty public interestwith the following facts: minimum move (only around 3 thousand kids total, not massive redistricting), maximum keeping community integrity, maximum keeping neighborhood schools, maximum keeping current walkers and cost less (less transportation) with the consideration of FARM students and all students. Pleasekeep in mind that people in Howard county chosethe communities andtheir neighborhood schools is a private family choice, not nation, state or county action; the result of so called "socioeconomic inequity" of this private family choice has no constitutional implications, and should not be considered as the major factors for school redistricting. For the following work sessions, I strongly recommend that the BoE should consider the common sense ofminimum move, less disrupting community integrity, and keeping neighborhood schools as the major factors of our school redistricting with the consideration of improving achievement gap. Thus, I urge the BoE start to work from Dr. Wu's proposal, and make it bestfit the interest andbenefit of Howard County kids. Manythanks for your service and work. Warm regards, XinmingLiu, Polygon 1028 Kathleen V. Hanks From: sung cho Hello board of education, I live in polygon 176 and we are 1. 4 miles away from River hill high school. Please let our polygon stay at River hill high school since its closer to our home. Also, only way to get to our home is through Shappard lane to Prickness circle which we are using the same lane as Polygon 3176. We also do not have direct entrance to folly quarter from Sheppard lane. Thank you, Mrs. Sung Cho Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android October 29, 2019 Dear Board of Education, Thank you for all of the hard work and late nights that all of you have been putting in with regards to the redistrictlng. Watchingthe worksessions, I am extremely frustrated withthe process andthe seemingly lack of direction of where to go with the various plans. I would like to commend Ms. Christina Delmont- Small s suggestion to look at redistricting with strong feeds in mind and I feel this Is imperative for the stability of all students and families in Howard County. In addition, I am writing in response to the test plan scenario presented by Ms. Jen Mallo last evening specifically in regards to my polygon 2028. My primary concern in redistricting is strong feeds and keeping neighborhoods together. Ms. Mallo's plan arbitrarily divides our neighborhood between Harpers Choice and Clarksville Middle. Under her plan, the houses in my backyard (Polygon 28) would be districted to CMSwhile we would go to HCMS. There is no natural divider between our polygons (unless the crosswalk on the road counts). The dividing line is completely arbitrary and does not make geographic sense. In addition, Ms. Malta's plan creates an extraordinarily small feed from Clarksville Elementary to Harpers Choice Middle to River Hill High School. Please keep our neighborhood of Pheasant Ridge together and at Clarksvjlle Middle School which isjust over a mile from our house. In addition, pleasetry to make strong feedsto keepchildren together with their peers. Thank you, Micaela Crooks Polygon 2028 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Elizabeth Wohler Hello members of the Board of Education, I would like to express my support for Dr. Wu's proposed moves during last night's work session. I believe his plan makes very logical andeffective moves withthe FEWESTnumber ofstudents being affected. I also, would like to express my concern and opposition to the plan presented by Ms. Mallo. I do not believe this is the best course of action as, similar to the Superintendent's plan, it moves over 7400+ students and includes moves into and out of schools that are not logical. Going forward, please attempt to not move students out of an under-capacity school and into a school that is overcapacity. This causes dismption to far more students than necessary and increases transportation costs. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. Kind regards, Elizabeth Wohler 5126 Durham Rd E, Columbia, MD 21044 Polygon 1144 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Detty Chelapurath WALNUT COMMUNITIES ,'. ^,, ",t,Gr?ve aad. walnutcreek communities extremely tight knit communities located on Sheppard lane, Clarksville. Two polygon's in one community. Walnut Creek starts from within Walnut Grove and several homes canbe driven to from the Grove entrance only which is via Preakness Circle Ln. The first stop for both Grove and Creek is at the intersection ofPreakness Circle Ln and Circle ^ ". , bys Clay Ln. Kids from both the communities meet atthis location. This bus stop is 1. 4 miles from RHHS Please don't splits community's. Pleasekeep our community together. Thank you for considering Chelapurath Family. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kim Patrick Good morning, We are writing fo support Dr. Wu's plan for several reasons but the top two reasons are: 1)HCPSS is in poor financial shape, especially with their health fund deficit that continues to spiral out of control. Dr. Wu's planhas a muchlower cost basis thanthe others whichwould significantly increase costs and would put additional fmancial strain on the school system. 2) Dr Wu's plan is much less disruptive to students, parents andthe school system than any other plan; therefore, preserving communities which is extremely important for the wellbeing ofthe county! Thankyou for focusingon the many hours of strong testimony againstthe radical and harmful redistricting proposals and for focusing on the two important factors above. Sincerely, Kim Patrick Polygon2176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: ALPA VASHIST Dear Board of Education Members, I am concerned parent ofof 2 Howard county students , I appreciate your effort and youhave been assigned daunting task to address overcrowding in school and close achievement gap. As leader please remember FIRST DO NO HARM. I oppose superintendent's andMallo's plan andsupport Dr. Wu'splan Provide opportunities to students in their community , close the opportunity gap I urge you to review all facts, weighs risk vs benefit you get from moving all these students pleasekeep in mind cost ofall theses changes,money canbe usedwisely to help struggling and overcrowding schools Do not play games with young developing brain which is sensitive to stress and they need 9-10 hours of sleep and are -Insteadof our kids beingbused to a further awayschool, I askyou to invest in school to savethe HCPSS money andstay within budget, avoidlonger commute times, avoidearlier waketimes/sleep deprivation, avoid traffic congestion and avoid conta-ibuting to environmental pollution. Sincerely, Alpa Vashist October 29, 2019 Re: Second Work Session on 10/28/19 Sent to: redistricting@hcpss. org Dear Board of Education, My name is Kevin Grant, Polygon 183, and I strongly oppose Ms. Malta's proposed redistricting plan that was presented on October 28, 2019. Ms. Mallo's plan, is essentially a slightly modified version of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan and contains the same flaws and issues that the community identified over the course of numerous nights of testimony and written feedback. I strongly oppose Ms. Malta's proposed redistrirting plan, hereinafter, the Plan, for five primary reasons: (1) the Plan moves the children of Polygon 183 needlessly, when no overcrowding exists; (2) the Plan does not give weight to the mental health issues and burdens on families that it will cause; (3) the Plan does not effectively address equity; (4) the Plan does not consider cost; and (5) the process to create the Plan did not allow for input from the community. I am a homeowner in Howard County, work full-time in Washington, DC, and am the parent ofthree HCPSS students. I believe in public education and equity, yet the Plan erodes the effectiveness of public education in Howard County and does nothing to truly address equity. I will address each of my reasons for opposing the Plan in more detail below, but request that Polygon 183 not be redistricted to Wilde Lake High School and continue to be districted to River Hill High School. In the alternative, if capacity at River Hill High School becomes an issue, redistrict Polygon 1S3 to our next closest high school with capacity which is Glenelg High School. 1. Moving Polveon 183 is Not Necessary to Address OvercFowdine In the case of Polygon 183, we are districted to attend River Hill High School. River Hill High School is currently within capacity, 94% utilization, and capacity projections do not forecast River Hill High School going above capacity in the next five years. The 2019 Feasibility Study, did not recommend redistricting Polygon 183 under either option. However, the Plan, redistricts Polygon 183 to Wilde Lake High School. Given River Hill High School is within target capacity and projected to remain within target capacity in the near term, the move of Polygon 183 is not necessary to address overcrowding. Ms. Mallo listed In her Powerpoint presentation during the first work session the schools that are currently overcrowded and requiring relief, neither River Hilt High School, Wilde Lake High School, nor Glenelg High School fall into that category. "-2019 Feasibility Study. 1 |P ge River Hill High School has capacity to accept additional students, thus capacity or overcrowding does not necessitate redistricting of Polygon 183. In addition, this request is consistent with HCPSSPollcy 6010 IV. B. l. If capacity does require Polygon 183 to be redistricted, we request that Polygon 183 be redistricted to Glenelg High School. Glenelg High School is the next closest high school to our home, is ui/ithin our current feed, and is currently under capacity. This request is consistent with HCPSS Policy 6010 IV. B. 2. 2. Sienificant Risk of Increased Stress to Students and High Burden on Families a. Sieniflcantlv Loneer Bus Rides Under the Plan Currently, our bus picks up at 6:40am for River Hill High School. The bus ride is 45 minutes each way to River Hill High School. That means that students in our polygon currently spend 90 minutes a day on the bus to River Hill High School. River Hill High School Is 5. 2 miles from our home and there is only 1 traffic light on the route. Under the Plan, students in Polygon 183 would travel an additional 2 to 4 miles farther, depending on route, to reach Wilde Lake High School. That bus route would encounter between 7 and 8 additional traffic lights on higher traffic roads. Conservatively, this means an additional 15 to 20 minutes more to the bus route making the new bus ride between 60- 70 minutes each way for a total of 2 to 2.25 hours on the bus each day. Under the Plan, buses wo.uld need to pick up 15-20 minutes earlier putting pick up times around 6:20am. That means that students from Polygon 183 would need to wake up shortly after Sam to get ready to catch the bus. Given the available capacity at River Hill High School, do not believe it is necessary to redistrict Polygon 183 and add commuting burden to students in Polygon 183. If capacity does necessitate redistrleting of Polygon 183, then it would make sense to move Polygon 183 to the next closest high school with capacity, for Polygon 183, that is Glenelg High School. Glenelg High School is 4. 1 miles from our home and would be similar to our current high school commute in terms of mileage, traffic conditions, and commute time. b. Polveon 183 Traffic Please knowthat none of the roads ip our area have street lights and all are rural two-lane roads. In addition, we have roundabouts and areas of significant congestion today. The roundabout between Homewood Road, Sheppard Lane, and Folly Quarter Road, the main artery in and out of our community, is currently struggling to handle the increased traffic due to the expansion of the Glenelg Country school (a private school) and new housing development In the area. Putting more busses and inexperienced teen drivers on these roads, at a time when Calvin Ball Is calling for a reduction in traffic and improved transit 2 I Page infrastructure, seems at cross purposes. 2 In addition, increasing bus routes creates a negative environmental impact at a time when Howard County and the country are trying to reduce carbon emissions. c. Emereencv Pick Do Harder for Our Ramih; Under the Plan, I will have children spread across the county - between Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School, Folly Quarter Middle School, and Wilde Lake High School. In the event of an emergency, it will he exponentially harder to pick up my children. It would require me to travel 10. 6 miles, approximately 25 minutes, to reach and pick up my three children from three different schools under ideal conditions. An emergency is rarely under ideal conditions. Currently, picking up my three children would require 5. 6 miles, approximately 13 minutes. Reaching my children in the event of an emergency is not a theoretical concern for me, my family was faced with this issue just last school year. On May 30, 2019, a tornado touched down and tore through our neighborhood leaving in its wake downed trees and powerlines between the schooland our neighborhood, not to mention significant damage to our home and neighborhood. Most of the roads in our ar.ea were blocked and unpassable. After the tornado passed, parents in Polygon 183 went out to cut trees that blocked the roads and tried to find elementary school students that had been released to the bus after sheltering at the school. Each minute not knowing where my children were or how the bus was going to reach our neighborhood was excruciating. I cannot imagine dealing'with trying to drive and pick up my children when they are spread across the county. There is no reason to create this situation and no reason to redistrict Polygon 183. d. Sienlficant Loss of Sleep Our pediatrician believes and others pediatridans have testified to the necessity of sleep for teenagers. The Plan effectively robs the students of Polygon 183 an additional hour of sleep each school day. The loss of sleep creates real harm not only to physical development, but creates additional emotional stress. At a time when suicide is the leading cause of death for teens In Howard County, reducing the time available to sleep and adding the stress of a longer commute seems Irresponsible and needless. As a parent of three daughters, I worry about adding stress to their shoulders. It does not seem to me that the BOE has considered the harms the Plans will cause all students and balanced that agalnstany potential benefits. e. Loss of Friendships and Supports Moving Polygon 183 to Wilde Lake High School needlessly disrupts the feed between Triadelphia Ridge Elementary, Folly Quarter Middle School, and River Hill High School. The Plan will needlessly break the long-term friendships and community supports my children * "Calvin Ball says Howard County needs to improve transit Infrastructure, " Baltimore Business Journal, October 16, 2019. 3 I Page and family currently enjoy. Stability and continuity are critical to teenagers and families alike, My daughter relies on her friends for emotional suppon, her friends are her most trusted allies and sounding board. They help her deal with stressful social situations and provide support that reinforces her family support system. These are friends she has had since Kindergarten and they cannot simply be replaced. Absent a compelling reason, I do not think pulling her from her friends and support system is in her best interest. She needs close friendsandconfidants in addition to her family to navigate the choppy waters of teenage life. Please do not underestimate the value of these friendships to my daughter, or the other students ofPolygon 183. For me, I rely on other families in the area to help when my schedule changes without warning or to carpool to afterschool activities. My wife and I both work full-time over an hour from ourhome, our neighborhood supports are critical. We have built these relationships over many yearsand do not want to lose them needlessly. Our familyalready struggles to balance work, family, and life events; absent a compelling reason - there is no need to make our life more difficult to juggle. 3. Equity The driving force behind the Plan is equity. I support that goal wholeheartedly; however, I do not see how shifting large numbers of children between schools advances equity or closes the achievement gap. HCPSS is a diverse and integrated school system that is highly regarded in the state. Each school receives similar funding per student'with Title I schools receiving additional funds. 3 In my opinion, shuffling students between schools masks the problems that create the achievement gap and minimizes the likelihood that supports and services will be created to directly target the cause(s) of the achievement gap. It appears as if HCPSS has identified supports and programs that do directly address equity and the achievement gap, particularly at Hammond High School. " At Hammond High School, faculty, staff, parents, and the community came together to foster an environment that not only encouragedstudents to take at least one higher level course, but also created the supports necessary to foster success including the Step It Up Workshop, AP Boot Camp, Alpha Achievers, ESOLHomework Club, and removing prerequisites for the advanced courses. 5 In addition, Hammond High School provided additional training and support for teachers. 6 This program has not only been recognized nationally, it seems to be delivering measurable results in increasing 3 Meeting of County Council and Board of Education, (Or. Wu asked about funding levels of each school and confirmed that the funding levels per student are the same between schools with Title I schools receiving additional funding. ), September 23, 2019. 4 "How one Maryland high school successfully boosted minority student enrollment in advanced classes, " V- Strauss, The Washington Post, iuly 10, 2018, s/d. «(d. 4 Page enrollment in advanced classes and improving graduation rates among African American, Hispanic, and special needs students.7 HCPSShas one model, the Hammond High School model, that isdelivering measurable results in closing the achievement gap. There have been a number of suggestions from the community about other programs that have been found to narrow the achievement gap such as language emersion programs, magnet programs, universal pre-K, tutoring programs, and many others. Why not focus our effort and funds on programs that we know will make a difference to students? Forced bussing and shuffling students does not solve any problem and merely masks the problem. Further, "[i]fs not clear from the research available today that socioeconomic integration alone would produce the hoped-for gains on the academic side of the integration equation. The research on the effects of socioeconomic integration, including studies frequently cited by the strategy's proponents, is inconclusive. "8 HCPSS should place its effon and funds to support programs that have a proven track record of delivering results, not gamble on a bussing strategy that simply hides the problem. And certainly, should not needlessly rip any student from their neighborhood and family support system. Study after study show that neighborhood and family supports are key ingredients for the success of a student, but especially important to vulnerable students.9 It is not clear to me that the Plan provides sufficient benefit to students impacted by redlstricting to outweigh the harms to all students from the: (1) loss of friends, (2) loss of community supports, (3) reduced time for family and extracurricular activities, (4) loss of sleep, and (5) increased time commuting. 4. Cost As a taxpayer, I find it repugnant that the Plan was put forward with no cost estimates or thought to the impact on the HCPSS budget. Given that the plan appears to move at least the same number of students as the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan, I will assume that the plan will require at least the same additional transportation costs as the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan creates, an estimate of $2. 76 million dollars in additional transportation costs." 7M. 8 A Reality Check on the Benefits of Economic Integration, FutweEd, Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, Samh A. Cordes PhO, August 26, 2019. s The 2019 HCPSS Equity Report suggests a negative Impact when law-income students are removed from (1) their familial and neighborhood supports and (2) transportation and geographic barriers are increased to beyond school opportunities. Tte Plan removes both for each student Impacted by the redistrirting plan. M September 23, 2019 meeting between the Board of Education and County Council when Dr. Wu asked for an estimate on the cost of additional transportation as a result of the Superintendent's proposed redistrictlng plan. Dr. Wu was told that the cost had not been formally reviewed, but an estimate of $2.76 million dollars in additional transportation costs are likely if implemented. 5 I Page In addition, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent on the 2019 Feasibility Study and that input seems to have been completely disregarded. Why spend money when you do not adhere to or value the advice? Given the budget cuts last year that led to the reduction of parsed ucators and technology programs, it boggles the mind that the BOE would spend money on a Feasibility study it had no intention of using or entertain implementing a Pton that dramatically raises transportation costs going Into FY 2021. The $2.76 million dollars In additional transportation that would result from implementation of the Plan could be used to add 92 paraeducators or 46 entr/ level teachers.11HCPSS need more paraeducators and teachers, not more buses. Paraeducators and teachers benefit all students in the HCPSS. Or the $2.76 million dollars could be used to address lead and legionella in the water at certain schools, fund capital improvements, fund programs that support vulnerable students such as tutoring programs, language immersion programs, or magnet programs. If you want to benefit all HCPSS students, use these funds to delay school start times, which has been proven to increase learning retention and raise standardized test scores. One expense associated with the Plan that has not been contemplated is the cost to defend against any legal action brought as a result of adoption of the Plan. The Plan in its current form appears to be the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan and the appearance of discriminating against the Asian community and uses FARM designation as a proxy for race and ethnic assignment. Given CR 112, statements by county officials, and the process that lead to the creation of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan, a legal challenge seems highly likely. Defending the Plan would be costly and in essence would be using taxpayer dollars to defend a Plan that it appears the majority of the community does not support. 5. Process Since the Plan is essentially a slightly revised version on the Superintendent's proposed redlstrictlng plan, the same process flaws apply to the Plan. The differences between the 2019 Feasibility Study and the Pfan are dramatic. The Plan does not reflect the priorities of the community, and was released in a way to minimize the community's ability to fully understand and evaluate the Plan. Releasing the plan after the public comment period has ended appears to be an intentional effort to hide the ball from the community. Process matters, not only to the outcome, but when done correctly, fosters community involvement and acceptance of the proposed changes. The process that led to the creation of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan and by extension this Plan appears to be motivated by political agendas. Even If this is not the case, the press releases and statements by county executives strongly suggest a political agenda. Others have more eloquently and factually detailed the flaws in the process, but one in particular seems highly suspect to me. The ;1 This calculation assumes the annual cost of a paraeducator to be $30,000 per year and an entry-level teacher to be $60,000 per year. Dr. Wu shared these figures on September 23, 2019. 6 I Page AAC selected solely by Dr. Martirano failed to include input from the Asian community or Western Howard County. The minutes from the various meetings of the AAC are sparse or incomplete, but what has emerged from the Information released is a view that most AAC members held particular political views that shaped their input into the creation of the Plan. Howard County and the HCPSS deserve better. Better process, better planning, and better behavior from the adults in the room. No one in Howard County should suffer. No one. For the reasons articulated above, I request that Polygon 183 not be redistricted to Wilde Lake High School and continue to be districted to River Hill High School. In the alternative, if capacity at River Hill High School becomes an issue, redistrict Polygon 183 to our next closest high school with capacity which is Glenelg High School. 7 Page Kathleen V. Hanks From: jiaming zhang Dear BOE members, I and my family strongly support Dr Wu's redistricting plan which maintains our feeder system in howard county. Moving student as less as possible will spend money as less as possible too. I urge you to keep polygon 1186at Clarksville Middle School- which isobviously reasonable vs. movingto anotherfurther school in all kindsof angles: budget, traffic, safety, efficiency, one community... Thank you, Juan Du Polygon 1186 1185 185 1028 III.:. 2028 118G 28 186 Ctarksville MS Kathleen V. Hanks From: kmdoyle@comcast. net Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 12:21 PM To: Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Support Dr Chao Wu I fully support Dr Chao Wu's plan on redistricting. It move less students and will cost less from a transportation issue. It also gives us a plan to implement feeder schools. Thank you Joan Doyle 15208 Open Land Ct Dayton, md Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: susan sun Dear BOE members Thank you for your effort trying to put together a plan that address overcrowding, and at the same time minimize disruption to students' life and community integrity. Between the two plar- proposed last night, we strongly suggest starting with Dr Wu's plan which is least disruptive, more cost efficient, and with a lot of common sense that focusing on moving students from overcrowding school to under capacity school. It is disappointed to see Ms Mallo's proposal went exactly the opposite direction without any concern of the deficit of current budget, and community feedback via the multi-days public hearing. For example, Ms Mallo's plan divided polygon 186 & 1186 into 2 different feeds. 186 to Clarksville Middle, and 1186 to Harpers Choice. 186 and 1186 are always one cohesive community historically with 1000 acre natural barrier of~ Middle Patuxent Environment Area. This creates unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when HS13 comes. We are strongly against it Please keep 1186 at Clarksville Middle School and thanks for your consideration ! Best, Rui Sun Polygon 1186 1185 . -j-, h ;:>'..; ';;^; to':/l? C^s'^ 185 1028 : 111... '. 2028 : I'.' 28 186 "-t^,, RoSin::"-:'^ Clarksvilte Dear Board of Education: I am a parent of3 schoolaged children in POLYGON176 (walnut creek). Dr. Martirano'soriginal plan had 176 and our sister polygon 3176 (walnut grove) moving to WLHS. However, in Ms. Mallo's plan now just 176is slated to move.This makes no senseas we share buses,and one ofthe busstops actually incorporates both neighborhoods. Our neighborhood ofWalnut creek is offSheppard Lane,just like 3176 (walnut grove). We would have to drive through the Riverhill school district to get to Wilde Lake. Thisjust doesn't make sense. Please reconsider or evaluate what was hopefully just an oversight. We do not have direct access to Homewood-we are on Sheppard Lane(quickest routeto RHHSor WLHS). As permy testimony: we are 1.4 miles from River Hill and 1 stop light, while we are over 10 stop lights to Wilde Lake. Please make the logical correction to this plan and keep our communities together. Itjust doesn't make sense, especiallywhen GHS is closer and with much more capacityand would give usa much biggerfeed (that actually meets criteria by policy 6010- which Ms. Malta's plan does not), if we absolutely had to do move. On the other hand. Dr. Wu's plan addresses keeping communities together- a major consideration for ALLfamilies. It balancesschool capacity while minimizing travel times and improving equity. This proposal will benefitstudents acrossthe county. SUMMARY: POLYGON 176 is off sheppard lane (not Homewood) WALNUTCREEK neighborhood in 176 literally overlaps with WALNUTGROVE in 3176. Please keep our communitiestogether, otherwiseyou will not achieveappropriate %feedto River Hill. POLYGON 176 would have to drive through River Hill school zone traffic to get to Wilde Lake DR Wu's plan achieves the goals of the BOE in best manner, no adjustments to polygon 176 needed Thank you foryour attention to this matter and working to make the best, most logical moves for all of our children. Sincerely, Valerie Jones Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: fang. lijuan@gmail. com on behalf of Guang Huang Dear BOE members, Bigthank youto Dr Wuand Ms Mallo who spent a lot oftime & effort presenting their own alternative proposals during last night's work session. Betweenthejwo plans, we stronelv sussest startine with Pr Wu's plan which is so far the least disruptive, more cost efficient, andwith a lot ofcommon sense that focusing onmoving students from overcrowding school to under capacity school. It isdisappointed to seeMs Mallo's proposal went exactly the opposite direction. For example, Ms Mallo's plan dividedpolygon 186& 1186into 2 differentfeeds. 186to Clarksville Middle, and 1186to Harpers Choice.' 186 and 1186are always one cohesiveRiverhill community historically with 1000acre natural barrierof Middle Patuxent Environment Areathat seperates them from Harper Choice Community. This creates unnecessary inconsistent feedwhich will leadto future redistricting issues whenHS13 comes. Keep 1186 at Clarksville Middle! Respectfully, Guang Huang Polygonll86 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Leena Khedkar Dear BOE Members, As I listened to the working sessions and the various proposals that the BOE members are putting forward, I felt the need and wantedto provide some additional information (see below)on the location ofWalnut Creek (Phase 1) where I live (address- 12200 Basslers Way, Clarksville MD) please refer to the maps attached- 1. Walnut Creek Phase 1 (Assigned to Polygon # 176)- Is a group of 22 homes which have the same entrance as Walnut Grove (Polygon # 3176) of off Sheppard Lane. The bus which picks up kids for Walnut Grove (Polygon #3176) also picks up our kids which is Walnut Creek Phase 1 (Polygon # 176). 2. We are separated from the bigger Walnut Creek Phase 2 by a creek and have separate entrance off of Sheppard Lane. 3. Our kids have friends in both Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek Phase2 we have very strong see of community as the Walnut community due to the proximity (1. 2 miles) to RHHS. I would like to make sure youtake the above information into considerationwhile making the final decisionfor polygon #3176 and 176 that there is a small section of 22 houses which is called Walnut Creek (Phase 1) but has entrance from Walnut Grove i.e. Preakness Circle Ln offofSheppardLn. Thank you, Leena Khedkar (443)9496051 Kathleen V. Hanks From: xiufensui Dear BOE members, Thanks for all board members spending countless hours on this redistricting, special thanks to Dr Wu and Ms Mallo for presenting the proposal last night. Between the two proposal last night, I strongly recommend to use Dr. Wu's plan as starting point, which is least disruptive, more cost effective ( given us HCPSS budget concern), and common sense focusing on moving overcrowding school to under capacity school. On the other hand, Ms Malta's proposal is quite similar to Dr Martinaro's plan, massive redistricting by moving 7300 students, breaking up the communities and ignoring the community feedback through emails, public testimony, not considering the transportation cost. Ms Malta's plan divided polygon 186 & 1186 into 2 different feeds. 186 to Clarksville Middle, and 1186 to Harpers Choice. 186 and 1186 are always one cohesive community historically on trotter road with 1000 acre natural barrier of Middle Patuxent Environment Area. This creates unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when HS13 comes. We are strongly against it! Please keep 1186 at Clarksville Middle and thanks for your consideration! Respectfully, Xiufen Sui Polygon 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Mike Buscher We live in Farside (2176) and support Wu's plan. It is less expensive and less disruptive to students. Fact. Sincerely, Mike Buscher 410. 446. 7328 Polygon2176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: QQ Lee Dear BOE Members, really want to thank you all for your time and effort on this important matter of redistricting. I am writing this email to strongly oppose Ms. Mallo's test scenarios presented in today's work session. I appreciate how her plan focuses on capacity and overcrowding issues, but there are many concerns the plan failed to take into consideration: close proximity to school, keep community together, minimize polygon double-moves (not students) due to HS13, and the overall impact to budget, etc. On a high level, her plan will move more polygons and more students than the Superintendent's plan or any feasibility study, or Dr. Wu's plan. The budget cost for these moves will be significant higher than previous estimates. On a personal note, I am in polygon 176, and we are actually one contiguous community to our neighbor polygon 3176. As a matter of fact, one segment of our polygon share the same and the only entrance way as polygon 3176. This plan will split our close community to two different high schools, which will cause a lot of unnecessary stress and pressure on our children in a very close community. I also want to express my strong support for Dr. Wu's plan, which has minimum impacts and keeps community together. This should be a great starting point for discussion in the next work sessions. Thank you, Qian Li Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ken Hennacy Dear BOE members- We moved to the old PheasantRidge community in 1999 (polygon #1186) when we relocated from Pennsylvania. We fall in love with the community because: 1. the 1, 021 acres of Patuxent Environmental Park has an entrance literally from our back yard; 2. The schools - yes we do know that redistricting happen and yes all Howard County schools are great. But within walkingdistance from all three school CES, CMS and RH provide comfort that our children will not be bused to unfamiliar neighborhoods. We invite you to take a drive to our neighborhood and you will see/feel clearly why 1186 belongs to CMS - don't be fooled by the mileage the GPStells you from 1186 to CMS or Harper's Choice Middle. In order to get to Harper's Choice Middle School, the school bus will haveto get on the (alreadytoo congested) 108, pass a bridge across the river (which is sometimes very slippery in the winter), pass several lights, gas stations, and a shopping center. On the other side, CMS is right there after making a left turn by the pool! CMS is THE school for1186!To make a point, I have attached a map highlighting our adjacencyto CMS. We applaud Dr. Wu's proposed plan - which is the least disruptive (moving 3000 students vs 7000). "Every penny counts!" - Dr. Wu has demonstrated that it is possible to addressthe overcapacity problem without causing a tremendous deficient in the County budget in addition to breaking up communities. Thank you everyone for serving on the board! You are role models to our children - please show them that you put their well-beingin the first place! (everything else is just noise) - Remember - children feel safe when are close to home. Best regards, Ken and Jane Hennacy 443-535-9559 1185 ... Ji. l-'-"*. Harper's Chcrice 185 MS . ^.' 188 ^.. i-f. -:,: Clarksvllle MS Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shuliang Li Dear BOE members: Thanks to all board members spending so much time on redistricting. Thank you Dr. Wu and Ms. Mallo for presenting the alternative proposals last night. Among all plans on the table, I strongly support Dr. Wu's redistricting plan. Dr. Wu's plan only affects around 3000 students, while all other plans will affect around 7000-9000students. His plan is a good starting point. His plan is the most cost effective plan. Pleasethink about cost otherwise we will be facing with cutting down more teachers. Ms. Mallo's plan will still impact over 7000 students. Her plan is quite similar to Dr. Martinaro's plan with mass redistricting moving 7300 students. Do we want to cut more teachers just for busing students around? Ms. Mallo s plan will further split my community. Polygon 1186 and 186 are together and both are separated by 1000 acre of environmental protection area. It makes no sense to have 186to go to one school (Clarksvile Middle) while 1186 have to go to Harpers choice. Please be logical, none of us can cross the 1000 acre natural forest barrier to go to Harpers choice Middle except we take a detour on route 108 which has a lot traffic. This will increase our bus travel time 3 or 4 times! Please use Dr. Wu's redistricting plan for further discussion on redistricting. Julia Li in Polygon 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Tricia Mercy Dear BOE Members, After seeing Ms Mallo's proposed redistricting plan at the workingsession last night am completely frustrated with the total disregard for community input and lack of common sense. It makes absolutely no sense to move students toward the overcrowded schools in the East. Ifwe are trying to address overcrowding and minimize traffic disruptions, Polygon 183 should be moved westto Glenelg High school which is currently undercapacity. Ms. Mallo's plan splits polygons along Folly Quarter Road between Glenelg High School and Wilde Lake High School. The result is a feed to Wilde Lake High school that is well under 10 %. This is a violation of HCPSSPolicy 6010which states that redistricting efforts will have "feedsthat encourage keepingstudents together from one school to the next and avoidingfeeds of less than 15 % at the receiving school." In addition, Ms Mallo's plan is expensiveand a busing logistical nightmare. Ourcommunity is very rural. As a result it takes a long time for buses to pick up students. Most bus stops in our area have Just a few kids, so the bus must make manystops in orderto fill up. Driving Easton Homewood Road is very congested in the morning. Manycommuters take our rural back roads to avoid Route 32 traffic and I have spent many mornings sitting in long traffic delays trying to get into Columbia for an appointment. The last thing we need is to add more traffic going East. Polygon 183 is significantly closer to Glenelg High School (less than half as far as Wilde Lake) and there are seldom traffic issues going West in the morning. Pleasedo not consider Ms. Mallo'sor Dr. Martirano'splan. They both create a busing nightmare and create a feeder that blatantly violates Policy 6010. I suggest you look at some other untouched polygons, such as Polygon 147, in the extremely overcrowded Centennial district to move to Wilde Lake High School. They are significantly closer to Wilde Lake High School, would bring in kids that would help balance the FARM rate, have a good feed, and would ease some of the crowding at Centennial. Move West, Not East Sincerely, Tricia Mercy Polygon 183 Sent from Mail for Windows 10 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Xinran Li Dear BOE members, My name is XinraaLi andwe live in Polygon 1186. Thank you for your effort trying to put together a plan that address overcrowding, and at the same time minimize disruption to students' life and community integrity. Between the two plan proposed last night, we strongly suggest starting with Dr Wu's plan which is least disruptive, more cost efficient, and with a lot of common sense that focusing on moving students from overcrowding school to under capacity school. Best, Xinran Li Polygonll86 1185 Ct. ln. .^;pflPor ho'^^t^ i-!m Harper's C}0^''C;L;id Choice 185 MS J?-; c"i : &: 2028 1186 C'l.i'iis-;, :^. . ^'. ^U>nK, . m Ns'iijn Clarksvllle MS /^ ^ /<'A Kathleen V. Hanks From: MalavJoshi Goodmorning, Thank you for all of your hard work as BOE members and coming up with redistricting solutions that will help aU families in the county. I reside in the Walnut Creek neighborhood(Polygon 176) andhave two childrenwho arenot yet school aged. After watching yesterdays work session I would like to provide support for Dr. Wu's proposal as it closely follows policy 6010 - he addresses overcrowding while keeping communities together and addresses socioeconomic diversity with his proposed polygon moves. His plan is also more fiscally responsible since it moves less children from their current schools. As you consider all possible moves for your work sessiontomorrow - please consider the fact that a significant portion of the Walnut Creek neighborhood is only accessible through the entrance of Walnut Grove (Polygon 3176) and shares a bus stop with this neighborhood. In Ms. Mallo's plan, she has proposed to keep 3176 at RHHS but move 176 to WLHS. This results in a split community andviolates policy 6010 by creating very small feeds (<15%) of students from FQMSto RHHS and FQMSto WLHS.It would make the most sense to keep both ofthese polygons at RHHS since it is ciirrently under capacity. The only reason these polygons should move out ofRHHS should be as a result ofa domino effect in relieving overcrowding in the east part ofthe county. If this ends up being the case then these polygons should move to GHS so that they are included in a strong feed ofTRES -> FQMS --> GHS. These two polygons are extremely culturally/ethnically/racially diverse. Also, there are no traffic lights (3 roundabouts) onthe5 mile drive from these polygons to GHS when using the same bus route as the ES and MS. There are 10 traffic lights and over 6 miles to WLHS. RHHS is 1. 5 miles away and we should stay at our current, under capacity, community school but if there is redistricting necessary due to a domino effect to relieve over-crowding in the east then we should move to GHS which is even more under utilized, already has a strong feed from FQMS, and is a shorter bus route/commute from Polygon 176 than the proposed move to WLHS. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Malav Joshi, M. D. Cara Crown - Polygon 200 I oppose Superintendent Martirano's redistricting proposal. Myfamily's home has been designated in polygon 200.Our oldest songraduated from RiverHill HighSchool in May. My youngest son is a freshman at River Hill. The redistricting plan would send our freshman to Glenelg High School next year. I have many concerns and objections to the proposed plan. One of my concerns isfor the FARM students.As a relativelyprivate person, I havestruggled with whether I shouldshare my and my husband's childhood experiences but I amtired ofthe namecalling and egregious, sweeping assumptions aboutthe RiverHill community. I am a first-generation college student. My husbandis a blue-collarworker making an hourly wage. We struggle financially to livein this county. We inherited our home from my husband's parents. My husband haslived in this home and on the property for 47 years. The River Hill community grew up around his home otherwise we would in no way be able to afford buying a home in this area. My husband was raised with an alcoholic father. He rarely got a good night's sleep. Hisfather would come home in the middle of night drunk. He would wake my husband and his mother andmany times beat them. Myhusband would go to schoolhaving gotten little sleepand sometimes havingbeen abused. In school, he often simplyjust put hishead on hisdesk to sleep. I thoughtwhen I wasa child wasa partof the middle-class. I recognizedthat mysisters and I hadless than most of our peers but it reallywasn't until high school that I realizedwhy. We were poor. When myfather needed oral surgery, my sisters and I were loaded into the backof our Father's pickup truck and driven around the county. We would drive back roads and had to jump outto pickup aluminum cans.They were turned infor moneyto help payfor the surgery. I rememberbeing embarrassed by my lack of clothes. I neverhad the correct clothes for any special event. I placed inthe middle school spelling beeand went to thecounty competition. I recall clearly driving into the parking lot anxious about what I waswearing rather than the bee itself. My point isthis... I wasanxious and aware that I hadless than others. I worried about it way too much. Even today it consumes the memories of my childhood. I shareour stories forthis reason only: moving usto other, especially more affluent, schools wouldnot have made our lives any easier or improved their overall quality. Itwould have elevatedmy anxiety and honestly, I thinkI wouldhave crumbled emotionally. Myhusband would still havehad a difficult home life.You are considering moving kidswho are living similar lives, with limited moneyand complicated home lives.This proposafwill not magically remove obstacles these kidshave to better learning. Additionally, theproponents ofthis'proposalhave decidedit isbest to supportit bycalling some areas, like River Hill, racists, elitists'and other" hateful names. Really?So now these FARMSkids will bedropped atthe front doorof a place supposedlyfilled with angry, racist elitists as far as they have been told. I canonly image the worry andfear they will feel. You aremistaken ifyou think that they will miraculously thrive. I am concerned about howthey, and all ofthe shuffled kids, will manage the transitions (not to mention the longer commutes). In addition to my above concerns. Dr. Martirano's proposal is a logistical nightmare for the county, forthe schools andfor the parents. Eachday I put my child on a busfor a long (in time) commute to school which would grow. I've learned that the bus companies are short staffed and lacking in enough busses. And this proposal wants to add to this dilemma, the counties congestion and fossil fuel usage. I don't everwant to hearabout howthe schools orthis county are "green" if this plan stays on the table and is enacted. Under Dr. Martirano's proposal, my son would be going from a more highly ranked, diverse schoolto a good butlower ranked, /e55 diverse school. DoI wanthim to switch? No.As a family we havegrown relationships withteachers, coachesand families at RiverHill. Myolder son can provide insight on teachers and their preferences. My younger son walked into River Hill on the firstday to haveteacher after teacher ask if he was Kenny's brother. One teacher pulled him aside and my son said he thought, "what did I do, I've only been in class ten minutes?" The teacher quietly asked howhis brother wasdoing and where hedecided to goto college andto please tell him shesaid hello. It wasa kind, sweet moment born out ofthe relationship developedover four years at the school. Nowthose relationships grow with my younger son. All ofthat will belost ifour youngest isshuffled inthis proposal from oneunder capacity school to another. As more and more information is uncovered about Dr. Martirano's proposal's creation and how the polygons were drawn, I also see the political, personal and financial reasons from which it emanated. None ofwhich have anything to do with the well-being ofthe kids in this county. Originally redistricting wasto alleviate overcrowding. Then the proposal was announced and theterm diversitywas referenced. Then equity. Then socio-economic gaps. Handpicked committees in private meetings created a selfish, self-serving plan. Furthermore, the platforms onwhich several BOE members campaigned are drastically different than those they are followingin regardto the proposal. One board member said in hercampaign platform that no highschool student should be moved once they've started at a school.I wholeheartedlyagree. I urgethe BOEmembers to make practical, ethical,thoughtful andfinancially sound decisions about the proposals in play. I want nothing more than for every child to have wonderful school memories, less stressful and anxiety ridden than myown. Dr. Martirano's plan creates unnecessary turmoil and trauma intentionally. There are less destructive, more functional andfinancially sound options. Hire moreteachers and para-educators for the FARMS schools, expand the Jump Start program so families whowant to join anunder-capacity school can. Usefunds, not on bussing, butto hold SATprep classesfor FARMstudents orcommunity specific earlyeducation readingprograms. Findbetter alternatives to give FARM students more opportunities. This proposal Is'an' unrealistic, unpalatable monster dividingthe community, respectfully request that more reasonable, feasible plans be considered. Kathleen V. Hanks From: jiaming zhang Dear BOE memebers, Thanksfor your hard work in yesterday's workingsession, strongly oppose Ms. Malta's proposal which ignores concern of the deficit of current budget and community feedbackfrom multi-days public hearing. BOE members should understand the reason and importance of those public hearing. Dividingpolygon 186&1186will definitely break one cohesive community. I urge you to keep polygon 1186 in the CES-CMS-RiverhillHigh feed!! Kind regards, Juan Du Polygon ttll86 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Rita KJoshi Good morning, Thank you for all ofyour hard work as BOB members and coming up with redistricting solutions that will help all families in the county. I reside in the Walnut Creek neighborhood (Polygon 176) andhave two children who are not yet school aged. After watching yesterdays work session I would like to provide support for Dr. Wu's proposal as it closely follows policy 6010 - he addresses overcrowding while keeping communities together and addresses socioeconomic diversity with his proposed polygon moves. His plan is also more fiscally responsible since it moves less children from their current schools. As you consider all possible moves for your work session tomorrow - please consider the fact that a significant portion of the Walnut Creek neighborhood is only accessible through the entrance of Walnut Grove (Polygon 3176) and shares a bus stop with this neighborhood. In Ms. Mallo's plan, she has proposed to keep 3176 at RHHS but move 176 to WLHS. This results in a split community and violates policy 6010 by creating very small feeds (<15%) of students from FQMS to RHHS and FQMS to WLYIS. It would make the most sense to keep both of these polygons at RHHS since it is currently under capacity. The only reasonthese polygons shouldmove out ofRHHS shouldbe as a result ofa domino effect in relieving overcrowding in the eastpart ofthe county. Ifthis ends up beingthe casethen these polygons shouldmove to GHS so that they are included in a strong feed ofTRES --> FQMS -> GHS. These two polygons are extremely culturally/ethnically/racially diverse. Also, there are no traffic lights (3 roundabouts) onthe 5 mile drive from these polygons to GHS when using the same bus route as the ES and MS. There are 10 traffic lights and over 6 miles to WLHS. RHHS is 1.5 miles away and we should stay at our current, under capacity, community school but if there is redistricting necessary due to a domino effect to relieve over-crowding in the east then we should move to GHSwhich is even more under utilized, already has a strong feed from FQMS,and is a shorter bus route/commute from Polygon 176 than the proposed move to WLHS. Thankyou for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Rita K. Joshi, Pharm. D., MBA Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shyam Balani POLYGON 176 29TH October 2019 Dear board members h to what Lam^/r ting ,wit regards was discussed during the work session dated 28 October 2019, We appreciate theeffort and time involved m imderstanding thematter athand. Youhave been handed a dauntingtask. It is evident what a struggle this hasbeen, working with either inaccurate dataor datathat is not current. We certainlyneed all thefacts when making arduous decisions. Weneed to getit rightthe first time andcannot risk dire consequences of a hasty decision. I feelit isimperative that you know the following fact :-With regards to polygon 176,the first bus stop is sharedboth byWalnut Creek(176) and Grove (3176). Thisis dueto thefact that our DeighborsTive'in Poly80ns 176 and 3176 BO!yg("131J6'.BOth. (contiguous neighborhood) are conDected and a community. Polygons 176and 3176 are right smack on Sheppardlane. The high school bus currentiy uses ; lane to transport kids to River Hill. Furtherthe board's attempt to examinekey issues related to schoolcapacity, taking into accountnatural boundaries and roads connections is major commendable. Costly md dangerous mistakes with regards to transportation and student's safety can be avoided now. I. £ercforee.ncourage&eboardtofocus °" ur-. w"'sProposal, its essence being balancing school capacity ; minimizing students travel times andachieving equity. Dr. Wuis adhering'to Policy 6010 as"he addresses overcrowding^while keeping communities together. There is genuine concern to'advanceeducation'excellence" I County students. Capacityis the driving factor of policy- whymove students out'ofan under" capacity school featis 1. 5 miles away(which is the casefor polygon 176)? Geographic pl'oximityconsideration of Policy 6010. The proposed redistrictmg ofPo'lygon 1°76 triples the travel time of students! In adherence to Policy 6010 , please note the above fact andkeep polygon 176at our current high school River Hill. Thank you for your efforts Shyam K Balani Polygon 176 On Oct 28, 2019, at 2:34 PM, ShyamBalani Dear Sirs As the Board deliberates on redistricting these next few weeks, I hope common sense will prevail, and the Board adheres to Policy 6010. OurPolygon is currently abouta mile from River Hill High school andis beingconsidered to be redistricted to Wild Lake High School whichis 6 Times further. Thank you for listening and appreciate all your efforts. Shyam K Balani Cell: 1-253-678-4503 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Susana C To Whom it May Concern, I am reachingout regardingthe changesin the school re-zoningof Polygon79. Firstof all I wanted to saythank you for approving the risingJuniors to stayin the Home HighSchool Now isit possible for you guys to consider the TRAILING SIBLINGSto stay inthe same school aswell, please consider this it would make it a lot easierfor most ofthe parents. Both ofmy daughters goto thesame school the are both in the school VarsitySoccer team and would love to beable to stay together. One of the reasons we bought our house is because of the location and of course the school. Thank you in advance for taking the time and for your hard work Susana Campos (410)710-9648 Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shengtao dong support Wu Chao's plan, it is reasonable and keeps community united. shengtao POLYGON 176 29TH October 2019 Dear board members I am writing with regards to what was discussed during the work session dated 28 October 2019. We appreciate the effort and time involved in understanding the matter at hand. You have been handed a daunting task. It is evident what a struggle this has been, working with either inaccurate data or data that is not current. We certainly need all the facts when making arduous decisions. We need to get it right the first time and cannot risk dire consequences of a hasty decision. I feel it is imperativethat you know the following fact :-With regardsto polygon 176, the first bus stop is shared both by Walnut Creek (176) and Grove (3176). This is due to the fact that our neighbors live in Polygon 3176. Both polygons 176 and 3176 (contiguous neighborhood) are connected and a community. Polygons 176 and 3176 are right smack on Sheppard lane. The high school bus currently uses Sheppard lane to transport kids to River Hill. Further the board's attempt to examine key issues related to school capacity, taking into account natural boundaries and major roads connections is commendable. Costly and dangerous mistakes with regards to transportation and student's safety can be avoided now. I therefore encourage the board to focus on Dr. Wu's proposal, its essence being balancing school capacity while minimizing students travel times and achieving equity. Dr. Wu is adhering to Policy 6010 as he addresses overcrowdingwhile keeping communities together. There is genuine concern to advance education excellence for all Howard County students. Capacity is the driving factor of policy- why move students out of an under capacity school that is 1. 5 miles away (which is the case for polygon 176)? Geographic proximity consideration of Policy 6010. The proposed redistricting ofPolygon 176 triples the travel time of students! In adherenceto Policy 6010 , please note the above fact andkeep polygon 176 at our current high school River Hill. Thank you for your efforts Bharati Balani Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shuliang Li Dear BOE members: I strongly support Dr. Wu'sredistricting plan. I applaud for his care aboutthe community andstudents in Howard county. Please consider his plan and use his plan as the basis for further discussion about the redistricting. Dr. Wu's plan only affects around 3000 students, while all other plans will affect around 7000- 9000 students. His plan is a good starting point. His plan is the most cost effective plan. We need to consider the cost ofredistricting. It is absurd we would rather spend more money eachyear on busing students for redistricting while we have to cut teachers. Pleasethink aboutthe cost. Ms. Mallo's plan doesnot provide much ofimprovement in comparison with superintendent's proposal. Her plan will still impact over 7000 students. I appreciate the effort but it does not result in good outcome. Her plan will further split my community where kids walk or bike through the same hiking trail to the same elementary (Clarksville Elementary) and high school (river hill high) will no longer go to the same middle school (Clarksville Middle). My polygon 1186and 186 aretogether andseparated by 1 000 acre ofenvironmental protection area. Please be logical, we can't across the 1000 acre nature barrier to go to Harpers choice Middle except we take a detour on rout 108 which has a lot traffic. This will increase our bus travel time 3 or 4 times! Pleaseuse Dr. Wu'sredistricting plan for further discussion onredistricting. Andy Lin in Polygon 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Xinran Li Dear BOE members, My name is Xinran Li and we live in Polygon 1186. MS-Mallo.'s pla" divided P°lygon 186 & 1186 into 2 differentfeeds. 186to Clarksville Middle, and -8.6-t°x.Harpers.cholce;. 186and 1188are always one cohesive community historicallywith 1000 acre^natural barrier of Middle Patuxent Environment Area. Please see the map attached!!! This creates ^unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when'HS13" comes. We are strongly against it! Best, Xinran Li Polygon 1186 liffi." 1185 fi-a,,, i.un^ Pi:rt. H3iw. 'l, l. |l 'irif Cnu. -i Harper's Choice 18S MS 1028 ^, WSB i;ia:>.';v i; ^ 1UC /T^f';:'f->sn:f N^'jf'fl Clarksville MS ^.. POLYGON 176 29T October 2019 Dear board members I am writing with regards to what was discussed duringthe work session dated 28 October 2019. We appreciate the effort and time involved in understanding the matter at hand. You have been handed a dauntingtask. It is evident what a struggle this has been, workingwith either inaccurate data or data that is not current. We certainly need all the facts when making arduous decisions. We need to get it right the first time and cannot risk dire consequences of a hasty decision. I feel it is imperative that you know the following fact :-With regards to polygon 176, the first bus stop is shared both by Walnut Creek (176) and Grove (3176). This is due to the fact that our neighbors live in Polygon 3176. Both polygons 176 and 3176 (contiguous neighborhood) are connected and a community. Polygons 176 and 3176 are right smack on Sheppard lane. The high school bus currently uses Sheppard lane to transport kids to River Hill. Further the board's attempt to examine key issues related to school capacity,taking into account natural boundaries and major roads connections is commendable. Costly and dangerous mistakes with regards to transportation and student's safety can be avoided now. I therefore encourage the board to focus on Dr. Wu's proposal, its essence being balancing school capacity while minimizing students travel times and achieving equity. Dr. Wu is adhering to Policy 6010 as he addresses overcrowding while keeping communities together. There is genuine concern to advance education excellence for all Howard County students. Capacity is the driving factor of policy- why move students out of an under capacity school that is 1. 5 miles away (which is the case for polygon 176)? Geographic proximity consideration of Policy 6010. The proposed redistricting ofPolygon 176 triples the travel time of students! In adherence to Policy 6010 , please note the above fact and keep polygon 176 at our current high school River Hill. Thank you for your efforts Bhaiati Balani Kathleen V. Hanks From: mooby_99©yahoo. com Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 11:32 AM To: Christina Delmont-Small; BoE Email; Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] I Support Looking at Feeds and Taking to Time to Do this Right Polygon 183 Ms. Delmont-Small, Thank you for advocatingfor a thoughtful examination of a potential feed system in HCPPSand pushingto make sure that the Board takes the tinne to thoughtfully worktoward a reasonable redistrictingsolution. I fully support both positions. I appreciate your voice on the Board and hope that you continue to advocate for all students of HCPSS. Best, Kevin Grant Polygon 183 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chen Xia Dear BOE members, Thanks for all board members spending countless hours on this redistricting, special thanks to Dr Wu and Ms Malta for presenting the proposal last night. Between the two proposal last night, I strongly recommend to use Dr. Wu's plan as starting point, which is least disruptive, more cost effective (given us HCPSS budget concern), and common sense focusing on moving overcrowding school to under capacity school. On the other hand, Ms Mallo's proposal is quite similar to Dr Martinaro's plan, massive redistricting by moving 7300 students, breaking up the communities and ignoring the community feedback through emails, public testimony, not considering the transportation cost. Ms Mallo's plan divided polygon 186 & 1186 into 2 different feeds. 186 to Clarksville Middle, and 1186 to Harpers Choice. 186 and 1186 are always one cohesive community historically on trotter road with 1000 acre natural barrier of Middle Patuxent Environment Area. This creates unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when HS13 comes. We are strongly against it! Please keep 1186 at Clarksville Middle and thanks for your consideration! Respectfully, Xia Chen Polygon 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Xinran Li Dear BOB members, My name is Xinran Li andwe live in Polygon 1186. First ofall, thankyou for your efforttrying to put together a planthat addressovercrowding, andat the same time minimize dismption to students' life and community integrity. Betweenthe two planproposed last night, we strongly suggest starting withDr Wu's plan whichis least disruptive, more cost efficient, andwith a lot ofcommon sense that focusing on moving students from overcrowding school to under capacity school. It is disappointed to see Ms Mallo's proposal went exactly the opposite direction without any concern ofthe deficitof current budget, andcommunity feedbackvia the multi-days public hearing. Ms Mallo's plan divided polygon 186 & 1186 intokirsten coombsiahcpss. org 2 different feeds. 186 to Clarksville Middle, and 1186to Harpers Choice. 186and 1186are alwaysone cohesive community historically with 1000 acre natural barrier ofMiddle Patuxent Environment Area. This creates unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when HS13 comes. We are strongly against it! Best, Xinran Li Polygonll86 Kathleen V. Hanks From: LanlanXu Dear BOE members, My name is Lanlan Xu and I live in Polygon 186. 1 appreciate all the time and efforts you have put into the redistricting discussion, and applaud your for your public services! I urge the BOEto use Dr. Wu's proposal presented last night as the basisfor further deliberation. His approach is data driven, addresses overcrowding issue, and is the least disruptive to the communities. Respectfully, Lanlan Xu Kathleen V. Hanks From: Xinlian Chen Dear BOE members, Really appreciate your tireless effort trying to put together a plan to address overcrowding, while minimizing disruption to students' life and community integrity. Between the two plan proposed last night, my family strongly suggest starting with Dr Wu's plan which is least disruptive, more cost effective, and with a lot of common sense. Ms Mallo's proposal was very disappointing. It's still a copycat of Dr. MARTIRANO 's unpopular plan. It diregards the concerns about the looming school budget deficit, and community feedback. For example, Ms Mailo's plan divided polygon 1S6 & 1186 Into 2 different feeds 186 to Clarksville Middle, and 1186 to Harpers Choice. 186 and 1186 are always one neighborhood historically with 1000 acre natural barrier of Middle Patuxent Environment Area. The kids play together, ride same bus to school. Polygon 186 and 1186 should stay in clarksville middle school. Movin9 1186 to Harper's choice middle will create unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when HS 13 comes. We are strongly against it! Best, Xinlian Chen Polygon 1186 Dear Board, Thankyou very much forall your hard work and careful consideration, strongly support Dr. Martirano's proposed redistricting plan. As a parentofWLHS and WLMSstudents, I knowwhat amazing schools both are, and no parent should fear their children becoming part of our community. If redistncted, we would adjust, but I can honestly say there are no other schools in the county I would rather have my kids attending. I know that moving schools is difficult, but it's also an opportunity to build resiliency. As I hear about some of the testimony from the last few weeks, I'm horrified by the entitlement, dramatics, and implied racism. "Improve not move" is one step away from "separate but equal. " It's easy to look back 50 to 100 years and see what people were doing was wrong; it's much more difficult to be in the middle of it, perhaps with your own children affected, and knowwhat to do. I trust you all to take a step back, see the big picture and historical context, and find the path to the greatest good for all our Howard'County students. look forward to seeing the final plan, Megan Rivera Polygon 2146 Kathleen V. Hanks From: chenx69 Dear BOE members, Really appreciate your tireless effort trying to put together a plan to address overcrowding, while minimizing disruption to students' life and community integrity. Betweenthe two planproposed last night, my family strongly suggest starting withDr Wu'splan whichis least dismptive, more cost effective, andwith a lot of common sense. Ms Mallo's proposal wasvery disappointing. It's still a copycat ofDr. MARTIRANO 's unpopular plan. It diregards the concerns aboutthe looming school budget deficit, andcommunity feedback. For example, Ms Mallo's plan dividedpolygon 186 & 1186into 2 different feeds. 1 86to Clarksville Middle, and 1186to Harpers Choice. 186and 1186are alwaysone neighborhood historically with 1000acre natural barrier ofMiddle Patuxent Environment Area. The kids play together, ride same bus to school. Polygon 186 and 1186 should stay in clarksville middle school. Moving 1186 to Harper's choice middle will create unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issueswhen HS13 comes. We are strongly againstit! Best, Xinlian Chen Polygonll86 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jinyin Huang Dear Howard County Board of Education Members- First I applaud each one of you for searching on this BOE. After attending two work sessions, I realize how much effect each of you put in a proposal to make Howard County schools even better. My take away from last night's work session, which many in our community echo, is below: - Dr. Wu's plan is the most cost effective, least disruptive, and provides solutions to the over-capacity problem we are trying to resolve. - Ms Mallo's plan further divides our communities, will create a lot of confusion and we believe money is better spent elsewhere. We are in Polygon 1186, which is the oldest part of River Hill (we at South Wind belong to the old Pheasant Ridge community). Going to Clarksville Middle School makes sense from both time and cost perspective. Many in our neighborhood work in DC/Baltimore and easy access to the school from Rt 32 is essential to maintain a career (to afford housing) and family (children's many school activity) balance. Also, polygons 186 and 1186 are indivisible. Our children play at each other's house after school - it would be devastating to them if they end up in different school. Again, we really appreciate your time and effect] Let's do the best we can for our children. Best regards, Jane 443-538-0967 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kevin J, Radcliffe As a registered voter in District 4, I thank you for your years serving on the Board of Education. You have proven to be thoughtful, reasonable, and measured in your approach to difficult issues. Over the course of this year's redistricting process, it is clear from the online surveys, community input sessions in July, and written and spoken testimony that an overwhelming majority of Howard County strongly values community stability, strong feeds from one school level to the next, and minimized transportation costs when redistricting. Being in complete agreement with those values, I urge you to keep the neighborhoods of: Pointers Run (polygons 64, 1064, 129, 1129, 295, 190, 1190, 128), Pheasant Ridee and its Neiehbors (polygons 186, 1186, 28, 1028, 2028, 187, 1187, 1188, and 188), Beaverbrook/Lonefellow(oolvgons 144, 1144, 143, 3143, and 2143), and Maple Lawn (polygons 1256, 259, 1259, and 115)together in their respective community schools. Dividing one or more of these polygons from the rest of their established, cohesive community neighborhood destroys the very community stability that your constituents have repeatedly voiced is of utmost importance. In all past redistricting proceedings, Board of Education decisions have committed to keeping these neighborhoods together at every school level. Please uphold this decades-long precedent. Keeping these highly diverse neighborhoods together in their neighborhood schools directly upholds the standards in Policy 6010with regardsto community stability, maintainingstrong feeds, minimizing transportation costs, fiscal responsibility, demographiccharacteristics, minimizingthe number of students moved, and optimizingfacility utilization. Alternatively, sendingstudents outside of their communities without addressingthe root cause of the achievement gap places greater barriers to student achievement. Moving any child awayfrom their neighborhoodschool and community supports does more harm than good. Capacity issues can be addressed by moving far fewer students from other contiguous neighborhood polygons to neighboring schools with capacity. Schools that are underutilized should never have students swapped with other students. Please consider alternative plans submitted that better balance emergency capacity issues with community continuity and wait to do any major redistricting until HS13. Please use the time between now and the HS13 redistricting to engage the community and come up with proven solutions to close achievement gaps and bring greater equity to all Howard County schools, while at the same time, keepingthese (and all) distinct communities together. Thank you, District 4 Voter: Kevin Radcliffe Polygon # 1028 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Venkat Gurram Dear BOE Members, My name is Venkata Gurram and I am from polygon 176. would like to thank you all for examining key issues related to school capacity while considering major roads and other natural boundaries that may cause transportation difficulties and possibly safety issues. I strongly supports Dr. Wu's proposal which focuses on balancing school capacity while minimizing students travel times and improving equity. It addresses the highest concerns of citizens across the county, which have been identified by Dr. Martirano through his community sessions and online sun/eys - student travel times. This proposal will benefit students across the county. It's a true effort to provide leadership to advance excellence in teaching and learning for Howard County. PLASE keep Polygon 176 at RHHS. CHS is way over capacity, RHHS under capacity. WLSH needs to gain some capacity, and WLHS should get from CHS, not from RHHS. Why move students out of an under capacity school (RHHS) that is 1. 5 miles away to a school (WLHS) that is 7 miles away. Please consider the extra time, stress everyday for busing the kids and also the increase in traffic and the transportation costs. Thanks and Regards Venkata Gurram Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shyam Balani Dear Sirs I watchedthe working sessionlast night. I paidattention to theplans provided by BoardMembers Ms. JenniferMallo andDr. Chao Wu. Ms. Mallo's plan separates Polygon's 3176 and 176. Ifyou were to drive inour community, youwill seethat Polygon' s 3176and 176ae oneand cart of a; community. Therefore, common sense would keep these 2 polygon's together. . Lc_!ao_wu'_splm al ears. tokeep the Polygons together and specifically address the over-crowding issue, t movmg ajignificantly less number ofstudents. This is definitely a preferred plan and will both serve the purposes ofthe Board andresonate better with Howard County residents. For your review andkind consideration, please. Thanks and regards ShyamK Balani Polygon 176 > OnOct 28, 2019,at 2:34 PM, ShyamBalani > Dear Sirs > these next few LALtheBoarddeliberateson redistricting weeks, I hope common sense will prevail, and the Board adheres to Policy 6010. - " ' ~----..-,--. "., > :lowpolygmlscurrently al>outa miLefrom River Hil1 High scho°l and is being considered to be redistricted High School whichis 6 Times further. > > Thankyou for listening andappreciate all your efforts. > > Shyam K Balani > Cell: 1-253-678-4503 > Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ronda Zanker Dear Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently our Woodmark children attend River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining ~70% of FQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children of our Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. It would make sense to make us one polygon number for future planning, that's how other neighborhoods around us are grouped. The plan from Ms. Mallo is not in line with BOE Policy 6010 which commits to keeping neighborhoods together. Please consider the time on buses and adjustments students will have to make. As well as the negative impact this will have on their performance in school and their emotional health. I think sometimes we forget how fragile children in high school can be. If you at least keep our Woodmark community together the impact on the children wouldn't be as hard. Please eliminate this small feed for our Woodmark community! Thank you, Ronda Zanker (polygon 180) Kathleen V. Hanks From: Furney, Susan M. Dear Board of Education Members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on 10/28/19, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently our neighborhood attends River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining 70% of FQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. This is what I believe the HCPSS has committed to eliminate per HCPSS Policy 6010. I respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thank You, Susan Furney 12340 Pans Spring Ct Ellicott City Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shuliang Li Dear BOE members: I attended BOE work session last night. I strongly support Dr. Wu's plan because his plan is least disruptive and most cost effective. His plan only affects around 3000 students, while all other plans will affect around 7000- 9000 students. His plan considers both utilizationand have reasonable solutions for reducingthe rate of students receiving FARM. Please considerhis plan and use his plan as the basis for further discussionabout the redistricting. It is disappointing to see Ms. Mallo's proposal went exactly the opposite direction without any concern of the deficit of current budget and breaking even more communities. Her plan will still affect more than 7000 students which requires more transportation budget. I strongly oppose Ms. Mallo's proposal. Thank you. Shuliang Li (Polygon 1186) Kathleen V. Hanks From: Anna Nemirovsky 159 and ! 59" This breaks the please_d('_notmoye 1. up Valleymede commimity, messes up the feeds and has our rtaiyschool kids shipped out to a schoolthat is 3 timesthe distance &omhome, comparedto'tlTeir current ' ane'thatis located. inthe neighborhood. Thiswill worsenalready miserable traffic on 99 in the morning andsignificantly prolong the commute. Ifthis change is brought up by the prospective'conslruction ; route 99,please consider creating a newpolygon for that development. Sincerely, Anna Nemirovsky, Polygon 159 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Lori Long Dear BOE members, As a resident in polygon 1199, 1 am writingto support Dr. Wu's proposed plan for the following reasons: 1. Compared to all the other proposals. Dr. Wu's plan moves the least number of students and thus, is least disruptive to the communities. 2. Dr. Wu s proposal was based on serious and reliable data analysis. It makes a lot more sense than the other proposals. It keeps the increase of transportation cost to a minimum. 3. Dr. Wu provided reasons when proposing moves of individual polygons. He mentioned a couple of times his suggestions were based on the feedbacks in our testimonies. His plan is the ONLYONE that takes public input into serious consideration. 4. Dr. Wu's plan keeps all schools' capacity at 110%or less. 5. Dr. Wu's plan reduces FARM percentages in schools. 6. Dr. Wu's plan keeps walkers as walkers. On the other hand, I urge you to disregard Ms. Malta's proposal because 1) It is even more disruptive than the superintendent's plan; 2) It proposes to move a total number of 9000 students and will increase of a lot of transportation costs and time; 3) Ms. Mallo apparently did not take any public input into consideration. I also urge you to disregard the superintendent's plan if you have read our testimonies and taken our feedback (i. e. 99. 85% opposition) into consideration. Best regards, Lori Long Polygon #1199 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Lfang Dear BOE members, Thank you for your effort trying to put together a plan that address overcrowding, and at the same time minimize disruptionto students' life and community integrity. Between the two plan proposed last night, we strongly suggest starting with Dr Wu's plan which is least disruptive, more cost efficient, andwith a lot of common sense that focusing on moving students from overcrowding school to under capacity school. It is disappointed to see Ms Malta's proposal went exactly the opposite direction without any concern of the deficit of current budget, and community feedback via the multi-days public hearing. For example, Ms Mallo's plan divided polygon 186 & 1186 into 2 different feeds. 186 to Claiksville Middle, and 1186to Harpers Choice. 186 and 1186 are always one cohesive community historically with 1000 acre natural barrier of Middle Patuxent Environment Area. This creates unnecessaryinconsistent feed whichwill lead to future redistricting issues when HS13 comes. We are strongly against it! Best, Lijuan Fang Polygon 1186 Board of Education 10910ClarksvilIePike EllicottCity, MD21042 Dear Board members: I read the details of Dr. Chao Wu's redistricting plan this morning, and I wanted to share feedback on three polygons impacted in way that feels like a mistake in an otherwise strong plan. My family lives in polygon 1231-thatpoiygon, along with 231 and 232, are slated, in Dr. Wu'splan, to move from Mount View Middle School to Glenwood Middle School. This move would create a very small middle school feed (their current feed is a perfect 100% feed from West Friendshipto Mount View), and a high school feed of less than 5%. This entire cluster ofpolygons has only 43 children projected to attend Mount View Middle School next year. This group of 43, should they be moved to Olenwood Middle, would be the only group of kids to eventually leave Glenwood Middle for Marriotts Ridge; an average of less than 1 5 kids in an entire grade. Dr. Wu spoke last night about how harmful very small feeds are, which is why 1 think this move in his plan is an oversight. On top of concerns about the incredibly small feed that this would create, 1 am deeply concerned about the added travel time that this would create. Although Mt View is only 2.2 miles away from my front door, my 7th grader's current bus ride in the morning is 50 minutes, picking her up at 6:46 am. This is unchangeablegiven the nature ofour community, with its windingrural roads that pick up 1-2 kids every halfmile, andI have no complaints. It is what it is, because it takes time to fill up a bus here. However, there is no reason to make it even worse by adding a 6-7-mile ride to Glenwood, during the early morning rush. The ride to Glenwood would exceed an hour in the best of conditions and would likely hit 70 minutes asroutine. This is our current pick up time for Mt. View's 7:35 start time, from the HCPSS travel site (again, this is to travel to a school only 2 miles away): t. r ;. t H'.. :"J^?^ t;h; ".. >:^ These polygons are stable, with no new development projects in the pipeline to make such a move proactively strategic. We currently attend our closest school at every level, and each ofthose schools is being used at targeted levels. Please keep polygons 231-1231-232 in place. Thank you for your time and attention. I deeply appreciate how thoughtful all of you are being about these moves, and I know that when you take a look at these polygons, you'll see the arguments that I am making here are logical. -Melissa Bonier, Polygon 1231 Kathleen V. Hanks From: krupa patel Dear Board members, Lam_writ"''gthis email to.. remindyou a9ain that so manyofus from Polygon 176appeared for the test'morlyforagainst redistricting from RiverHill Highto'Wildlake High and presented'many different viewsJrom why we are against this move. Justto remindyou again"themajor factors thatyou'are" probably not even considering. - The bus_for the current High school, River Hill, comes to our neighborhood at 6:45 am in the morning Riverhill is only 1. 4 miles from our house, white Wild Lake is 5. 9 miles. The bus will'come at .east30-min-' earlier. tha" '-tc.omesnow'. Mychild already hasso much homework at nightand she doesn'tgo to sleeptill 10:30/11:00pm. Howwill sheget'enough sleep andbe abTe7o'to'\ better in school? l,!^8^ y^u-^ns!?e^ t^ffic studyat thf. intersection for Rt 108and Sheppard lane. thinkyou ihou!d, ' - Krupa Patel (Polygon 176) Kathleen V. Hanks From: JenniferWamsley Ms. Delmont-Small, Thankyou for advocating for a thoughtfulexamination of a potentialfeed system in HCPPS and pushing to makesure that the Board takes the time to thoughtfully work toward a reasonableredistricting solutio^J fully support both positions. I appreciate your voice on the Board and hope that you continue to advocate for all students ofHCPSS. Best, JenniferWamsley Polygon 183 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Abhinav Sankineni Dear BOE members, Thankyou for the time and effort you all areputting in for currentredistricting process. I dounderstand that this ^stressfal for allmvolved. I amwriting to supportDr Wu's proposal andrequesting to reject Ms Jennifer )'s proposal for the following reasons: L ^support redistricting forovercrowding andDr Wu's plan achieves thiswith moving the least number of students as compared to the other two proposed plans. 2. Costis a majorfactor in the current financial state of the school system andmoving fewerkids translates into transportation expenditure. 3. Dr Wu'splan keeps students intheir neighborhood schools andminimizes travel times. 4.Dr Wu's plan takes into account FARM rates and takes into account feeder systems foreach school so that wlhaw.a.longtermplanwhen new devel°Pments are proposed. We must make an effort to"avo-id frequent" Sjwhichis dismptive to studentsand a major sourceof stress for both students andparents'. Vayir attentiontofeeder systems durlng redistricting is the'first step towards achievingthatgoaL 5:MSMallo's plm splits UPPolygon 176(walnut creek) frompolygon 3176(walnut~grwe)^ Polygon 3176has TOlnutcreek's phase 1 init. Walnutcreek phasel canonly be'acc'essed thiough'Walmt grove'enti'ranc^ We" ; a common bus stop for both polygons. The first home in Walnut creek is the closeit hometo~RHHS. ~It not make sense to redistrict Polygon 176 to WLHS for these reasons. Thank you, Abhinav Sankineni Polygon 176. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Deepthi Bommadevara Dear BOE members, Thank you for the time and effort you all are putting in for current redistricting process. I do understand that this is stressful for all involved. I am writing to support Dr Wu's proposal and requesting to reject Ms Jeruiifer Mallo's proposal for the following reasons: 1. 1 support redistncting for overcrowding and Dr Wu's plan achievesthis with moving the least number of students as compared to the other two proposed plans. 2. Cost is a major factor in the current financial state ofthe school system and moving fewer kids translates into less transportation expenditure. 3. Dr Wu's plan keeps students in their neighborhood schools and minimizes travel times. 4. Dr Wu'splan takes into account FARMrates andtakes into accountfeeder systems for each school so that we have a long term plan when new developments are proposed. We must make an effort to avoid frequent redistricting which is disruptive to students and a major source of stress for both students and parents. Paying attention to feeder systems during redistricting is the first step towards achieving that goal. 5. Ms Mallo s plan splits up polygon 176(walnut creek) from polygon 3176( walnut grove). Polygon 3176 has walnut creek's phase 1 in it. Walnut creek phasel can only be accessed through Walnut grove entrance. We share a common bus stop for both polygons. The first home in Walnut creek is the closest home to RHHS. It does not make sense to redistrict Polygon 176 to WLHSfor these reasons. Thank you, Deepthi Bommadevara Polygon 176. October 29, 2019 Dear Board of Education members: It iswith vast disappointment firustration, anddismay that we watched Ms. Mallo's redistricting presentation last evening on 10/28/2019. You have ignored every single word our community hasvoiced. Ms^Mallo's plancontinues thetheme ofdisropting lives, breakingup communities, andshipping children acrossthe_county forthe elusive nirvana called "equity" through the shuffling of FARMs rates across schools. This becomes a number game that disguises andcovers up thereal underlying problems and does^no^solve anyissues that result in high FARMs rates insome areas of the County Youalready know thatFARMs rate is a very poorproxy for socioeconomic status. You are also aware that there is no consensus aroundthe relative costAienefit offorced socioeconomic integration, other thanmoving schools hasa distinctnegative impacton children. Yetyou persist in continuing thiscourse. Whatis your true basis in proposing such a change? M theHigh^Schoolkvel, Ms.Mallo's plan is not significantly different from that presented by Dr. Martirano. Worse,Ms. Mallo's plan will necessitate the disruption of many additional children at the elementary andmiddle school levels to maintain reasonably-sized feedsto highschools. T, ecuITent re'iistrictmg Process hasbeen anunmitigated disaster. It hastorn apartwhat was once a very tolerant county. ^ It hascaused an untold but significant amount of stress to a greatmany people in our community. It has costus coundess hours andeffort in opposing your tyrannical, careless, and irresponsible redistrictmg plans. You-sl"'uldn°t PIaymasters thataltered the lives andlivelihood ofso many in our community. I implore youyet againto dowhat is in thebest interest ofHoward County's children andkeep redistricting to'a minimum, to focus strictly onrelieve overcrowding. Please doNOT use children as'political pawns. You as a board member, have a duty to do what is in the best interest ofALL children in all communities inHoward County. As such,one would expect you to attemptto minimizethe pain this process is causmga greatnumber of our children and family. Ms. Malta'splan does the exact opposite. Please: this. irresponsible proposal. Sincerely, H. Michael Yu and Ya-Yu Tsai Polygon 183 12719 Folly Quarter Road J From: Francoise Jakobsson Hello old friends, feel likethe girlfriend that pinesafter a guyand keeps sending himtexts andall hedoes iswrite backwith "K." But here I am, trying once again... © I would liketo start this letter bysaying thank you for all yourwork andyour time to serve ourschools. Thetask is daunt'."e:the-variables insurm°ur'table... thethousands of children touched bythe decisions yo'uma'ke'. Notmany .peopteca". l:l°whatY°" d°'but yet'we a"can tel1 y°u h°wto d° it Unfortunately, atthe end, \'hisisa'"yougetwhat .y°uge!tand you'" Pr°bablY. be"Pset" deal- but I'mstill goingto tell you aboutthe itemsthat impact myneighborhood, what I think is best for my children, and I do hopethat they get addressed. My-°ri6"1a'.testimonycentered around the closing of the achievement gap in our schools and how I stronglyfeel that t!1er.eare. s°.manYotherwaYsthat aremore successful ratherthan moving kids around, especially when Dr. M's plan moves numbers so^slightlyand yet movesso many kidsfrom theircommunities. Withthe threat ofless dollars comine in . education, I truly believe that money should bespent on resources and not transportation. TODAY,I writeabout my polygon 181. We are approximately 50 houses in the established neighborhood ofWoodmark. I Mill Road.Woodmark isdivided intothree polygons -181, 180and 1180. 1 wasspeaking to a'neighbor'the Ldaywhousedto slt °. ntheneiBhborh°°d HOA board. She told me that several years back'she brought-up"th'e possib!e.pr°blem°f °"r nei. 8hborhoodhav'"g different polygons and that we might encounter beinVspli't'i'nfu'ture' smceour nei6hb°rho°d has been around for 50 years, and never been split/thisdidn't'seem a .redis tr'ct."18-. problem :. wasvervpressi"6 andso"°one didanythine aboutit And herewe are. Under Dr. M's and Dr.Wu's plans, weare separatedfrom the rest ofthe neighborhood,with Dr. M havingus go to WLHSand Dr. Wu to RHHS.I askthat^ pleasekeep 181,_180and 1180 together underany redistricting plan and,like all the neighborhoods a'round'us"" ; Estates, Ridgewood,Buckskin Lake, etc - changeit sothat we are all ONEpolygon. I ALSOwrite to you today to pointout a bigflaw in Ms. Malta'splan for the FQMS to WLHS feed. Ms. Mallo removes !a^e^e'eh,b,OLho°djfr°mDr' M'splan and adds 180/118° to the feed-The removai °fseveraYhundredhome's"repLced i°"°ftw° w!ththe, addit POIVBOns that have approximately 172 homes makes the feed to'WLHStinyand'agamst" '6010. The numbers are rough, this new information has uscrunching numbers literally' inthem'idd'leo^thenie "1' timates has l"°posecl feed between bule s, thisp. 12-14% (Dr-M had It at an already low 17%)'. Under the Communitv6 stab";tyAect'°"of601°'sectio"z- '"""*"a" ca"s for "feeds that encourage keeping students together'froni'one' Ito^thenext. Forexample, avoiding feeds of less than 15% at the receiving school. " Pleaseflx'allfeeds'that have so many few children attending their next school. Thankyou againfor yourtime. FrancoiseJakobsson Polygon 181 12171 Mt. Albert Rd. Ellicott City, MD 21042 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Matt Jones DEAR BOARD OF EDUCATION GOOD MORNING. PLEASE SEE THE ATTACHED CHARTS, WHICH HOPE WILL BE HELPFUL IN YOUR CONSIDERATION OF HIGH SCHOOL CAPACITf CONCERNS. SUMMARY: 1. THREE HIGH SCHOOLS ARE OVER 115% AND NEED ADDRESSED IMMEDIATELY [CENTENNIAL, HOWARD, MT HEBRON] 2. GLENELG AND POINTS WEST/NORTH OF RT 108 WILL BE "SLOW GROWTH" DUE TO LACK OF WATER/SEWER INFASTRUCTURETO SUPPORT HIGH DENSITY HOUSING -APARTMENTS CANNOT BE BUILTON AWELL/SEPTIC SYTEM - PLEASE SEE HOWARD COUNTY ZONING MAP PAGE 4 3. THE HIGHEST CONCENTRATION OF DENSE HOUSING - LUXURY APARTMENTS - IS BEING BUILT IN COLUMBIA/ ELKRIDGE. THIS INFORMATION IS FROM REALPAGE, INC. ALL ARE LOCATED EAST OF RT 29 AND SOUTH OF RT 100 - PLEASE SEE DEVELOPMENT PIPELINE REPORT PAGE 3 4. THE MOST OVER-CAPACITr SCHOOLS [CENTENNIAL, HOWARD & MTHEBRON] CAN SHIFT STUDENT WEST AND NORTH TO RELIEVE OVER-CAPACITY. EACH ONE OF THE OVER-CAPACITC SCHOOLS HAS AN SCHOOL NORTH OR WEST WITH AVAILABLE CAPACITr PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO REACH OUT WITH ANY QUESTIONS. THANKS MATT JONES POLYGON 176 This coinmiuiication may contain privileged or confidential information. This communication is solely for the use ofthe intended recipient. If you are not the intendedrecipient ofthis transmission, you arehereby notified that any distribution, disclosure, printing, copying, storage, modification or the taking ofany action in reliance uponthis transmission is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please delete it and notify the sender immediately. This communication is not investment advice, an offer, or solicitation ofany offer to buy or sell any security, investment or other product. Any electronic communications between us may be archived and monitored by systems or persons other than the named recipient(s) for the purposes of ascertaining compliance with relevant laws or regulations and policies. This e-mail transmission cannot be guaranteedto be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain vimses. CAPACITY COh SIDERATION STATEMENTOF FACTSFOR BOARD OF EDUCATIONREVIEW ^. HCPSS Boundaries SY - 2020 DesignatesHigh 5choo/s > ] 10%capacity ^s. 'i.^ "i-. M. y.? r^*'. ^' GunatyHS ^^..^ l'-f: . "v^ RhmrHM HS . '"'t-. th. '^2^x-'[. WHd»tr»lwMS ^'-. ^^ i ^..^'. e'^'-'i"^"^ * - "o- A. - v- . '. . «<-'>. (, "^^-^^" ^'^ f/:»a'.<'-rj 3*'. '". ".'^ , . . ?(. ". AUloBonHS ' .. lhr~" ' s^'/ ''.' Hamnxmd HS ^ " RaamvBirHS "M -',. ' -si--''/ \-"^. Ipward4/4/2019 H GH DENSITYAPARTMENT CONSTRUCTION . .. REAtPAGE Ottlfwfaim Baltimore-Columbia-Towson,MDMarket Pipeline Property Information Data as of 10/20/2019 OccNote.UC: Under construction; L Lease up; UC/L: Under construction/Lease up; P- Planned Thevvexieyai luu 6081Otterbein Rd Ellicotiuiiy ui; wood partners 394 Under Juniper 6000 MerriweatherDr Columbia UC The Howard 382 Under Hughes Construction Corporation Core Lakefront Wincopin Cir & Little Columbia The Howard 300 Pre-Planned Patuxent Pkwy Hughes Corporation Elm Street Development 6725,6767 & 6785 Elkridge Elm Street 281 Pre-Planned Washington Blvd Communities Former Hickory Ridge Village 6420 Freetown Rd Columbia Kimco Realty 230 Pre-Planned Center Corporation MemweatherDistrict II SymphonyWoods Rd & Columbia The Howard 423 Pre-Planned Hickory Ridge Rd Hughes Corporation PlanHoward 2030 Map 6-3 Sustalnable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act Growth Tiers -./-V--, Legend PLANNED SERVICE AREA BOUNDARY fPSA) PRIORITY FUNDING AREA/ PSA FOR WATER k SEWER 'v^.;)North^/' . -*4. lA"ce'i JL , 'efi^s- Souice; Howud County DPZi 2012. ;'^. eS t »" ^, ^ 'r'? ^^:f s '~ ':">^y [ ^ 1.1 ;-'. . :^:>"'ly S Y " '^s>^; ", .< ^Y-: .. '.. L;-.1 . ' t "' . '^^ ' "-^ '?v:' ltv<^ 4? s^ .../ A. . ^fc- II". f.^ 3^' I i- .., -ij . M4 . -ti . t s .. / - s : f !"s^i^., * /. s ... I ' '; ik ". ^i!&^_":^'-*; s- . -f. S'-^W :/^:'^S.. ' 3- I ^ -/s 3fit <5SS CONCLUSION . THREEHfGH SCHOOLS > ; ;5% CAPACfTT NEED ADDRESSED ASAPfCentennfaf, Howard, Mt Hebron] GLENELGREGION and AREAS NORTH/WEST of RT108 WILL BESLOW GROWTH - THEY CANNOT ACCOMMODATE HIGHDENSHY HOUSINGWITHOUT MUNICIPAL WATER & SEWERSERVICE . HIGHESTDENSITY HOUSING IS BEING BUILT EAST OF RT29 . SHIFTWEST & NORTH TO UTILIZE GLENELG CAPACITY- TH/5 WILL CREATE ROOM TO MOVE CENTENNIAL, HOWARD and MT HEBRON Kathleen V. Hanks From: Celia O'Brien Dear Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently we attend River Hill High Schoofin an approximate 30% feed_from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining -70% of FQMSgoes to ?Tn.elg..Hi9h s?h?.°. !; BykeePin9 Polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children ofour Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thank you. Celia O'Brien 12170 Mount Albert Road Ellicott City, MD 21042 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Anna Nemirovsky Thank youto Dr. Wufor putting in so muchtime andeffort andcoming up with a sensible plan. I would like to mention polygons 159 and 1159, though. They are apart ofthe Valleymede community, and as such have always maintained a continuous fees from St John's Lane Elementary, to Patapsco Middle, to Mt Hebron High. I wasvery happy to seethat your plans allows usto keep the elementary andhigh schools (especially giventhe factthe St. John'sis located inthe neighborhood andMt Hebroncould have been a walkingdistance, hadit not been for insufficient walkways:). I am, however, concerned thatthe kids from these polygons would be separated for middle school from their peers. Middle school presents a challenging environment in itself, and being separated from their friends and community in such a small feed will exacerbate the stress andpressure. Please consider this as you continue to work on the redistricting plan. Sincerely, AnnaNemirovsky Polygon 159 October 29, 2019 Dear Board of Educationmembers, Under the planthat Ms. Mallo proposed on October28, 2019, ourpolygon wouldbe moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently we attend River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining -70% of FQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children ofour Woodmarkcommunity deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thankyou. Rachel Jean-Baptiste Resident ofPolygon 180 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Priya Narayanan Dear Board of Educationmembers, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with anextremely small feed. Currently we attend River Hill High School in anapproximate 30%feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining -70% ofFQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School andmoving only our 3 polygons to Wilde LakeHigh School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children ofour Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thank you. Priya October 29, 2019 Re: Second Work Session on 10/28/19 Sent to: [email protected] Dear Board of Education, My name is Jennifer Wamsley, Polygon 183, and strongly oppose Ms. Mallo's proposed redistricting plan that was presented on October 28, 2019. Ms. Mallo's plan, is essentially a slightly modified version of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan and contains the same flaws and issues that the community identified over the course of numerous nights of testimony and written feedback. I strongly oppose Ms. Malta's proposed redistricting plan, hereinafter, the Plan, for five primary reasons: (1) the Plan moves the children of Polygon 183 needlessly, when no overcrowding exists; (2) the Plan does not give weight to the mental health issues and burdens on families that it will cause; (3) the Plan does not effectively address equity; (4) the Plan does not consider cost; and (5) the process to create the Plan did not allow for input from the community. am a homeownerin Howard County, work full-time in Washington, DC, and am the parent of three HCPSS students. I believe in public education and equity, yet the Plan erodes the effectiveness of public education in Howard County and does nothing to truly address equity. I will address each of my reasons for opposing the Plan in more detail below, but request that Polygon 183 not be redistricted to Wilde Lake High School and continue to be districted to River Hill High School. In the alternative, if capacity at River Hill High School becomes an issue, redistrict Polygon 183 to our next closest high school with capacity which is Glenelg High School. 1. Movine Polveon 183 is Not Necessary to Address Overcrowding In the case of Polygon 183, we are districted to attend River Hill High School. River Hill High School is currently within capacity, 94% utilization, and capacity projections do not forecast River Hill High School going above capacity in the next five years. 1 The 2019 Feasibility Study, did not recommend redistricting Polygon 183 under either option. However, the Plan, redistricts Polygon 183 to Wilde Lake High School. Given River Hill High School is within target capacity and projected to remain within target capacity in the near term, the move of Polygon 183 is not necessary to address overcrowding. Ms. Mallo listed in her Powerpoint presentation during the first work session the schools that are currently overcrowded and requiring relief, neither River Hill High School, Wilde Lake High School, nor Glenelg High School fall into that category. 1 2019 Feasibility Study. River Hill High School has capacity to accept additional students, thus capacity or overcrowding does not necessitate redistricting of Polygon 183. In addition, this request is consistent with HCPSS Policy 6010 IV. B. l. If capacity does require Polygon 183 to be redistricted, we request that Polygon 183 be redistricted to Glenelg High School. Glenelg High School is the next closest high school to our home, is within our current feed, and is currently under capacity. This request is consistent with HCPSS Policy 6010 IV. B. 2. 2. Significant Risk of Increased Stress to Students and Hieh Burden on Families a. Significantly Longer Bus Rides Under the Plan Currently, our bus picks up at 6:40am for River Hill High School. The bus ride is 45 minutes each way to River Hill High School. That means that students in our polygon currently spend 90 minutes a day on the bus to River Hill High School. River Hill High School is 5. 2 miles from our home and there is only 1 traffic light on the route. Under the Plan, students in Polygon 183 would travel an additional 2 to 4 miles farther, depending on route, to reach Wilde Lake High School. That bus route would encounter between 7 and 8 additionaltraffic lights on highertraffic roads. Conservatively,this means an additional 15 to 20 minutes more to the bus route making the new bus ride between 60- 70 minutes each way for a total of 2 to 2. 25 hours on the bus each day. Under the Pfon, buses would need to pick up 15-20 minutes earlier putting pick up times around 6:20am. That meansthat students from Polygon 183would need to wake up shortly after Samto get readyto catchthe bus. Assomeone who commutes two anda halfhours each dayto Washington DC, I would not wish that commute on anyone, especially a child. Given the availablecapacity at River Hill High School, I do not believe it is necessaryto redistrict Polygon 183 and add commuting burden to students in Polygon 183. If capacity does necessitate redistrictingof Polygon 183,then it would make senseto move Polygon 183to the nextclosest highschool with capacity,for Polygon 183,that is Glenelg High School. Glenelg High School is 4. 1 miles from our home and would be similar to our current high school commute in terms of mileage, traffic conditions, and commute time. b. Polveon 183 Traffic Please knowthat none of the roads in ourarea havestreet lights and all are rural two-lane roads. In addition, we have roundabouts and areas of significant congestion today. The roundaboutbetween Homewood Road,Sheppard Lane,and Folly Quarter Road,the main artery in and out of our community, is currently struggling to handle the increased traffic dueto the expansionof the GlenelgCountry school (a privateschool) and new housing development in the area. Putting more busses and inexperienced teen drivers on these roads, at a time when Calvin Ball is calling for a reduction in traffic and improved transit infrastructure, seems at cross purposes. 2 In addition, increasing bus routes creates a negative environmental impact at a time when Howard County and the country are trying to reduce carbon emission. c. Emereencv Pick Up. Harder for Our Family Under the Plan, I will have children spread across the county - between Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School, Folly Quarter Middle School, and Wilde Lake High School. In the event of an emergency, it will be exponentially harder to pickup my children. It would require me to travel 10. 6 miles, approximately 25 minutes, to reach and pick up my three children from three different schools under ideal conditions. An emergency is rarely under ideal conditions. Currently, picking up my three children would require 5. 6 miles, approximately 13 minutes. Reaching my children in the event of an emergency is not a theoretical concern for me, my family was faced with this issue just last school year. On May 30, 2019, a tornado touched down and tore through our neighborhood leaving in its wake downed trees and powerlines not to mention significant damage to our home and neighborhood. Most of the roads in our area were blocked and unpassable. After the tornado passed, parents in Polygon 183 went out to cut trees that blocked the roads and tried to find elementary school students that had been releasedto the bus aftersheltering at the school. Eachminute not knowingwhere my children were or how the bus was going to reach our neighborhood was excruciating. I cannot imagine dealing with trying to drive and pick up my children when they are spread across the county. There is no reason to create this situation and no reason to redistrict Polygon 183. d. Sienificant Loss of Sleep Our pediatrician believes and others pediatricians have testified to the necessity of sleep for teenagers. The Plan effectively robs the students of Polygon 183 an additional hour of sleep each school day. The loss of sleep creates real harm not only to physical development, but creates additional emotional stress. At a time when suicide is the leading cause of death for teens in Howard County, reducing the time available to sleep and adding the stress of a longercommute seems irresponsibleand needless. As a parentof three daughters, I worry about adding stress to their shoulders. It does not seem to me that the BOE has considered the harmsthe Planswill causeall students and balancedthat againstany potential benefits. e. Loss of Friendships and Supports Moving Polygon 183 to Wilde Lake High School needlessly disrupts the feed between Triadelphia Ridge Elementary, Folly Quarter Middle School, and River Hill High School. The Plan will needlessly break the long-term friendships and community supports my children "Calvin Bali says Howard County needs to improve transit infrastructure, " Baltimore Bus'ness Journal, October 16, 2019. and family currently enjoy. Stability and continuity are critical to teenagers and families alike. My daughter relies on her friends for emotional support, her friends are her most trusted allies and sounding board. They help her deal with stressful social situations and provide support that reinforces her family support system. These are friends she has had since Kindergarten and they cannot simply be replaced. Absent a compelling reason, I do not think pulling her from her friends and support system is in her best interest. She needs close friends and confidants in addition to her family to navigate the choppy waters of teenage life. Please do not underestimate the value of these friendships to my daughter, or the other students of Polygon 183. For me, I rely on other families in the area to help when my schedule changes without warning or to carpool to afterschool activities. My husband and I both work full-time over an hour from our home, our neighborhood supports are critical. We have built these relationships over many years and do not want to lose them needlessly. Our family already struggles to balance work, family, and life events; absent a compelling reason -there is no need to make our life more difficult to juggle. 3. Equity The driving force behind the Plan is equity. I support that goal wholeheartedly; however, I do not see how shifting large numbers of children between schools advances equity or closes the achievement gap. HCPSS is a diverse and integrated school system that is highly regarded in the state. Each school receives similar funding per student with Title I schools receiving additional funds. 3 In my opinion, shufflingstudents betweenschools masksthe problemsthat createthe achievement gap and minimizes the likelihood that supports and services will be created to directly target the cause(s) of the achievement gap. It appears as if HCPSS has identified supports and programs that do directly address equity and the achievementgap, particularly at Hammond HighSchool. " At Hammond HighSchool, faculty, staff, parents, andthe community cametogether to foster an environment that not only encouraged students to take at least one higher level course, but also created the supports necessary to foster success including the Step It Up Workshop, AP Boot Camp, Alpha Achievers, ESOL Homework Club, and removing prerequisites for the advanced courses. 5 In addition, Hammond High School provided additional training and support for teachers. 6 This program has not only been recognized nationally, it seems to be delivering measurable results in increasing Meeting of County Council and Board of Education, (Dr. Wu asked about funding levels of each school arid confirmed that the funding levels per student are the same between schools with Title I schools receiving additional funding. ), September 23, 2019. 4 "Howone Maryland highschoo! successfully boosted minority student enrollment in advanced classes, " V. Strauss, The Washington Post, July 10, 2018. 5W. s Id. enrollment in advanced classes and Improving graduation rates among African American, Hispanic, and special needs students.7 HCPSS has one model, the Hammond High School model, that is delivering measurable results in closing the achievement gap. There have been a number of suggestions from the community about other programs that have been found to narrow the achievement gap such as language emersion programs, magnet programs, universal pre-K, tutoring programs, and many others. Why not focus our effort and funds on programs that we know will make a difference to students? Forced bussing and shuffling students does not solve any problem and merely masks the problem. Further, "[i]t's not clear from the research available today that socioeconomic integration alone would produce the hoped-for gains on the academic side of the integration equation. The research on the effects of socioeconomic integration, including studies frequently cited by the strategy's proponents, is inconclusive. " ' HCPSS should place its effon and funds to support programs that have a proven track record of delivering results, not gamble on a bussing strategy that simply hides the problem. And certainly, should not needlessly rip any student from their neighborhood and family support system. Study after study show that neighborhood and family supports are key ingredients for the success of a student, but especially important to vulnerable students. It is not clear to me that the Plan provides sufficient benefit to students impacted by redistricting to outweigh the harms to all students from the: (1) loss of friends, (2) loss of community supports, (3) reduced time for family and extracurricular activities, (4) loss of sleep, and (5) increased time commuting. 4. Cost As a taxpayer, I find it repugnant that the Plan was put forward with no cost estimates or thought to the impact on the HCPSS budget. Given that the plan appears to move at least the same number of students as the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan, I will assume that the plan will require at least the same additional transportation costs as the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan creates, an estimate of $2.76 million dollars in additional transportation costs. 10 7 Id. * A Reality Checkon the Benefits of Economic Integration, FutureEd, Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, Sarah A. Cordes PhD, August 26, 2019. The 2019 HCPSSEquity Report suggests a negative impact when low-income students are removed from (1) their familial and neighborhood supports and (2) transportation and geographic barriers are increased to beyond schooi opportunities. The Plan removes both for each student Imparted by the redistricting plan. ; September 23, 2019 meeting between the Board of Education and County Council when Dr. Wu asked for an estimate on the cost of additiona! transportation as a result of the Superintendent's proposed redistrictfng plan. Dr. Wu was told that the cost had not been formally reviewed, but an estimate of $2. 76 million dollars in additional transportation costs are iikely if implemented, In addition, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent on the 2019 Feasibility Study and that input seems to have been completely disregarded. Why spend money when you do not adhere to or value the advice? Given the budget cuts last year that led to the reduction of paraeducators and technology programs, it haggles the mind that the BOE would spend money on a Feasibility study it had no intention of using or entertain implementing a Plan that dramatically raises transportation costs going into FY 2021. The $2. 76 million dollars in additional transportation that would result from Implementation of the Plan could be used to add 92 paraeducators or 46 entry level teachers. :1 HCPSS need more paraeducators and teachers, not more buses. Paraeducators and teachers benefit all students in the HCPSS. Or the $2. 76 million dollars could be used to address lead and legionella in the water at certain schools, fund capital improvements, fund programs that support vulnerable students such as tutoring programs, language immersion programs, or magnet programs. If you want to benefit all HCPSS students, use these funds to delay school start times, which has been proven to increase learning retention and raise standardized test scores. One expense associated with the Plan that has not been contemplated is the cost to defend against any legal action brought as a result of adoption of the Plan. The Plan in its current form appears to be the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan and the appearance of discriminating against the Asian community and uses FARM designation as a proxy for race and ethnic assignment. Given CR 112, statements by county officials, and the process that lead to the creation of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan, a legal challenge seems highly likely. Defending the Plan would be costly and in essence would be using taxpayer dollars to defend a Plan that it appears the majority of the community does not support. 5. Process Since the Plan is essentially a slightly revised version on the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan, the same process flaws apply to the Plan. The differences between the 2019 Feasibility Study and the Plan are dramatic. The Plan does not reflect the priorities of the community, and was released in a way to minimize the community's ability to fully understand and evaluate t/ie Pton. Releasing the plan after the public comment period has ended appears to be an intentional effort to hide the ball from the community. Process matters, not only to the outcome, but when done correctly, fosters community involvement and acceptance of the proposed changes. The process that led to the creation of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan and by extension this Plan appears to be motivated by political agendas. Even if this is not the case, the press releases and statements by county executives strongly suggest a political agenda. Others have more eloquently and factually detailed the flaws in the process, but one in particular seems highly suspect to me. The u This calculation assumes the annual cost of a paraeducator to be $30, 000 per year and an entry-level teacher to be $60, 000 per year. Dr. Wu shared these figures on September 23, 2019. AACselected solely by Dr. Martirano failedto include input from the Asian community or Western HowardCounty. The minutesfrom the various meetings ofthe AACare sparse or incomplete, but what has emerged from the information released is a view that most AAC members held particular political views that shaped their input into the creation of the Plan. HowardCounty and the HCPSSdeserve better. Better process, better planning, and better behavior from the adults in the room. No one in Howard County should suffer. No one. Forthe reasons articulated above, request that Polygon 183 not be redistricted to Wilde Lake High School and continue to bedistricted to River Hill HighSchool. Inthe alternative, if capacity at River Hill High School becomes an issue, redistrict Polygon 183 to our next closest high school with capacity which is Glenelg High School. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Megan Buescher I supportDr. Wu's proposal as it focuseson balancing school capacity while minimizing student's travel times andimproving equity. It addressesthe highest number of concerns that have been addressed by residents in Ae county that have been heard through testimonies andhearings over the past two months. It also addresses the system and keeping schools together. Wu's plan addresses not moving children without a reason unlike any ofthe other proposed plans. IdoNO_TSUPPOrtJV[allo'sPlan> as a residentofpolygon 176Walnut Creek, it is unfair and unjust to splitour ^oinmunityapart &om our comiecting community 3176 Walnut Grove as we are contiguous neighborhoods.' Phase 1 ofWalnut Creek _isin_Wahiut Groveand we share a contiguous busstop . MalTo'splan would create ve^ysmalKeeds below 15%if other polygons stayat RHHS. Thetime anddistance from-Sheppar~dsTan'eat~ ^on. 176, to WLHSis 7 mues and 1 °_stoP lights. Additionally, ifcapacity isthe overarching dnving'factor 6010why move studentsout of an under capacity school that'is 1. 5 milesaway. -Why°areno'itudents moving out of Centennial HS that is currently over capacity? I proposethe county tables Mallo's md Dr, Martiano's plan as they both suggest to move 7, 000+students and ross the ac county^increasing student traveling time and diminishing feeder system. I propose~the~ county useWu's plan to look ata Feedersystem andif need be extend thevote soa logical redfstrirtingpTan can agreedupon. Megan Conner ResidentPolygon 176 (Walnut Creek) Kathleen V. Hanks From: xiaomin lin Dear BOE member, After watching your work session on Oct. 28, 2019, we are writing in support of using Dr. Chao Wu's proposed redistricting plan as the starting point for the remaining of your work sessions regarding redistricting. Dr. Wu's plan is the least disruptive and most effective plan in terms of reaching the 3 goals set in Superintendent's plan. It will start the whole redistricting process in the right direction. Please focus on refining Dr. Wu's plan in the remaining of all your work sessions. We encourage you to continue reading all testimonies from county residents. Keep our Polygon 3176 in River Hill HS. We thank you for your hard work. Best Regards, Hong Zhou and Xiaomin Un Polygon#3176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Grey, Matthew Dear Ms. Coombs, As a registered voter in District 4, 1 thank you for your years serving on the Board of Education. You have proven to be thoughtful, reasonable, and measured in your approach to difficult issues. Over the course of this year's redistricting process, it is clear from the online surveys, community input sessions in July, and written and spoken testimony that an overwhelming majority of Howard County strongly values community stability, strong feeds from one school level to the next, and minimized transportation costs when redistricting. Being in complete agreement with those values, I urge you to keep the neighborhoods of: Pointers Run fpolvaons 64, 1064, 129, 1129, 295, 190, 1190, 128), Pheasant Ridge and its Neighbors (polygons 186, 1186, 28, 1028, 2028, 187, 1187, 1188, and 188), Beaverbrook/Lonafellow (polvaons 144, 1144, 143, 3143, and 2143), and IWaple Lawn (polygons 1256, 259, 1259, and 115) together in their respective community schools. Dividing one or more of these polygons from the rest of their established, cohesive community neighborhood destroys the very community stability that your constituents have repeatedly voiced is of utmost importance. In all past redistricting proceedings, Board of Education decisions have committed to keeping these neighborhoods together at every school level. Please uphold this decades-long precedent. Keeping these highly diverse neighborhoods together in their neighborhood schools directly upholds the standards in Policy 6010 with regards to community stability, maintaining strong feeds, minimizing transportation costs, fiscal responsibility, demographic characteristics, minimizing the number of students moved, and optimizing facility utilization. Alternatively, sending students outside of their communities without addressing the root cause of the achievement gap places greater barriers to student achievement. Moving any child away from their neighborhood school and community supports does more harm than good. Capacity issues can be addressed by moving far fewer students from other contiguous neighborhood polygons to neighboring schools with capacity. Schools that are underutilized should never have students swapped with other students. Please consider alternative plans submitted that better balance emergency capacity issues with community continuity and wait to do any major redistricting until HS13. Please use the time between now and the HS13 redistricting to engage the community and come up with proven solutions to close achievement gaps and bring greater equity to all Howard County schools, while at the same time, keeping these (and all) distinct communities together. Thank you, District 4 Voter: Matthew Grey Polygon #28 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Carl Jean-Baptiste Importance: High Good morning, Howard County Board of Education Members. My family lives in Woodmark. We have 3 school age children. I recently learned of a new proposal that would split our area into a small feed that will disadvantage our children. That is inconsistent with HCPSS Policy 6010. I am very disappointed that this process has been so disjointed. We are unable to follow the multiple proposals and feel left out of this important process. Please do not split our children from their friends in the surrounding community. This is hurting our community and is unfair. Carl Jean-Baptiste, Esq. Carl S. Jean-Baptiste TEL: 410 347 1345 / CELL: 443 799 6313 / FAX: 410 468 2786 218 N Charles Street, Suite 400, Baltimore, MD 21201 cieanbaptiste@qejlaw. com » *' * ' ..^^ a. ;' ^. 1 iii ^.Sw i .L-l'l. GAl. lAKHiiKEVH. 'U-i JOMEb This email transmission may contain CONFIDENTIAL and PRIVILEGED information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the senderby email, do not disseminate and delete immediately. Tha information contained In this communication from the sends, " I; confidential. It Is intended soljly for use by the Mdpler. L arid others authorized to receive it. If you ar^ not the recipient, you .. re ho-cby nctiricd -i. hat an*/ d^closui-e/ ccpyln. j, di..~tribution or i-'jkinc,. cfcfc. i in relc. cion ot- th:; concents of this infor'm.^tiOii ij strictfy prohibitc. J and m^y b>j unl'A'-'Cul. :nis cmsi! has bcsn Ecanned for viruscj and malw&rc', and m-y ha'/e b;'';n autc.rtaUcally i.irdiivcd by ..'.;t.v2^<~£f'. ; ^^, -n innovaco, ' in Soff.'. 'arj as a Service (SaaS) for business. Providing a e.a.'a" u, ij :. ;<... - a;-^';' plau for your t. uinen gen'-i';t"u data. Sccciailzim In; Securifc", arc;iivin" 3rd complianc. ^ To nnd out more C'ick Here. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Julia Patrone Dear Board of Education members, ^hdeantheextp^thva^»sl fM^O^,Z°s,edinOHCtobe;28L20, 1 ?;, our.Poiygonwould be moved Jow"de Lake. Hi9h s^°°l ^a^^mdy. sm^ted-c"^entlywea. "e"dRiveLHi"Hi9h'.^ ^tsto ^J^ema"lm9:70%^ FQMS 90estoGla1el9HQh Sch°°r'By'teeping^lygons'3:?76^nd ^eT^'er °"ly-°L;r,, to w"de-Lake High School y'oul w^ll dl !be"c'?e'at'ing'an ^H^^s^°j a^m°wng. 3p°'yg°"), not^^^ "unacucepta^y's'mcall feedAols^rtsfra.re,linlaLwetowild^Lake'pleasedo ' deserve better than this' we ^8^0adSagr^(:f^dmunity resPect^ly request that'yo'u please teep'po^gons TSO, '1'8'1canld' Thank you. Sincerely, Julia Patrone Kathleen V. Hanks From: WenzeXi Dear BOE members, I am Wenze Xi from polygon 176. 1 am writing after attending the BOB work session October 28, 2019. Please keep polygon 176 with 3176 together at our community school River Hill high school. We want to thank the BOB for unanimously approving Dr. Wu's motion to requesting High school 13 statistics for better planning for your county's future growth. I particularly thanks Ms. Delmont-Small's touching speech onher feeling for redistricting andfeeders planning andcommunity integrity, that speech, will be appreciated and remembered by caring parents in Howard county. I also like to express my gratitude for Ms. Cutroneo's kind heartto always put our students first andto always emphasize on improving education for Howard county Lastly, I'd like to thankour BOB chairwoman, Ms. Ellis, her innovative thinkingon Magnet school/AP school andbrave exploring on education improvement will also beremembered by all residents inHoward county. Proximity is important for schools (policy 6010 IV B Id, 2b). We are very disappointed on Ms. Mallo's high school plan. It hurts our River Hill community so badly that TEAR UP one community into two pieces ( polygon 176 with 3176). Inpolygon 176, onethird ofour polygon 176 is embedded into polygon 3176 and sharing^the only community entrance, and two polygons 176 and 3176 geographically sbsse die only road to access from Sheppard lane Attending community schools are essential for students andparents to develop senseof belongs, comiectedness, andsupport. It is particularly true for a largenumber ofimmigrant families just settled into ourneighborhood andcalled River Hill ournew home. Onethird ofour community isjust 1.2 mile from River Hill High school, andthe rest is 2 miles from River Hill Highschool. We shop at'the'local Farmer's market and stores, we socialize at the local restaurants andbars, wewatch our Children's performance atthe River Hill HighSchool Auditorium. Welove our community schoolRiver Hill, andplease keep polygon 176 and 3176 together at River Hill High School. Here, I express my strong support ofDr. Wu's redistricting plan. His redistricting plan is very considerate! It addresses (1) An attendance area and feed for high school (2) Move students from over-crowded schools to their closest under-capacity schools, if feasible (3) Do not send students from under-capacity schools unless necessary (4) Give strong consideration of proximity (5) Give strong consideration ofbudget and fiscal responsibility. Insummary, weurge BOE to work together and use Dr. ChaoWu's plan as the starting point. Dr. Wu'splan is lessdisruptive, more effectivein solving over-crowding, andcan actually benefit underprivileged students. Sincerely, Wenze Xi, Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: JaneWebster Board ofEducation Members, Iuveinpolygon 18?and T attendedtheBOE working session last evening. I wasdismayed to see that Jennifer Io.preEientedaplm that didnot in(:orPorate the input from the commimities, butbasically replicated Dr7 Ms Mallols plan to be '^plan. continues. very disruptive with close to'3, 000 students bemg'mowd to : FARM average scores. Asevidenced time andagain, it hasbeen shown just moving°students for . averages does not improve the performance test scores, fwas pleased to hearMavis EUistaTk'about" innovative programs that could benefit Howard County schools, but there doesnot seem to be a mmd7etto Lany_suchdevelopment' which. isa shame- R appears thatthe BOB has chosen the easy way out. This roy_children's lives' communlties> and create undue stress by moving massive numbers ofstudentsra il ; primary purpose ofaveraging FARM scores. We have 80 families m"our development fDolveon'Tsy md.our. studentshave been attendmg River Hill High School since 1996. ~TheproposaTto"gotolW^eLakeHS !"osense_\thCTe aretwo^oser Hsfor ourst"dents to attend(Glenelg Highand River Hill HS)^and for" ourPolygon to bepulled out ofRiver Hill to attend Wild Lakewhich is a sAooToutsidTour feeder"sch^ols" i nosense. HowardCounty shouldkeep communities closestto their schools to havecontinuity of'friends activities. Dr'-w',lprese"tedaproposalthat made more sense and would achieve some of your goals. Youneed to take a : atDr. Wu's plan rather than just rubber stamping Jennifer Mallo's repurposedDr. -Martirano;s~plaii" Lhawlived^inHowaId. colmty. for30 years and was Proud to be a citizenin this County -1can no longer i on the absurd redistricting plan being proposed. Iluas^oEmembersllave m obli.gationtoyour communities todo the right thing, and not be politically and ' motivated in decision for your making such a critical issue to our children md'communit ie^ Respectfully Submitted, Jane Webster Polygon 183 12817 Folly Quarter Rd Ellicott City, MD Kathleen V. Hanks From: cmanganillo@proclaimsystems. com Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 8:55 AM To: Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Keep 176 at RHHS Hi All, I amCarl Manganillo, resident ofPolygon 176. 1 wantedto providefeedback to last night'sBOE working sessions. With all duerespect to Mrs. Mallo, herplan iseven more disruptive and less'-thought-out than Dr. M'soriginal plan. It makesno sense to send Polygon 176 to WLHSand Polygon 3176 to Glenelg.We are one contiguous community with a shared HOA, and the buses and kids should logically be inthe same feed. These twopolygon's are isolated [almost an island] and should, at the very least, be kept together for logistic efficiencyreasons. Whatwould bethe reasonto breakthis contiguous community? Herplan makesFARM rates at keyschools even WORSEand creates very lowfeeds. Whereare the cost implications ofMallo's plan? I strongly support DrWu's plan, the mostthought-through planof them all, addressingwhat the publicwants andpromotes equity. Itcreates the least needles moves and is the most fiscally responsible since it addresses costs (acritical component, Mello's plan doesnot... righton the face of this, it should bedisgarded) I applaudall of your hard efforts!!!. You guys have a thanklessjob,and you will be rewarded in lots of good 'doingthe rightthine here and not rarlT'afo1 letting political motivations dictate thought and logic (e. gpay- !°r-'plav'. e'g' polyg°" 147miracutously avoidingredistricting in2017 immediately followed bymajor campaign contributionsto CB.. and then, miraculously, notbeing touched again in this plan, even though that Polygon is more suitedfor a WLHSmove than Polygon 176which is 6 miles awayfrom WLHS(only 1. 4 milesfrom 'closer" school, whichis undercapacity) andCentenial isonly 3. 5 milesfrom WLHS.) Why arewe moving Polygon 176 and not 147? What isthe justification? Thanks Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shelby Bentson To Whom it May Concern, The following represents my sentiments exactly: '^'ItB with great frustration and dismay that I watched Ms. Mallo's redistricting presentation last evening. Have vou not to a single word the community has said? MS:-Mal°'s^pla"c<:'"ti"uesthe theme ^disrupting lives, breaking upcommunities, andshipping children acrossthe TOu^ntyforfte elusive nirvanacalled "equity"through theshuffling of FARMSrates across schools.'You'know'alreadvthat rate B a very poor proxy for Socioeconomic Status. You'are also aware that therete no consensus around'the" ! cost/benefit of forced socioeconomic integration, other than moving schools has a distincfnegative imoact'o'n" i. Yet you persist in continuing this farce..."for what? A,t-the-H'gh-sch°°1 teve!: MS:, Ma"°'sPlan is notsignificantly different from thatpresented by Dr. Martirano. Worse, Ms. wi" a"°'spl_an necessitate the disruption of many additional children at the elementeryand middle sc'h'ool levers 'to' maintain reasonably-sized feeds. Ihe. current-redlst''Lct'"g processh. as been an unmiti9ated disaster. It hastorn apartwhat was once a very tolerant i i caused an untold amount of stress and consternation to a great many people. It has cost'us counties's hours and" in opposing your tyrannical designs. masters ofthe l;_?, ?.^y.^ thln^y.?u. a'^ pl?ylng universe with the lives and livelihoods of so many? IJmp!°rey°uyet_agai"to d°what is'" the-best interest °f Howa'"dCounty's children and'keep're'di'stricting to a minimum, to relieve overcrowding; and not use children as political pawns. "' ' ' ~'" ~"'~ "~-r" ---"--a - " "."..... ". ", Y^a'.sa, b°ard. member'_have, a dutyto d°what is inthe best interest of an children. As such, one would expect you to iftto minimize the pain this process is causing a great number ofour^hildren. Ms. Mallo's plan does the exact' rms"re-y°u're awaret.hatthe loca1' P°wer-hungry politicians in FairfaxCounty, VAare attempting thesame stunt, ie. M-Tec°nomlc "equallty" "1. the form °fbusin9 students out of the neighborhoods in which they've lived all theiMives to afut"e arrive at some sort of Stant-sd1°ols 'n. attemP"° "justice" IHs not justice'fori alTlstudents. "You"would"d'o better to ' t^thewl'°. f. th.e.pe°plear'd., n°t^ause such l°nS-terrn disruption and confusion: Ra'the7than tearing"com"mu'nTties '' 1, I'd work suggest you toward a solution that will elevate all students and schools -"WHERi"THE'Y'SuRR'EN'TilY From Shelby Bentson, Polygon 183 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Cynthia Hornor Dear BOE members: First, thank you for representing our county and the work you do to make our children better educated and to contribute to our society. I am emailing to voice my opposition to both Superintendent Martirano andJen Malta's redistricting plans. I fully suooort the plan of Dr. Wu. .^n?es_little senseto m°ve mypolyg0" furthereast whenmost ofthe school overcrowding is inthe east, Weshould stay where we are or move us further west. Both ofthese idea's would keep us together with our feeder schools. ^Arat^ul thattoday'sjuIlic""iwiU be^allowed to finishtheir High School studies atthe school they goto today. I worry ?.°?_tr. ailmf, l!bli"?s, "', ^ighsch°°l:. Jheyshould als° beallowed to stay soas to notdisrupt entire families. The feasibiHty of having two different children in two different highs schools makes little sense to me. urvey resultP"blished °nune and the annual It is L a,v.el'lTl. eyerys, feasibility study. lacking in quantitative data. Analysis was madewkhout conducting psychological andsafety impact studies; which are as important to HowardCounty parents as the' n^°^. ^f^ty^\ beKevewe should have more data, before disrupting somany children. Dr.Wu's plan eases' over'crowding without displacing nearly asmany kids. This approach makes more sense since in a fewyears, another major redistrictine will happen when HS 13 is built. Pleaseconsider approaching a decisionwith the voice of discontent from manyof those in all districts in mind.Please allow for focuson the effects outside of the sociological concernsmentioned (focus onpsychological effectof disruption to students, stress from longer commutes formany, unmitigated safety risk with more buses onthe roads longer, etc. ). It is important to keep communities together, not dividethem. Dr. Wuhas the only planthat does that. Sincerely, Cynthia Homor Parent of 2 River Hill High School students Farside Community - Polygon 2 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Smitha Kuppalli I support Dr. Wu'sproposal, asit focuses onbalancing school capacity whileminimizing students travel times andimproving equity. It addresses thehighest concerns ofcitizens acrossthe county, whichhave been identified byDr. Martirano through hiscommunity sessions andonline surveys - student travel times. This proposal will benefit students acrossthe county. It's a true effort to provide leadership to advance exceflence in teachingand learning for HowardCounty KEEP 176 and 3176 together.... RegardingPolygon 176, ^ Polygons 176ad 3176 (Specifically WalnutCreek and Walnut Grove) areco- ^on??Ttie,s,^t. sh^t^e sal?leroads andeven have houses frot" the sister development intheir development. Byleaving 3176 m RHHSand moving 176you are creating a situationwhere multiple buses from different schoolswiU need to enterthe Walnut Grove community topick up children in the same neighborhood and move 1 to different schools. This is a significant waste oftransportation costs aswell as creates increased traffic and unsafe conditions for our communities. AGAIN,I urgethe BOB to consider policy 6010. RHHS is under capacity and yet, the BOB is moving kids 1.4 milesaway from RHHS to a HSmore than 4x further away, NOT for capacity issue's, but" for"some'oAe7 reason; a violation of 6010. Smitha Kuppalli Polygon 176 October 29, 2019 To: Howard County BOE, Dr. MichaelJ. Martirano, Superintendent, Howard County PublicSchool System Cc: County Council Members, HoCo County Executive, District 9 State Senator, District 9A State Delegates Subject: Community feedback from polveon 176 Dear Board of Education (BOE) Members, I havewatched the first two working sessions regarding redistricting and I havethe following feedback(I am in polygon 176). 1. I am happyyou are considering a feedersystem and starting your discussions from HighSchools aswell as consideringHS13 boundarylines. I am also happyyou are consideringtransportation and safety concerns raised by the community. 2. I am disappointed you have such weak quality of consultants who are not confident in their answers and are taking a white to get back to you with accurate and real data. Regarding Ms Jen Malta's plan for HS: I am disappointed you are splitting 3176 and 176. PolyRons 176 and 3176 should be kept toeether at River Hill Hieh School. Both are only 1.4 miles awayfrom an under capacity high school. Also, they are a single community. The entrance forWalnut Creek phase 1 (22 homes) isthrough Walnut Grove entrance (ifyou drive through it, you would know). Also, Walnut Creek phase 1 residents living there are shared with the Walnut Grove HOA. Finally,the busstop at PreaknessCircle Laneis common to WalnutCreek and Walnut Grove residents. 4. Regarding OrWu's proposal for HS, MSand ES- I fully support it aswe likethe approach of optimizingcapacity, keepingcommunities together, minimizingstudent commutes (therefore cost considerations), organization of a good feeder system ES->MS->HSand also socioeconomic equity. This proposal will greatly benefit ALL students. Thank you, Raj Tuliani (Very concerned parent) Polygon 176 :'. J'. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Manu I amwriting to strongly oppose Ms. Mallo's plan from the BOB sessions last night (10-28-2019). Herplan is flawed, Polygons 176ad 3176 (Specifically WalnutCreek and Walnut Grove) areco-communities tiiatshare the same roads and even have houses from the sister development intheir development. Byleaving 3176 in RHHS andmoving 176 you are creating a situation where multiple buses from different schools will need to enter the Walnut Grove community to pick up children in the same neighborhood and move them to differentschools. LITERALLYMULTIPLE BUSES WILL GO INTO THE SAMENEIGHBORHOOD AND BUS KIDS FROM THE SAME NEIGHBORHOOD TO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS. THE DEFINITIONOF RIPPINGCOMMUNITIES APART. 1^would urge the BOE members who do not live in the western part ofthe county to make a drive down 108 in themorning to seethe traffic struggles that already exist, and understand the natural roadboundaries By splitting 176and 3176 which areco-communities, youwould beadding multiple bus stops from different schools in the same location, andexasperating an alreadydifficult andunsafe situation. AGAW, I urgetheBOE to considerpolicy 6010.RHHS is under capacity and yet, the BOE is moving kids 1.4 miles away from RHHS to a HS more than 4x further away, NOT for capacity issues, but for some-othe7 reason; a violation of6010. Centennial HS is well over capacity, yet no changesmake a differencethere. This makes no sense. I supportDr. Wu's proposal, as it focuseson balancing school capacity while minimizing students travel times andimproving equity. It addresses thehighest concerns ofcitizens acrossthe county, whichhave been identifiedby Dr. Martiranothrough his community sessionsand online surveys - studenttraveTtimes. This proposal will benefit students acrossthe county. It's a true effort to provide leadership to advance exceUence in teachingand learning for HowardCounty Manu Kuppalli Polygon 176 -Manu- Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jessica Mahajan Dear Board of Education members, From last night's work session, I do not understand the concern over opening HS 13 at 45% FARMs, when most boardmembers show little to no concernthat we currently have many schools over 45% FARMs. This leaves the distinct impression that you only care about FARMs rates for new facilities. Are kids from FARMs families not allowed to have new bllildings? Are you stating that students from areas with high concentrations ofpoverty are the only ones who shouldattend school in buildingsthat are falling apart? As an Oakland Mills parent, I'm sadly no longer surprised by decisions made that favor only the highest income families m this county. We have buildings in Oakland Mills with capacity, that no one wants to be redistricted into in part because previous Boards have allowed them to crumble. I've yet to see any major concern about schools being over 45% FARMs from anyone but Ms. Taj. This boundary adjustment can balance capacity and reduce wealth concentration. I'd like to see more of you show concern for ALL students, mcluding the ones whose parents can't afford to take offwork to attend your meetings or may not even know that they can submit testimony. Sincerely, Jessica Mahajan OaklandMills cluster parent October 29, 2019 Re: Second Work Session on 10/28/19 Sent to: redistrictinglgihcpss. org Dear Board of Education, Myname is Jennifer Wamsley, Polygon 183,and I ardently support Dr.Wu's proposed redistricting plan that was presented on October 28, 2019. I am a homeowner in Howard County, workfull-time in' Washington, DC, and am the mother of three HCPSS students. Dr.Wu's plan isa significantimprovement overother plans that havebeen presentedthus far in the process. I support Dr. Wu's proposed redistricting plans because the plan: (1) Movessignificantly fewer students, 3000verses 7, 400under the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan orwhat appears to be more than 7, 000under Ms. Malta's proposed redistrictingplan. (2) Prioritizes keeping communities together and reduces the burden onfamilies: (3) Does not increase traffic on Homewood Road, Sheppard Lane, or FollyQuarter Road; (4) Addresses equity by balancing FARM rates while prioritizing Howard County families and HCPSS student's wellbeing. (5) Considerscost and movesthe fewest numberof students to minimizeadditional transportation costs. (6) Considersfeedback from the entire community. UnderDr. Wu's plan Polygon 183remains districted for RiverHill HighSchool. Thismakes sense since River Hill High School iscurrently within capacity, 94% utilization, and capacity projections do not forecast River Hill HighSchool going above capacity in the next five years. ' In addition, the 2019 FeasibilityStudy, did not recommend redistrlctingPolygon 183under either option. GivenRiver Hill High Schoolis within target capacity and projected to remainwithin target capacity in the nearterm, the move of Polygon 183 is not necessary to address overcrowding. Dr.Wu's proposal is consistent with HCPSS Policy 6010 IV. B. l and 2. Dr. Wu's plan keeps Polygon 183 andsister polygon 1183 within theTriadelphia Ridge Elementary, Folly Quarter Middle, and River Hill HighSchool feed. Thisensures stability for my children, ourfamily; and our community. In addition, it reduced the burden to reach my children in the case ofan emergency. Dr. Wu^'s plan doesnot increase traffic congestion on Homewood Road, Sheppard Lane, or Folly Quarter Road. Theroundabout between Sheppard Lane and Folly Quarter Road, the main artery inand out of our community, is currently struggling to handle the increased traffic due to the expansion ofthe Glenelg Country school (a private school) and new housingdevelopment in the area. Dr.^Wu's plan considers FARMs rates and balances the rate among HCPSS. Dr.Wu's plan ensures the FARM rates at anyone HCPSSschool do not risesignificantly and helps to address resources. The movement ofadditional students is unlikely to truly address equity. HCPSSis a diverse and integrated schoolsystem that is highly regarded in the state. Eachschool receives similar funding per student with ' 2019 Feasibility Study. Title schools receiving additional funds. 2 Given resources are evenly distributed among HCPSSschools, I believe equity needto be primarily addressedoutside the redistrictingdiscussion. To achieve results that directly addressthe achievement gap, HCPSSneeds to identifythe reasonsfor the achievement gap and then leverage resources to address the root cause(s). It appears as if HCPSS has identified supports and programsthat do directly address equity and the achievement gap, particularly at Hammond High School. 3 At Hammond HighSchool, faculty, staff, parents, andthe community came togetherto foster an environment that not only encouraged students to take at least one higher level course, but also createdthe supports necessaryto fostersuccess. 4 Thisprogram hasnot onlybeen recognized nationally, it seemsto bedelivering measurable results in increasingenrollment in advancedclasses and improving graduation rates among African American, Hispanic, and special needs students. 5 There have been a number of suggestions from the community about other programs that have been found to narrow the achievement gapsuch as language emersion programs, magnet programs, universal pre-K,tutoring programs, and manyothers. Exploringthe additionof other programs may be possiblesince Dr. Wu's plan does not dramatically raise transportation costs. As a taxpayer, I am encouraged that at least one Board member considered cost when developing a redistricting plan. Dr. Wu's plan moves significantly fewer students and thus should minimize the cost of additional transportation. Given the most recent auditors report, the budget shortfall projected for next school year, andthe likelihood ofadditional program andstaffing cuts nextyear; I am encouraged that at least one plan strongly considers cost and attempts to minimize additional transportation costs. Dr.Wu's plan isnot tainted by the flawed process that that ledto the creation of the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan. Dr. Wu's plan considers feedback from the entire community and delivers a plan that addresses overcrowding, equity, and community without causing needless burden on families. Forthe reasons stated above, I strongly support Dr. Wu's proposed redistricting plan that does not move Polygon 183. Inthe alternative, ifcapacity at River Hill HighSchool becomes an issue, redistrict Polygon 183 and oursister Polygon 1183to our next closest high school with capacitywhich is Glenelg High School. Meetingof County Council and Board of Education, (Dr. Wu asked about funding levels of each school and confirmed thatthe funding levels perstudent arethe same betweenschools with Title I schoolsreceiving additional funding.), September 23, 2019. "How one Maryland high school successfully boosted minority student enroiiment in advanced ciasses, " V, Strauss, The Washington Post, July 10, 2018. 4 Id. 5/d. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Balaji Balasubramaniyam Good Morning, Requesting you to keep the Polygon 176 in current highschool ofRiver Hill. Reasons are: A)_polygon_176^nd 3176arc, integral community (Walnut Creekand Walnut Grove highoffofSheppard Lane). ^Some ofPolygon_l 76 houses arewithin the same street atPolygon 3176. The first house inPolveon 176 ^I?^h. (:loser-t?IUVCT Hiu Hish schooi than the first house in Polygon 3176 B)IfPolygon 176 is moved to another high school, a veryvery small number of students will have to be bused to newhigh school andwe need 2 buses from samecoinmunity for2 different highschools C)Please consider Dr. Wu'splan as it limitsthe movement and reduces significant cost for i D) Polygon 176 is 1. 5 miles from River Hill High School Appreciate allthe help, serviceand support you are performing forthe community Thanks, Balaji Bala Resident ofPolygon 176 410-461-9637 balajib@yahoo. com Kathleen V. Hanks From; Amy Hoffert Dear Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mailo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently we attend River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining -70% of FQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children of our Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thank you. Respectfully, Amy Hoffert To: Howard County Board of Education From: David Murphy, Polygon 183 Re:Opposing Jennifer Malta's RedistrictingPlan October 29, 2019 Dear Board Members: It iswith great frustration and dismaythat I watched Ms. Mallo's redistricting presentation lastevening. Have you not listened to a single word the community has said? Ms. Malta's plan continues the theme ofdisrupting lives, breaking up communities, andshipping children across the county forthe elusive nirvana called "equity" through the shuffling of FARMs rates across schools. You know already that FARMS rate is a very poor proxy for Socioeconomic Status. You are also awarethat there is no consensusaround the relative cost/benefitof forced socioeconomic integration, other than moving schools has a distinct negative impact on children. Yet you persist in continuing this farce... for what? At the HighSchool level, Ms. Malta's plan is not significantly different from that presented by Dr. Martirano. Worse, Ms. Malta's plan will necessitate the disruption of many additional children atthe elementary and middleschool levels to maintain reasonably-sizedfeeds. Thecurrent redistrictingprocess hasbeen an unmitigated disaster. It hastorn apartwhat was once a very tolerant county. It hascaused an untold amount ofstress and consternation to a great many people. It hascost us countless hoursand effort inopposing your tyrannical designs. Whodo you think you are, playingmasters of the universewith the livesand livelihoods of so many? I implore you yet again to dowhat is inthe best interest of Howard County's children and keep redistrlcting to a minimum, to relieve overcrowding; and not use children as political pawns. You,as a boardmember, havea dutyto dowhat is inthe bestinterest ofall children. Assuch, one would expectyou to attempt to minimizethe painthis process iscausing a greatnumber of our children. Ms. Malta's plan does the exact opposite. Thank you, Kathleen V. Hanks From: Dawn Urian Dear Board of Education members, Underthe plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October28, 2019, ourpolygon would be moved toWilde Lake_H'ghschoo^with. ane^_re. melysmallfeed'currentlyweattendRiverHiHH^^^^ approxi.mate30_%feed. from FOHyQuarter Middle School^ The remaining-70% ofFQMS goes'to ^en>elg. H'gh. schoo, l;,By. keep"1. g. polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only OUL3polygonsto wilde Lak.e...Highsl::hooi you would be creating an unacceptably small feed'rf~ students^traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. children ofourWoodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully reauest that please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181' in a larger feed. Thank you, Dawn Urian Kathleen V. Hanks From: fatulaangela BOE Members, After watching the last 2 BOB Working Sessions, it has become clear that transportation logistics and accurate data do not seem to be a priority for some. If we are trying to address overcrowding, Polygon 183 should be moved to Glenelg Highschool, which is closest to us and has no lights at all. Traffic going west is not as congested as going east. Sending our polygon to Wilde Lake which is the 4th closest school to the community is a waste oftime and financial resources. The BOB needs to understand there are multiple pickups to fill the buses every morning in our sparsely country road communities. Ourchildren spendover 25 minutes on the bus for a school that is 3 minutes awayjust pickingup kids because they are picking up 3 kids from 1 place, 12 from another, 5 from another etc. They do not need a longer busplan. Pleasereview the current busplan to understandnumber ofstops. The kids currently go to FQMS and most ofthese middle school kids go to Glenelg High School, keep them with the largest feed. The data collected from our plan revealed 30% fewer students than you were calculating. The data you are usingis inaccurate, please seetable belowfor accuratenumbers. They are 30% lowerthan what you are indicating. 2020 school year 19 students 2021 school year 20 students 2022 school year 28 students 2023 school year 24 students Driving East on either Homewood and/or Shepherd are both very congested, especially when there is an accident on 70, people get off on 32 and go east on folly quarter /homewood or take shepherd. There have been many complaints made to county about this issue. Traffic has been less due to construction on Folly Quarter, butwill increase dramatically once that bridge allows traffic west. Wehave spent many morning sitting in 20 minutes oftraffic driving east for less than 1 mile. Please do not consider Mallos or Martirano's plans. They will cause a busing nightmare and bring feeder down less than 15%. Begin with Wu's Plan, or a plan that has us at Glenelg High School and pushes more students West as these are the school under capacity There are other Polygons in Centennial Highschool that are much closer distance wise than we are to Wilde Lake, suchas Polygon 147, thatare in anover capacity schoolthat somehoware not beingtouched. Please reexamine those first. Manym^ community wantto goto a schoolclosest to usdue to transportation needs.We are fine going to Glenelg High School. As mentioned in our original redistricting letters. Please listen to the families with reasonablerequests thatalso savethe county money ontransportation costs. Move West, not East. Sincerely, Angela Fattda Stint from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device Kathleen V. Hanks From: Danielle Baxley Hello, I am writing to provide feedback regarding the plans put forth by both Dr. Wu and Ms. Mallo in last night's work session. I would urge both ofthese board members, and the entirety ofthe board to re-examine proposed moves of Polygons 1065, 2065, and 65 from Ellicott Mills Middle School to Oakland Mills Middle School. This move wouldcause polygons 1065, 2065, and65 to becomethe ONLYpolygons that feed &om Ellicott Mills Middle School to Howard High School. This creates a feed of2. 9%, a percentage that is very significantly less than the suggested feeds of 15% as outlined by BOB Policy 6010. Thank You, Danielle Gold Polygon 1065 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Marcia Larson Dear Board of Education members, We are concerned about the mental health and wellness of the children in our community. Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently, we attend River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining ~70% of FQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children of our Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thank you. ~ Marcia Larson Kathleen V. Hanks From: ShekhaarGupta This is my sincere request: 1. Table Martirano plan 2. Lookat Feeder System usingDr Wu'splan asbasis (Least disruptive, most sensible and economical) 3. Extend vote date as needed Please be aware that Part of176 (22 homes) is inside 3176 - WalnutCreek Phase 1 (22homes) can only be accessedvia Walnut Grove entrance. The first busstop in WalnutGrove is the intersection ofPreakness Circle Ln and Clay Circle Ln. This bus stop is shared by both Creek and Grove. This stop is 1. 4 miles from RHHS. The first home in polygon 176 is closer to RHHS than the first home in 3176. Best Regards, Shekhaar Gupta Realtor, Taylor Properties Cell Phone/Text 2144762856 sguDtarealtorfaipmajLcom Kathleen V. Hanks From: Juanyu Bu Dear BOB Members, I really want to thank you all for your time and effort on this important matter ofredistricting. I am writing this email to strongly oppose Ms. Mallo's test scenarios presented in today's work session. On a highlevel, herplan will move more polygons andmore students thanthe Superintendent's plan or any feasibility study. The budget cost for these moves will be significant higher than previous estimates. Ona personal note, I amin polygon 176, andwe are actually one contiguous community to ourneighbor polygon 3176. As a matter offact, one segment ofour polygon sharethe sameand the only entrance wayas polygon 3176. Thisplan will split our close community to two different highschools, whichwill causea lot of unnecessary stress and pressure on our children in a very close community. I also want to express my strong support for Dr. Wu'splan, whichhas minimum impacts andkeeps community together. This should be a great starting point for discussion in the next work sessions. Thank you, Juanyu Bu Kathleen V. Hanks From: Yong Ma Good morning, BoE members! Sorry to send you an email message at this early hour but the redistricting issue is keeping me up. After hearing what has ^^ . cusse.d last ^.ght;.'l:)ecame increasingly worried about what is going to happen to my child, who is a 9th grader at RHHS. According to Ms. Malta's plan, hewill be sent to WLHSand this will create a huge interruption to his high school life. at' L-ale. t?, ',?_pea^, vyh alreadytestified to you °" October 10, but I cannot help it. As a parent, I need to take responsibility f?'L'Tiy-kic!'SWS!l^. b,?i"g' T°day's culture mai ' mptore y°u to consider the welfare of the kids already in a high school, please their feelir .oard.meml:'ersl. i. respect and let them finish their supposed-to-be wonderful 4 years. Yong Ma Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jianning zeng Dear Board of Ed. Members, and the Superintendent, After listening today's work session about school redistricting plan, I must say, I love Ms. Delmont-Small thoughtful speaking. Sheunderstand thetrue problems ofour school system, andworks onfinding theproper way to resolve those problems. She respects people's freedom of choice: the choice we choose where we live base on what is the best for our individual children, no matter who we are and what decision we made. I admire that sheis workingto create for usthe best possible opportunity to do whatis thebest for the educationof each child in HowardCounty. Brava!!! I agree withMs. Delmont-Small to look onthe true feeder: We should not continue to countthings we havenot looked into. So I strongly suggest BOB: 1: Look at Feeder System using Dr. Wu's plan as basis 2: Extend vote date as needed 3: Table Dr. Martirano's and Ms. Mallo's plans. Sincerely, JianningZeng Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jianningzeng Dear Board ofEd. Members, andthe Superintendent, Afterlistening today's work session about school redistricting plan, I strongly opposeMs. Mallo's plan, it is horribleand it isswapping students even worse than Dr. Martirano's plan. During the work session, she was just playing children as polygon numbers with kind ofmachine voice. Ms. Mallo'^s proposal to move 176 from RHHS to WLHS is against policy 6010. Her plan will incur significantly more transportation cost. Herplan divided our communities andneighbors, the first home in ??Jgon ,1^is eYen ':loser. to RHHS thanthe first home in 3176. It makes no senseto sendpolygons176, 2176, 3176 to different high schools, and send 186, 1186 to different middle schools, and split 28/1028/2028, when they are in the same community. That is sinister to divide our communities, or it shows that Ms. Mallo has no knowledgeof commumties in our county. Strongly binding community, neighborhood is kind of humanity. McMillan& Chavis(1986) define sense of community as "a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together." I want to state it again which I tried to say in the previous public forum: Itisnot fair to take away people's freedom of choice. The schools are integrated with or essential part of their adjacent communities. Ensuring students close to their schools is important. I feel extremely disappointedin Ms. Mallo. At the beginning, sheshowed she concerned aboutthe school's capacity nowshe shows she is a liar, herplan increases school costin transportation asthe superintendent's plan,md that swapping didn't resolve the school over-capacity problem and feeder, nothing for performance, education. -o--r---, I request tomvestigate Ms. Mallo's polygon, ifthere is no kids affected, whyit will be redistricted to River Hill High school. Sincerely, Thanks, Jianning Zeng InPolygonl76 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Un Han Dear BOE member My name is Lin Han. I am from Polygon 183. strongly oppose to Malta's plan and Support Dr. Wu's plan, I strongly support Dr. Wu's plan. His plan considers communities feedbackand moves less students. It is less disruptive, reduces commute time and keeps communities together. I strongly^oppose Malta's plan. Her plan is even worse than Dr. Martirano's plan. She proposed to move more than 3000 high school students which is even more than Dr. Martirano's plan. Mallo's plan is more disruptive than Dr. Martirano's plan. The plan tears communities and polygons apart. The school district map looks very strange in her plan. Mallo'splan proposed our polygon to WLHS. It caused even smallerfeed (less than 10%) from Folly Quarter Middle School to Wilde Lake High School. Our kids go to Triadelphia Ridge /Folly Quarter Middle School. Our ??^. ? -entary and mlddle school is less than 2 miles away and without any traffic light on the way. The WLHSis 8 miles awayfrom our homes andthere are 10traffic lights on the way.. Her'plan is simply doesn't make any sense. Mallo indicatedto relieve Rt 108traffic and increase volume on Homewood Road. It is a LIE. Our polygon are not using^Rt 108to go to RHHS. Weare not causing Rt 108traffic congestion. River Hill High Sch'ool'is right at the exit of Sheppard Lane. Therefore it does not make any sense to send us to WLHS to reduce Rt 108 traffic. Homewood Roadto east is already headacheduring rush hour. We have to sit behindten traffic lights and travel one hourto attend high school. It is ridiculous'West howard county schools have plenty ofseats, Why send us towards the overcrowded east side? Mallo's_plan separated our community. Split our community to Glenelg and Wilde Lake. Families that live along Folly Quarter Road are one community from elementary to middle school to high school. Why split the kids from friends in high school? There are so many flaws in Mallo's plan. We appreciate her hard working, but her plan simply ignored the community's feedback and testimonies, showing no signs of reconciliatio'n with thesocietv. 'fhe'Mallo's should be disregarded. Tonight Dr Wu shows the county on howto solve the overcrowding issues with a less disruptive plan and more reliable calculations. Please work on Dr. Wu's plan in the following sessions. Lin Man Polygon 183 Kathleen V. Hanks From: CQ Huang Dear Ms. Mallo, ^your modified plar', _3176 goes to RHHS but 176 goes to WLHS. Do you know the first phase of Walnut Creek (part of 176) is closer to RHHS than most houses in 3176? My house is in 176,'but it's 1, 4 miles from RHHS, 6. 7 miles from WLHS. ' ' - '"~ '~" """-1 Sending us to WLHS would increase our travel distance by nearly 5 times, but the increase in travel time would be a lot ?_ Thank you. Chengquan Huang, Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Allan Blackman Dear Board Members, As a parent oftwo kids in Howard County public schools, I watched your work session from thebeginning to the end tonight. Overall, I think it's a very productive session made possible by the great efforts ofmany board members: As the chair, Ms. Ellis did an excellent job in keeping the discussions focused while allowing indepth examination ofkey issues/concems. I know Ms. Coombs as co-chair supported the approach took by Ms. Ellis in chairingthe work session. Thank you both Ms. Ellis and Coombs for leading such a productive work session! As withbefore, Dr. Wuwas the bestprepared for tonight's work session. He continuedto examine issuesrelated to student travel times potential transportation challenges andsafety concerns causedby highways andmajor roads availability ofdata critical for the board to consider, among others. His alternative redistricting plan was based on community consensus. It focuses on balancing school capacity while minimizing students toavel times andimproving equity. It's a demonstration ofBOE'seffort to provide leadershipto advanceeducation excellence for Howard County. Ms. Mallo also put in tremendous efforts and created another alternative plan. But her plan would affect more studentsthan the Martirano plan, which faces strong opposition by many communities. In particular, her way to balanceschool capacitiesamong CHS, WLHS, and RHHS just doesn't make sense - CHSis way over capacity' whileboth bothRHHS andWLHS are under capacity. A logical logical wayto balance capacity would beto move students from CHSto WLHSand/or RHHS, not from RHHS'to WLHS. Between thesetwo plans, Dr. Wu s plan makes a lot more sense. Both Ms. Cutroneo andDelmont-Small made many greatpoints in moving the discussion forward onhow to do theredistricting properly. I especially like Ms. Delmont-Small's suggestionthat there needsto be a holistic approachto theredistricting process. Suchan approach should focus onwhat is best for the county, minimize the negative, dismptive impact ofthe process, and address the primary concems/priorities of students and their parents. Great suggestion, Ms. Delmont-Small. Hope the board will be able to find such an approach in the next few weeks. Ms. Taj neededto do a betterjob to demonstrate that sheactually cares abouteducation andknows howto conb-itiute. Shekept talking aboutFARM rates and poverty concentrationbut provided no solutions onhow to help FARM students andbring those who needhelp abovepoverty. Shedoesn't seemto understand thatpoverty will notgo away by mixing numbers. Reducingpoverty requires solutions tha^address theneeds of people underpoverty, notby wasting county resources onbusing students around. Ms. Taj, hope you will play more constmctive roles the coming sessions. Thank you all for your tireless efforts to carry out BOE's mission. Allan Blackman, Mapple Lawn Kathleen V. Hanks From: Long DrQi Dear BOE members, It is very obvious that JeimiferMallo's plan astonishinglyignored community's strong oppositionto Superintendent's proposal. It is the Howard County community's consensus that the redistricting plan should move least amount of students and affect least amount offamilies; the plan should addressthe overcrowding in the current system while minimizing the students's travel time on the bus. The plan should address the current issues without causingfinancial burden to the schools. Her plan redistricts our polygon 183 to Wild Lake High School which is 8 miles away from our homes. We are only 3 miles from Glenelg HS and 4. 5 miles from Riverhill HS. There is no trafEic light &om our community to Glenelg and only 1 traffic light to Riverhill HS. Travel east andpass multiple traffic lights to Wild LakeHS is a waste of time and financial resources! Her plan tears oiir community apart. Our kids currently go to FQMS and most of this middle school goes to Glenelg, keep them with the largest feed. Mallo's plan will send Folly Quarter MS students to 3 different high schools. The less than 20 students from our polygon will go to Wild Lake HS missing all their elementary and middle school friends. Dr. Wu's plan clearly moves less students and surely causes less traffic issues. The BOE should start with DR. Wu s plan and initiate feeder program into our school system to enhance school road-map predictivity in the society. In summary. Keep polygon 1 83 to Riverhill HS as Dr. Wu planed. Dear BOB members, please listen to the voice from the community, the voice from the students and families. Don t let few politicians' groundless views ruin the thousands of families. Long Qi, Polygonl83. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jianningzeng Dear Board ofEd Member, andthe Superintendent, After today's work session about school redistricting plan, I suggest please table Dr. Martirmo redistricting plan: it can'tresolve the most urgent problems ofour school system budget deficit, school over-capcity, feeder and so on. One year ago, I sent a letter to BOB stating that Dr. Martirano is a good social worker but not a good educator. Today I have to say again, he made no improvement to our school system and even worse, his redistricting plan is a disaster to our county, our communities and our children. He tried to use covered datato support his ridiculous redistricting plan, it is not acceptable. Dr. Martirano should resign from the superintendent position if he continue to show he doesn't care about education, butjust his own political agenda. Sincerely, Jianning Zeng Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: SrinathA Dear Board of Education Members, We are writing on behalfof residents of Polgyon 176who are concerned aboutthe proposed impactof Dr Martirano's Presentation of the Attendance Area Adjustment Plan, dated August 20, 2019. As noted in the Executive Summary on Page 4, this proposal was developed with three primary goals as excerpted below: The driving priorities for this process: 1. Balance capacity utilization amongschools throughout HCPS5, cost effectively. 2. Advanceequity byaddressing the distributionof students participating inthe Freeand Reduced price meals program tFARMsj across schoolsto theextent feasible. 3. Plan aheadfor the HighSchool ttl3 redistricting by minimizing double moves as much as possible. We havealso studied and respectthe published policieswhich the Boardof Educationutilizes in makingdecisions with regard to school attendance areas, specifically Policy 6010 (httDs://www. hcDss. org/policies/6000/6010-school- attendance-areas/): Unfortunately, the Presentation of Attendance Area Adjustment Plan, dated August 20, 2019 is notconsistent with the guidelines of Policy 6010 and does not achieve the three primary goals as stated in Dr Martirano's letter. Please consider the following facts. School Attendance Area: School Attendance area and geographic proximity is a consideration of Policy 6010. The proposed redistricting of Polygon 176 would more than double the distance students travel to get to school. Using Google Maps, Walnut Creek / Polygon 176 is 2A Miles from River Hill High School (RHHS). Walnut Creek/Polygon 176 isS^milesfrom Wilde Lake High School (WLHS). UsingWAZE, the commute time from Polygon 176to Wilde LakeHigh School would be 3xas long as the commute to River Hill High School. In addition, many of the students from Polygon 176 would have to drive through River Hill High School bus and car traffic, en-route to Wilde Lake High School under the August 20, 2019 proposal. Capacity Utilization: Policy6010 identifies three keyaspects to schoolcapacity which are (1) Projections [item P],(2) Target Utilization [item S]which is defined asenrollment between 90%and 110% utilization of program capacity and (3) Utilization [item T]. The 2019 FeasibilityStudy (https://www. hcoss. org/f/schoololannine/2019/2019-feasibilitv-studv. Ddf)notes the following findings: 1. River Hill High School is projected to be at 94% Projected Utilization for 2019/2020 school. This is at the lower end of the Target Utilization range. 2. Page 33 ofthe Feasibility Study indicates that River Hill iswithin Target Utilization through the 10 year projection period of the study. 3. Under Dr Martirano's proposal, River Hill would send 478 students to other schools and receive 741 students from other schools. This isextremely disruptive and unnecessary for a school that is currently operating within each of guidelines [P), [S] and [T] of Policy 6010. 4. We believe the board should reject a plan which moves approximately 7, 400 total students including 478 students from River Hill High School which is currently operating within Board Policy guidelines with regard to Projections, Target Utilization and Utilization. 5. We believe any re-districtine proposal should instead be focused on those five Hieh Schools_that are ooeratine above Tareet Utilization levels (110%). 6. We believethe Boardof Educationshould support a plan that includesless disruption atschools that are operatingwithin the guidelines of [P], [S]and [T]. Forinstance, since RiverHill HighSchool is operatingwell within the target utilization range, perhaps it should receive students from nearby schools such as Wilde Lake, Atholton or Howard,without sending 478 students outto otherschools. Certainly, the Board of Educationcan request a plan that achievesbetter capacity utilization with lessthan 7, 396total students beingrelocated. The very first sentence of the Policy Statement of HCPSS Policy 6010 is The Board of Education of Howard County,^ with the advice of the Superintendent, establishes school attendance areasto provide Qualih equitable educational ooportunities to all students and to balance the capacitv utilizatio'nof all h^o!s. Furthermore, "equitable" isdefined inthe policystatement as: Justor fair access, opportunities, andsupports neededto helpstudents, families, andstaff reach their full potential byremoving barriersto success that individuals face. It does not mean equal or everyone having the same things. The Presentation ofthe AttendanceArea Adjustment Plandated August 20, 2019 is not consistent with the Boardof EducationPolicy Statement 6010, nordoes it followthe BoE'sdefinition of achieving "equitable" educational opportunities. We hereby request the Board of Education identify waysto provide additional educational resources to thestudents inneed. Transferring students from a schoolwith a low FARMratio to a school witha high FARMratio, only results in better "averages"for the schools. ITDOES NOT PROVIDE ANY INCREMENTAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OR OPPORTUNITES DIRECTLY TO THE STUDENTS. Inconclusio^n, we recommend the Board ofEducation reject the Presentation ofAttendance Area Adjustment Plandated August 20, 2019 due to the numerous and serious inconsistencies with regard to both Policy 6010 and the stated goals of the proposal. The proposal would triple the commuting time of students in Polygon 176 Many affected schools including River Hill High School are operating within the Board of Education projection, utilization and capacity guidelines and would experience a total student transfer of over 1.000 children inclusive ofstudents being sent and received. Boundary adjustments should be focused on schools operating over capacity or projected to be over capacity based on the 2019 Feasibility study. The Proposal does not provide additional resources directly to students in need, it simply provides more consistent FARM ratios across schools. Children do not need consistent FARM ratios, they need additional education resources provided directly to their schools. Thank you, The ALLALA Family Polygon #176 From Xuewu Cai Polygon #2028 To BOE members In today's work session (10/28), Malta has proposed a proposal which is utterly destructive. Her proposal intentionally divided sister polygons, creating a smaller feed and further disrupting communities. This proposal has clearly violated policy 6010 and should be rejected and thrown away. For example, her proposal has spared polygon 28 from moving to harpers choice while leaving 2028 and 1028 to move. These 28 polygons are closely located together. What is the rationale behind further splitting these close polygons? Kids who grew up from kindergarten will be sent to different schools. How can a BOE member can even think about this? Regards, Xuewu Cai Kathleen V. Hanks From: Josh Budich Dear Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde Lake High School with an extremely small feed. Currently we attend River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining -70% of FQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children of our Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Thank you. Joshua Budich Howard High Class of 96 Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: muyi. aina@solinagroup. com Sent: Monday, October 28, 2019 11:51 PM To: Mavis Ellis; SabinaTaj; Christina Delmont-Smail;Jennifer Mallo; Kirsten Coombs;Vicky Cutroneo; Chao Wu; Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Please keep Polygons 176 and 3176 together in RHHS Dear BOE, lam writing on behalfof my family to lend voice to our communities' plea to that you consider the high degree of disruptionto our livesand our children's livesthat the proposed redistrictingwould cause if it. Theplan, ifit goes through, would overly fragment school feeds (especially from Triadelphia elementary and Folly Quarter Middle) and prolong to unreasonable degrees the commute times to school. We have 3 children - 5"', 7thand 10"'graders, and the relative proximity to their schools allow my wife and I to transport them during the inevitable school bus misses and to andfrom afterschool programs. Furthermore, havingrecently moved to Walnut Creek(polygon 176)from theVillage of River Hill, ALLof my children's friends remain in Walnut grove, and many attending RHHS. The current proposal obviously does not substantively address the issues of inequity that it seeks to solve, but will in fact worsenthem andcreate widespread frustration inthe communities for allthe reasonsthat have beenhighlighted. Dr Wu'sproposal betteraddresses these issuesand will balanceschool capacity more logicallywithout deliberately creating the burden of excessive school commute times and community fractures. Thank you. Muyi Aina Terrapin Creek HOA Polygon #232 As residents ofthe Terrapin Creek neighborhood (totalling 23 homes), we would like to inform you of the distinctive nature of Polygon 232. In Sykesville, we border Carol County, are on well waterand septic, and have large areas ofagricultural preservation causing sparsely-spaced neighborhoods. Currently our children attend diverse, under-utilized schools in the Marriotts Ridge feeders (West Friendship Elementary School, Mount View Middle School, and Marriotts Ridge High School) that are approximately 1. 5 miles from our neighborhood. Our children are already on the bus for approximately 45 minutes one way. See Exhibit A which shows the bus route for MVMS bus 167 asJust an example. In the Feasibility study of 2018 and the Superintendent's proposal, the children of our neighborhood are proposed to be redistricted to Glenelg feeder schools (Bushy Park Elementary School, Glenwood Middle School, and Glenelg High School) that are 3 times further than their current neighborhood schools. Our concerns do not only stem from the impact on stability but also on our children's safety and well-being. Although,the polygonsalong Route32 looklike they are contiguous with Glenelg feeders on a map; they are not. Polygon 232 is bound by farmland directly to'our west and 1-70 directly to our south. Thus, Route 32 CONNECTSus to our community. SeeExhibit B, whichare maps that illustrate that ourcommunity truly lies within the Mamotts Ridge feeders and Route 32 corridor. A redistricting will cause our buses and highschoolers to drive significantly further to school on Route 32; putting their lives at risk. Route 32 is known as one of the "most dangerous routes in Howard County. " See Exhibit E which documents the most recent accidents along Route 32 nearWest Friendship. It is irresponsibleto movethe small numberof children in Polygon232 out of their currently under-utilized schools as it will seclude and uproot them from their community. The proposed plans include moving 11 WFES, 9 MVMS, and 14 MRHS children from Terrapin Creek alone. Manyof these children have siblings thatthey are followingthrough school. Ourneighborhood itself has 5 rising8'h graders and 8 rising 11thgraders that would be affected. Sincerising 11thgraders are already exempt and you will be providing transportation, whywould you not include the rest? Weurge you to look at the WFES PTA projections as it was extrapolated from a census ofthe neighborhoods in Polygon 232. You can clearly see that the OSP projections are Inaccurate and the projections grossly overestimate the amount of students (especially at the ES and HS levels) indicating an inflated number of utilization. See Exhibit F. Moving the polygons on the Route 32 corridor does NOT change the demographic or socioeconomic make up at either school cluster. It does NOT address FARMS ratios or under-utilization. As a community, Terrapin Creek holds the following positions: 1 We support a comprehensive redistrictina plan that has clear. attainable. and transparent long-term goals with adequate funding. a. Consider budget realities, population patterns and Howard County's rapid growth to develop a long-term comprehensive plan to work towards real change in this County, not a shifting of numbers and data. 2. If 9 school is not over capacity, students should not be moved out of it. If a schpol has capacity, students from a proven over capacity school should be moved to the under capacity school but NOT to the detriment of the current student body. a. \Ne suggest that you as the Board of Education scrutinize the data from OSP as it has been proven to be inaccurate in the past. b. We urge you to keep ALLcurrent students at the Marriotts Ridge feeder schoo/s (WFES, MVMS and MRHS). Marriotts Ridge feeder schools are not over capacity so there is no need for current students to be moved. c. If the BOE follows these suggestions, students will be able to remain at their community schools, schools' capacity would not be at a level that would attract more development, and new developments would be assigned to an underutilized school without moving established neighborhoods out of their communities. 3. There should be a limit on one-way bus transportation times for students with a MAXIMUM of 60 minutes and the LEAST amount of time possible on highways. a. The BOE should keep in mind the significance of lengthy transportation time. Policy 6010, IV (standards). B. I.c. The number of students that walk or receive bus service and the distance and time bused students travel. b. The children of Terrapin Creek are already on the bus on average of 45 minutes one way to go 1. 5 miles. i. Longer bus routes in the rural western and northwestern parts of Howard County are inevitable, due to greater distances between homes and fewer children getting on the bus at each stop. However, every effort should be made to limit the total time students are on the buses. c. Moving polygons 232, 231, and 1231 from the Marriotts Ridge feeders to the Glenelg feeders will make those students travel further south on Route 32 during morning rush hour traffic. Route 32 is already knov/n to be very congested and dangerous. It is currently under construction and has had numerous major accidents (4 in the past 4 months). The bus rides of students in polygons, 232, 231, and 1231 to our current schools are already pushing 45 minutes each way. Moving these students will increase their already uncomfortably long commute. d. Longer bus rides have many negative implications. i. Increased risk of bullying ii. Increased risk of medical emergencies (ie. Asthma attack, Diabetic episodes) 1. l4fe hare hacfinstances of medical emergencies on the bus in our neighborhood already. (6th grader had a severe asthma attack on the way to school, texted mom "I can't breathe!' Mom is a nurse and was able to meet her to give meds immediately because of the close proximity to our home) 2. Increased risk of vehicular accidents 4. We urge you as the Board of Education to change the current approach to redistrictina. PROVIDE AT LEAST A 2 YEAR TIMEFRAME for redistricting mpves to ensure a plan that is long-term, viable, and is based^nj-esearch. community input and accurate data. a. Ample time should be allowed for OSP to provide sound, accurate data that is requested by the BOE. The BOE needs ample time to research the impact on students to be transferred, get community input, make modifications, share information, and conduct long-term analysis of the plan prior to redistricting. The current redistricting timeline and methods only provides the community 2 months to consider the OSP's Feasibility Study options, and 1 month to consider the Superintendent's current proposal. b. The current process for community involvement occurs in the summer months when families are on vacation and not fully connected to school communications. c. The current timel/ne is NOTenough time for the community, BOE or the OSPto gather all the data needed to make an informed, well thought-out decision. d. With the current timeline, we fear that redistricting decisions will have to be made quickly without the time for long-term consideration; resulting in redistricting again injust a couple of years with HS#13. Long-term solutions need to be made so that students are not moved around multiple times over their elementary, middle, and highschool years. e. A minimum of2 years advanced notice should begiven to anypolygon before it is slated to be moved to give families ample time to plan. 5. SCHOOLCOMMUNITIES MUST BE PROTECTED by county government from over-development with realistic considerationof school capacities and long-term assessment. a. Wesuggest targeting future development now and to havenewly built neighborhoods travel to under-utilized schools until the infrastructure andschool construction cancatch up. Considermoving densely populated communities to schools further awaywith capacity as they can fill buses more efficiently. b. APFOdoes NOTapply to the TurfValley development. The developer was grandfathered due to exemption 16. 1107(b) (6). At the time. the exemption wasmost likely tailor-made for this developer. Thisdeveloper is not concerned with the lack of capacity for schools to absorb new populations. This is very apparent with the continual development of Turf Valleywhere 1, 005additional housing units areslated to be built. By 2030, a total of1, 547 housing unitswill havebeen builtwithout having to abide bythe schools test! In addition, Chapelgate Development across the street from Turf Valley is scheduled to be built in 2021. The County Council and BOEneed to recognize thatthere is nosafeguard forthis community. See Exhibits C and D. i. The current over-development at Turf Valley is disrupting established neighborhoods and school communities. Existing students are being pushed out of their school communities for new students. ii. Havingnew development go to underutilizedschools provides use forthe existing seats with minimal family disruption. Families should knowprior to purchasing a home whichschool they are assigned to and can make an informed decision. With this community having no safeguard from APFO, we are asking the BOEto be very deliberate in making attendance area decisions. c. Although the BOE is not in charge ofAPFO, you can redistrict in a way to help protect our community and students. We urge you to be mindful that when lowering school utilization, as you will open the gate for queued-up development and put families in our community in an unfair situation. 6. Assignment to schools farther away than the nearest school to a community SHOULD BE BY CHOICE. Moving students farther away is detrimental to their emotional health as it secludes them from their current community support structure. a. Families choose where they live based on many individualized factors. Such as proximity to schools, proximity to work, and community inclusion, relationships and support systems. b. Childhood depression, anxiety disorders, and suicidal thoughts and attempts are on the rise in Howard County. Middle school and high school f's when children get more involved in their school communities with before and after school activities. They are exploring interests and honing in on future endeavors. The constant threat of switching school communities ever/ few years increases stress for parents and children. It puts children at an already vulnerable age at a significant disadvantage. c. We suggest introducing innovative programs into under-utilized and/orhigh FARMS schools. Programs such as: Open enrollment ii. Magnet programs iii. /B programs iv. Language immersion v. Art/Drama programs d. These programs have successfully been used in neighboring counties and provide choices to families. i. Choice provides families a positive outlook on movement in schools which in turn will have parents more likely to go out of their way to be involved in the PTA despite the commute time. ii. These programs can provide ALLstudents tremendous opportunities, and give parents flexibility to decide on whether or not travelling to further schools is a viable option for them. iii. Providing centralized transportation for these programs will cut down overall transportation costs and allow ALL students to participate; not just those that have rides. We urge you as the Board of Education to carefully and thoughtfully consider all aspects when coming up with a viable redistricting proposal. Follow Policy 6010, pay attention to the nuances of the northwestern portion of Howard County, and recognize the importance of transportation times, safety and stability for Polygon 232 and the Terrapin Creek Community. Thank you for your time and consideration. Terrapin Creek HOA Board of Directors: President: Manan Shah Vice President: Tejas Doshi Director: Sharon Kalaris Terrapin Creek HOA members: Rachana and Rahul Manasaurwale 2005Terrapln creek Rd., dykesviiie. MD21784 Kavita and Prasad Challagulla 2009 Terrapin Creek Rd.. Sykesvllle, MD 21784 Beena and Sudip Patel 2011 Terrapin Creek Rd., Sykesvil[e, MD 21784 Prashanti and Nagendra Mallampati 2015Terrapin creek Rd., sykesviiie. MD21784 Abi and Victor Akinwale 2022 Terrapin Creek Rd., Sykesulile, MD 21784 Deepika and Chandra Sabbavarpu 12717 Milo C;., Sykesville, MD 21784 Purvi and Vishal Mehta 12721 Ml!o Ct., Sykes»i!!e, MD 21784 Padmalatha and Thirupati Chokkaku 12725Miio ci., sykes»aie. MD 21734 Christine and Steven Gee 12729 Mito Ct., Sykesvl;le, MD 21784 Elizabeth and Thomas Dunn 2039Terrapln Creek Rd., Sykeswlle, MD21784 Amanda and Purvesh Patel 2014 Terrapln Creek Rd., Sykesvlle, MD 21784 Sangita and Tejas Doshi 12718 Mllo Ct., Sykesvllie, MD 21784 Carolina and Marcos Gabriel 12714 Mllo Ct., Sykesville, MD 21784 Bhargavi and Devang Gandhi 12710 Mllo Ct. Sykesville, MD 217S4 Sharon and Tim Kalaris 2018 Terrapin Creek Rd., Sykesvllle, MD 21784 Richa and Ashish Modi 2040 Terrapin Creek Rd., Sykesville. MD 21784 Monali and Manan Shah 2026 Terrapin Creek Rd., Sykesville, MD 21784 Marley and Igol Gladstein 12707 Mllo Ct., Sykesvllle. MD 21784 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Sunia Lessing Dearmembers ofthe board, Hereare the takeaways from tonight's meeting and the neighborhood suggestion: l;.-we.strongl.y agreedwith christina Delmont-Small's planand Dr. Martirano's subsequentagreement that we ^o«!La.!e.t_?_e^r. syst^' ,R istime w. e ^.avestabilityin our colmty 2. Westrongly agree-wiThDr. "Wu7s~plan for said feeder ^,aslarter_pomt system 3' we strongly disagree with Ms. Mallo's proposed plm. -The numbe7' s:moved.are,substalltia1'witil. inCTeasedtransportation'costs 4. Ms.Mallo's plan goes against polTcy'60'i 0 m thatit completely dismptsneighborhoods, evenmore than Dr. Martirano'splan'. It isbreakmgu'p'si'ster ' polygons. 5;, MS-Mallo^plMl. createsanextremely sma11feed from F(3MS to WLHS( Thankyou -Sunia Kathleen V. Hanks From: Amy Brewster Dear Board ofEducation members, Thisredistricting process hasbeen going onfor MONTHS. People havetestified andwritten letters. Andnow ^ou. arethrowingout scenmos at the eleventh hour which were not even discussed. -Sowearesupposed"to" digestand opine onnew high school plans in 24 hours for your meeting onWednesday? Andwithout knowir ; school andelementary school things you have up yom-sleeves? This'is outrageous. I knew~vTe w,oould. IIWVebecause my PolyS°° was up for redistricting in EVERY plan proposed7ln three p1ans, "mypolygon, 3>. i!beingProPosed to move to Glenelg High Schoof. So that is what I testifiedabout Butnowy'ou'wart"to mow more scenanos at us Andnow Ms Mallo's planproposes to senda handfulof us to WildeLake. And I'm surmisingthat she now wants to move ourelementary andmiddle schoolwithout ANY CHANCE for commumty, mput'r am so angry 'lbout thisprocess-what isthe Point of Public hearings aboutplans thatmeant ig? Where is the fairness in this? Lamlmpl, °ringyou "ot to. startthrowi"g in Polygons to newly proposed high schools and changing i and middle thathadNO schools^forpolygons inkling that you were thiDkm°gofmoving'themfrBomBtheweste^n . wefounded. Woodmarkhas been jerked aroundfor years. Please look at the history'. I verymuch hope that you will not move us around like little piece on a boardof chess. We are families with 1 wholive incommunities attachedto schools. Andwe have no process for'opining'on'lasTmnuteplans. Amy Brewster 12315 FawnRiver Way EllicottCity, MD21042 Polygonll80 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Yong Ma On Oct 28, 2019, at 11:23 PM, Ming Du Good evening, BoE members! First of all I'd like to thank you all for working so hard on this hard issue. After listening in tonight's session, I'd like to point out several problems regarding my polygon 176 in Ms. Mallo's plan whichgo againstpolicy 6010 - and I'm againsther plan for the same reasons: small feeds - the feeds &om TRES and FQ will be <15% if the other polygons stay at RHHS the time and distance bused students travel - she mentioned using Homewood vs 108 - but even using that route is multiple times longer than the distance and time to RHHS. - contiguous neighborhoods - Part of Walnut Creek is physically inside Walnut Grove, including a bus stop - the two are a contiguous neighborhood - capacity is the overarching driving factor of policy 6010- Why move students out of an undercapacity school that is 1. 5 miles away? Thank you for your time. Sincerely, MingDu Polygon 176 Sent from Yahoo_Mail for iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: deepak baskaran !H_.m.Y-"ameis DeePak Baskaran, and livein polygon 176, I amextremely disappointed inMs. Mallo plan in moving more students then the superintendent's plan. I also am disappointed in the factthat Ms. Mailo p -ntakesvery llttle co"sidel"ation tothe 5 daysof testimony ofthe river hillhigh schoolstudents andparents and completely disregard us. Also shesplits 3176 and 176to two different high~schools when some ofour" neighborhood ( Walnut Creek) is in the other polygon. I still don't getwhy you move usfrom aschooTthat is undercrowded and1. 5 miles away. Also polygon 176even though" it isbig'polygon it onlyconsists'of 2" .".eighb°rho°ds. (walnutcreek andsheppard Manor) °" Sheppard Lanewhich close to theschool. 'lt'not right when ourneighbors in3176 that our part ofthe same Walnut Creek Community getsto goVoa different' M-h°ol:. wehavea lotoffriends that live their and would hurt our community stability. " 'ItwilFalsobevery hardwhen we have one of our kids at FoleyQuarter middle school andhave another at WildeLake for after sch.°ola.ctlv'ties'the distancewould be9 mileswith traffic. Itstill doesn't makesense to move~people'from~'an undercapacity school to anotherunder capacity school east. Pleasetake these points inconsideration.' Thank You Deepak Baskaran Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ming Du Good evening, BoE members! First ofall I'd like to thank you all for working so hard on this hard issue. Afterlistening in tonight's session I'dlike to point out several problems regardingmy polygon 176in Ms. Mallo's plan which go against policy 6010 - and I'm against her plan for the same reasons: - small feeds- thefeeds from TRES and FQ will be<15% if the other polygons stayat RHHS Lt.lt!m^^?is. tance bused, students tavel - shementioned usingHomewood vs 108- buteven using that route is multiple times longer thanthe distance andtime to RHHS. - contiguous neighborhoods - Part ofWalnut Creek is physically inside Walnut Grove, includinK a bus stoo - the two are a contiguous neighborhood ^capacityis theoverarching driving factor of policy 6010- Why move students outof an undercapacitv school that is 1. 5 miles away? Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Ming Du Polygon 176 Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: jusleen@yahoo. com Sent: Monday, October 28, 2019 11:22 PM To: Jennifer Malta; Sabina Taj; Christina Delmont-Small; Kirsten Coombs; Mavis Ellis; Kirsten Coombs;Vicky Cutroneo; ChaoWu; Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] 176/3176are basicallythe same polygon - Keep 176 at RHHS Dear BOE members, Geographically, polygons 176 and 3176 are basically the same polygon. The time and the distance to all schools is roughly the same. capac!tyjs the mai" clrivin9fact01' °f Policy6010, " andstudents should notbe moved out of a schoolthat is lessthan 1.5 aw3y. Ms.^Mallo'splan goes against policy 6010. This plan is divisive to communities. Ms. Mallo is not even aware that i °mmunity c1 76)are '"""a'" 3176' Tt1e way the community'is that half .membere. °f_°ULC designer of'ou'r'c'omm'unit^'i's Asmenti°ne Jasleen Bedi Kathleen V. Hanks From: s Hull Dear Board of Education members, ,under the, planthat Ms- Ma"o_PJ-oposedon October28, 2019, ourpolygon would bemoved toWilde an EXTREMELY LakeH'gh. schooLwith SMALL FEED: Currently we attend'Rrv er~Hil["Hiah"S^hoorrn a,n-approxlmate 30% feed from Fo"y Quarter Middle SchooL The remaining -70% of FQMS'aoes'to' sch00. !: Sy. keeping^polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High"School and^movi? our3polygonsto Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unarceptablvsmallfeed'^f'' students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please do not create a small feed likeThis for'our" i. The children ofWoodmark deserve better than this. We respectfullyreauest^at ' please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a largerfeed. Thank you, Jeff and Susan Hull Dear Board of Education, Now that the public testimony portion of the boundary review process is complete, and we're in the midst of your difficult work sessions, I'd like to share some well-written thoughts on redistricting that you might recognize. This writer emphasizes focusing on using targeted redistricting to address overcrowding with minimal disruption, drawing from community input and accurate data, plus consideration of alternative, specialized programs that have succeeded elsewhere. Here's a direct quote (emphasis added): The most effective, least disruptive, wayto address overcrowding is to d..m?re s.chools- Now that a site has been chosen for high scho°] #13, let's expedite the selection of a site in Elkridge for'high school #14 and get serious about building both schools as soon as possible. Marriott's Ridge was built in 18 months so we know what's possible ifthe will exists. I'd want to blend the building of new schools with strategic redistricting that addresses current overcrowding while anticipating future growth. Any redistricting should be done in the most targeted and limited way possible to minimize disruption to students. 17dstart with drawing the lines for HS#13 and then focus the more immediate redistricting on areas not slated to be moved to the new school, to ensure that the same neighborhoods are not moved twice. I would also have the redistricting apply beginning with the rising 9th graders, who will already be at a natural transition point, ratherthan disrupting kids already settled in their high schools The ideas above noted, we do not have enough data to make an ? r-T,edcle. cis'?? aboutan aPPropriate plan ofaction. Community Lnp"!is critical but i.t must be s"PPlemented with data to back'up any decisions we make. Lastly, I'd encourage the Board to learn about efforts that have worked in other parts ofthe country to address overcrowding, as this problem is not unique to Howard County. For example, we might consider developing specialized academies in schools with" excess capacity-e. g., around STEM, the arts, or coding-to draw interested students from overcrowded schools." This quote is directly from Board of Education member Sabina Taj's campaign website published in mid 2018 (http://sabinataj. org/redistricting/). l^believe^this is a sensible approach to redistricting, and I truly hopethat Sabina Taj and the other members of the board will adhere to their campaign promises with regard to the boundary review process! Sincerely, The Garrison Family Polygon 129 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Mahesh Zarkar Dear BOB Members, AsI amlistening to the working sessions and the various proposals that the BOB members are putting forward, IJelt the need and wanted to provide some additional information (see below)on the location ofWalnut Creek (Phase1) where I live(address- 12200 Basslers Way, Clarksville MD) please refer to the maps-attached-~ 1. Walnut CreekPhase 1 (Assignedto Polygon# 176)- Is a group of22 houses which have the same entrance^as Walnut faove (Polygon # 3176) ofoff Sheppard Lane. The bus which pick up kids for Walnut Grove (Polygon # 3176) alsopick up ourkids whichis Walnut CreekPhase 1 (Polygon # 176). 2^We are separated from thebigger Walnut Creek Phase2 bya creek andhave separate entrance offof SheppardLane. 3.Our kids have friends in both Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek Phase 2 wehave very strong see of community asthe Walnutcommunity dueto theproximity (1. 2 miles) to RHHS. I wouldlike to^make^sure you take the above infomiation into consideration while making the final decision for ?° -g(!n#3 ^6 an^1?6 th?there is_asma11 section of22 houseswhich is called Walnut Creek (PhaseT) but hasentrance from Walnut Grove ie. PreaknessCircle Lnoff of Sheppard Ln Mahesh Zarkar Kathleen V. Hanks From: Raj Bajaj DearBOE members ofHoward County - MD, AsI waslistening to yourpublic work session today, I noticedthat your polygon data is inaccurate, in conjunctionvdthUs Mallo'splan. There are several members of 1 76living within 3176. These polygons shouldnot be split. Geographically, theyare contiguous andadjacent to eachother. Thetime andthe distance to all schoolsis roughly the same. Please note, that capacity is the main driving factor of policy 6010,and students shouldnot be moved out of a schoolthat is lessthan 1. 5 miles away.It just doesn'tmake sense. Youhave heard somuctl. testimo"y,fi',omourpolygon (176'and 3. 176together). Wefeet very strongly about staying' synchronous withPolicy 6010. Remember, it makesthe most sense to achieveyom goals(balance FARMS and capacity utilization) withminimal disruption. This isvery important. Please keepwith yomown'policTes! Thank you. Bhavandeep Bajaj Kathleen V. Hanks From: Matt Jones Dear Board of Education Please keep Polygon 176/ 3176 together forthe following important reasons, consistent with Policy 6010: 1. Distance - The closest highest school is River Hill High School which is under capacity. There is no reason to move polygons from an under capacity school. a. The 2""closest high school by drive time in Glenelg High School which is the most under caoacitv High School in the county 2. ES/MS/HS Feeds- polygons 176/3176 go to Triadelphia Ridge ESand Folly Quarter MS. The only two HSfeeds from Triadelphia RidgeES are River Hill HighSchool and Glenelg HighSchool. Solittine 176/3176would create a feed below the 10% threshold noted in POLICY 6010! 3. Drivingfrom Polygon 176/3176 to Wilde Lakecrosses 11stop lights & stop signs (taking Shepard to Rt 108) and 10stop lights & stop signs(taking shepard to Homewood). Thiscompares to 2 stop lights& stop signs commuting to River Hill High School. support Dr Wu's plan which moves fewer students and maintains shorter commutes. Thank you Matt Jones Polygon 176 This communication may containprivileged or confidential information. This communication is solely forthe use ofthe intended recipient. Ifyou arenot the intended recipient ofthis transmission, you arehereby notified thatany distribution, disclosure, printing, copying, storage, modification orthe taking ofany action in reliance uponthis transmission is strictly prohibited. Ifyou havereceived this communication in error, please delete it andnotify the sender immediately. Thiscommunication isnot investment advice,an offer, or solicitation of any offerto buyor sell anysecurity, investment orother product. Anyelectronic communications betweenus may bearchived and monitored by systems or persons other than the named recipients) for the purposes of ascertaining compliance withrelevant laws or regulations andpolicies. This e-mail transmission cannotbe guaranteed to besecure or error-free asinfonnation could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain vimses. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Nancy McAllister Dear Board of Education members, Underthe plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October28, 2019, our polygon would be moved to Wilde LakeHigh School with an extremely small feed. Currentlywe attend RiverHill HighSchoolin an ^r°^vr!^e. 3^°f° feed_from Folly Quarter Middle School. The remaining -70% ofFQMS goes to GlenelgHigh scho.°. !: PVkeePin9 Polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving'only our 3 polygonsto Wilde Lake High School you would be creating an unacceptablysmall feed of students trayeling alone to Wilde Lake (and I believe you may be creating an 'island' ofstudents assigned to Wilde Lake). We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181, 1181 1180 in a larger feed. - . . , --,-,--.^-.. -.. -,. _., Respectfully submitted, -Nancy McAUister 12234 Etchison Rd Polygon 180 -J . . "«&."?, : cci, ie c. i'. 'e. Sf ? WJt- ;. . '*../ ^ f- alive. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Victoria My name is Victoria Budich and I reside in Polygon 1 80. I'm writing with concern about the potential tiny feed ofthe Woodmark Polygons (180, 1180, 181) going into WLHS. Taking only this small group'will make for a tiny feed into WLHS. This will not be a positive impact for our students. Pleasereconsider this minuscule feedwhile you keep Woodmarktogether. Thank you for all of your tireless work. - Victoria Budich Sent from my iPhone Dear Ms. Mallo, heardyour plan tonight and if I amcorrect, you plan to move polygons 38, 1038and 2038 to Long Reach HighSchool but leave the rest ofour neighbors off Hanover Road at Howard High School. I a"m writing to askyou to please move all polygons off Hanover Rd or none at all. Please drive down Hanover Road in Hanover. It isa community within a community. I wassurprised to seeyour plan, because no planhas ever proposed movingjust one neighborhood off Hanover Road, without moving the entire road. Please keep Hanover Roadtogether! Weare isolated enough as it is. Thank you, Niki McGuigan Kathleen V. Hanks From: e I was disappointed to see the plan put forth tonight by DrWu. It will have significant negative impacts on Hammond High. It removes^ultiplepolygons thatcontain no FARMS. Noone is addedto theschool, thus'wewill seea significant increase to our FARMS. Its bad enough that you are not fixing our school, now you want to remove some of our best supports out of the school. It also went along with proposed movement of polygon 273 from Hammond to Atholton. This is the very polygon I provided verbal testimony regarding and it is up for development. The only reason to move this polygon, which has no students^and actually shares a border with Hammond's polygon, is to do what developers want. 'There is no impact to either school, so why move it. Carleen Pena Polygon 1015 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chris Brewster Dear Board of Educationmembers, Underthe plan that Ms. Mallo proposed last night, ourpolygon would be moved to WildeLake High School withan extremely small feed.Currently weattend River HiU High School in an approximate 3 0%7eedfrom Folly QuarterMiddle School. Theremaining 70%ofFQMS goesto Glenelg HighSchool. BykeepYng'polygons 3176and 176at River Hill HighSchool and moving only our3 polygonsto WildeLakeHigh SchooTvou wnulri be creating m_unacceptably small feed ofstudents traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Please donot create a small feed like Ais for our children. The children ofWoodmark deserve better than this. Please keep ooTveons 180. 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. --rr-^-----, Pleasenote fcat you will nothear from many people inmy polygon because it is comprised ofonly 6 housesin a smallculdesac with only 7 schoolaged children- only one of which is of high school age. Wedonot'have'the numbersand the voices of the larger polygons. I askyou to please hear our concerns, regardless of our size. Respectfully Chris Brewster 12315 Fawn River Wav Ellicott City. MD 21042 Polygonll80 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Amy Brewster Dear Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed, ourpolygon would bemoved to Wilde LakeHigh School with an extremely small feed. Currently we attend River Hill High School in an approximate 30% feed from Folly Quarter Middle School The remaining 70% ofFQMS goes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygon's 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School andmoving only our 3 polygons to Wilde LakeHigh Schoofyou would be creating an unacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. Pleasedo not create a small feed like this for our children. The children ofWoodmark deserve better than this. Please keep polygons 180, 181 and 1181 in a larger feed. Please note that you will not hear from many people in my polygon because it is comprised ofonly 6 houses in a small culdesac with only 7 school agedchildren- only one ofwhich is ofhigh school age. Wedo nothave the numbers and the voices ofthe larger polygons. I askyou to please hear our concerns, regardless ofour size. Respectfully Amy Brewster 12315 Fawn River Way EllicottCity, MD21042 PolygonllSO October 28, 2019 Dear Howard County Board of Education, I am a second-generation immigrant who attended several FARM schools in the inner-city. Many educational experts considermy former schoolsas some ofthe worst schools in the nation. I camefrom this impoverished and resource limited background to eventually graduate from high school at the top of my class and later receive an Ivy League education. My wife and I along with our kids have settled in polygon 1 99 as one ofthe Black families within our area. Looking back over the years, I often reflect to assess what contributed to my academic success in the midst of being raised In poverty and inequity. My academicsuccess was not derived from being reassigned to a different school outside ofmy nsighborhood. Attending the school in my neighborhood was important to me as it fostered my own identity, confidence, and a sense ofpride of my community. Itwas my teachers' and counselors' relentless support that made a difference for me and other students in my school and not a collective re-distribution of FARM and non-FARM students across the county. While I am an advocate for seeking equity, a former FARM student, and as an African American, do not support Dr. Martirano's proposed attendancearea adjustment plan. I believethe proposedplan will not achieve the goalsset bythe Superintendent. I also specificallydo notsupport the currentplans to redistrictstudents in polygon 199from River Hillto Glenelg. Having two ofthe current 15 students in polygon 199 andwith more of my kids to enter the school system within the next 1- 5 years, I believe the diversity and equity that River Hill would obtain from my African American kids along with other minority families within polygon 199 would accomplish the very purpose ofthe school proposal therefore zoning polygon 199to Glenelg is not necessary. Pursuing equity is a complex process and the solution is not simple, believe the goals of the current school proposal areimportant, however the execution requires a detailed assessment ofeach polygon with precision decision making and practical common sense. I hope this letter brings attention to my small but unique polygon 199 to ultimately allow its current school zoned plans of Dayton Oaks, Folly Quarter, and River Hill to remain. I also desire that the Superintendent and Board takea seriouslook again along with the many other alternative proposals to creating equity and improving capacity in our schools. Sincerely, Matthew Noah Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chris Howard . 1sProPosal focuses on balancing school capacity while minimizing students traveltimes andimproving equity. It addresses the highest concerns ofcitizens across the county, whichhave been identified by Dr. Martirano through his community sessions and online surveys - student travel times. This proposal will benefit students acrossthe county. It's a true effort to provide leadership to advance excellence inteaching andlearning for Howard County. Chris Howard, Elkridge Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chris Howard CHS is way over capacity, RHHS under capacity. WLSHneeds to gam some capacity. WLHS should eet from CHS, not from RHHS. It doesnttake a person with above average intelligence to see this. Board Members, is your IQ above or below average? Your decision on this will tell. Chris Howard, Elkridge Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chengquan Huang Dear BOEMembers, y0 in mind that ASJf?,^styt 1?. ?nd w^rk session' Please keep you don't need a lot of common sense to keep 176 in RHHS, but will lose all sensesif you dothe opposite. Thank you for doing the right thing. ChengquanHuang, polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Powers, Gary > I amwritmg you with input regarding the ongoing redistricting issuesthat have plagued the county foryears. Please use this email as written testimony. > > Pleasecorrect me if I amwrong but it ismy understanding that after countless hours of your work, taxpayer's money, input from citizens; the recommendations put forth by the consultant Cooperative Strategies LLC md SuperintendentMartirano are now "shelved" and the BOE will comeup with their own plan for redistricting using existing boundary lines as a starting point. > ^ Whik,I don'tnecessarily disagree with this plan, I dohowever take issue with not allowing additional input fromthe community after the BOB decision. It seemsabundantly unfair for those affected by this decision. The BOB allowedsignificant input from thecommunity regarding the 3 recommended options andthe community wasunder the impression that one of these three options wouldbe selected. However, it appears thatthis is not the case and an^entirely differentoption is being considered that will nothave the due process that waspreviously allowed. Please either consider the existing options or allow for additional communit input for the solution the BOB selects. > > Further,mth the recent SOE4-3 vote that refuses to keep walkers as walkers is an astonishing costly problem. Theidea the the BOE would take walkers andturn them into a busriders is not someAing asa tax payerI canendorse. Asyou know the county is already faced with funding issues. Notconsidering walkers is only goingto addto the cost thatthe county cannot afford. > > Keepingcommimities andneighborhoods and thus feeds together is somethingthat the BOB claims to endorse and I would fully support this. Living in the Font Hifl neighborhood, we are one ofthe few" STmuIiitiest^t keep.s th!elementary> middle school andhigh school feed together. Thisis somethingthat is fally endorsedby our family. Notonly arewe walkers for the elementary school,but we are alsoTess thanT.5 "!i. s,fr^t_tl, le_middles(:h001 a?d hi. ghS':. 1100L whilethis is a bussingcommunity of the middie and high school, thisdistance is nottoo farwhere kids can walk home if necessary. ^- a"^_you, fory?ur time' I^?l?reciate Aehard work and difficult decisionsthat are forced uponyou, not becauseanythmg the current BOB created but because of the years of mismanagement of the county at'the executive level. > > Sincerely, Sent from my iPad Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kristen Powers Dear Board of Education Members: I writeto requestthat the Board continue to keepthe polygons inclosest geographicproximity to Centennial LaneElementary, Burleigh Manor Middle School and Centennial High School -'our neighborhood schools - assignedto thoseschools. Ourcontinuous feedin polygon 2184 from elementaryto middleto highschool has built a strong, vibrant, andwonderfully diverse community, andI hopethat other polygons canexperience the same benefits I havewatched much ofthe public oral testimony andhave been stmckby one overriding theme:most of my fellow Howard County residents have appealed to the Board to make a decisionthat, quite simply, makes common sense. I am perplexed by the proposal to triple the transportation budget to redistrict and bus current walkers to schools outsidetheir neighborhoods when, just last year, I receivedmultiple emails from school officials lamenting our severe budget deficit. Inresponse to the Board's plea forthe public to sendcreative alternatives to help sofve the redistricting quagmire, I sentan email last yearasking the Board to work withthe County to create more WalkerCommunities to ourneighborhood schools (as the Burleigh Manor Community becamewalkers to Centennial Lanea fewyears back). Ourneighborhood in polygon 2184 could easily become walkers to CHS, savingmoney instead of increasingany budgets. Our school system strives to teach responsibility to our kids; however, redistricting students out oftheir neighborhoodschools will stripmany middle andhigh schoolers ofthe ability to getto andfrom home' themselves, ifthey forget something or wish to exploreafter school activities, anothercritical piece of building a vibrant, college-bound community. Allowingkids to goto their neighborhood schools with other children in their neighborhood commimities is whatBrown y Boardof Education was all about, andit isone of the tenets thatom Howard County Boardof Education"bolmd to serveby regulatlon and Howard County policy. And- itmakes sense. Pleaseprotect our neighborhood school boundaries. I understandthat the Board has decided to start "&om current school boundaries'. "whichsounds a lot like starting from scrateh- Doesthat mean that all ofthe mone'y spentout of 01 Setfor proposals by consultants and the superintendent's office was .our-. e,cnim.ateSi sc,1?0, byd compTetely ^ast -L^"d ,wi11the Board'snew proposal/decision affectnew communities notpreviously impacted byeither theconsultant's or superiutendent's proposal? I amhoping that is not the case, as any newly impacted r?s?^°rho_o^^willnot. hav,e h^dthe s. amedue Processchaflce to protest their redistricting inpublic healings, as ^IH.O^ar?LC-(?un!y^famili^ ha.ve-J'm not. surehow fist:ally soundthis decision appeaTS to be, but I hopethat - atthe very least - it meansthat this Board will protectneighborhood communities districtedto theirclosest neighborhood schools. And I hope it means that common sense will prevail. Thank you, Kiisten Powers Polygon2184 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Deepika Dhuria Dear Board Members, My home in polygon 176 is approximately 1. 5 miles to RHHS andthe distance to WLHS is 6. 5 miles. I havea freshmanwho worked very hardto be a part ofafter school sports andacclimate to hernew school. friends, andteachers. Ifthe drive is increased, she may not be ableto participate in after school activities since myhusband and I bothwork. Pleasedo not redistrict 176to another high school. Theimpact to students sleep schedule, ability to participate in after school activities, and impact to mental health must be considered. Pleaseconsider the leastnumber ofmoves neededto addressovercrowding. Thank You, Deepika Dhuria Polygon 176 Sent from my iPhone Petition to Keep CES Students in CMS with Their Own Communities Dear Board of Education Members, We strongly oppose and urge you to vote NO to the superintendent's redistricting proposal that would move 207 kids from Clarksville Middle to Harper's Choice MS (Polygon 1185, 185, 1028, 2028, 28, 1186, 186) The attached map shows that the two schools are on two opposite sides of the 1, 021-acre Middle Patuxent Environmental Area (MPEA). Forcing the kids to leave their own communities is simply cruel. The proposal would drive 207 kids around MPEAvia Route 108, a 45-mph state highway, subjecting them to not only a much longer bus ride but also potentially more accidents. As an example, one can imagine that kids from Polygon 1186 on Trotter Road could take a much longer ride (-30 minutes) through many stops and morning traffic along the way compared to -10 minutes to CMS. The additional buses required (10 or so) could easily block Trotter Road and Route 108 during rush hours, not to mention the added operational costs. \. ® 1185 CeBar . Lane'Pgfk tiobt»Ws>Glen Harper's GolfGourse: ^^' Choice HAK'PiER'S MS 185 eye- .... \ v^ Howard Community College y 1028 Moward County -I Hospital tlttfe p 2028 .. »'.. \ ^ KkAcl^ '%.. 28 '"a Clarksv h» .? s WOOD IICKORY RIDGE 'It. «»"' afs,. B" f ".". <, .t »" '.'tmS-', Robinson Natun Clarksvllle MS w»,, chilfuilR& ~», iSIMPSONVILLE 'It."I, *«* ^ RFFFIVFR OCT 2 a "n19 It is NOT safe. It VIOLATESour kids' right to stay within their communities. So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 igna u.~lv^1V:P.i+??.-Po; ^+- c t- ^e/\c^M AsKci^- -:2>^c^ ^^l- K-as(!U So here can be a solution. According to hlCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 igna i>ov,/\5; fao^n&> 'PS^ AH°_7 Se-^^ fo^i-^^ ^z/ /n^ '/AAt inu'M^ PG^{- c/~ ^ \Jl^ ^l^-fe^V-c^^ fu" T)^ tt5C ft C/- ^ ^OMO-10- f^J^*^ ^c^ i^^Lewb [\1\\ T^&Hcjr Roi^b C-b oi/^/n 5 r^^ QcAICt'a I n (( T^&y 9sird~cf- ^/AL SH^f'K. P^NJ)^ 117o$ TROTT£(S PD^TGT. c?/2(/iy 1-1 J-AyAPANj>&| ' <^y-9^ /t ll tf ct]2. 1'j^ J^Llmv Kibkow J^v^- 1170 2> r^jorrei e Po/^r r ^/Z-l/lf ft'S f«v K\s^f?e ^s-^-« t|7&3 r'TOTTQt ?<3^r or Q/2///? Madlwi. K- W^J- ino6 Tx?tt<-- ftiix^cl" ^|2.l(l? ^/&-/e ^/WL-/t l|7o6 ^f p^~ c^ t|2-l[/y S^if^ ^ ^(^ ^)^ ^LSL. ((-^etoT^r-ryz. ft^-r Cr ^IT-'J^ ^\).t i±^^\ ^TT-SB- W:NT So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 iignatur N\AM. la>J»»rJ C^bg M\\m Taf P^: So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 Nami Ignatun gir^t^l^ (sW fi^'^ar^, ^Pwd}Kr&^i ^Z55-^l^'^ ^]11 ^Wt^~^fwh. 'i ^^^r( \u^Cf, 4J- Wi9 ^e^^ffnt^i '5^U^ 1/^//T ^,7 ^ ^-7 ^ ^.^ML W . ^JJ^Ct^ /bp^ yb-er^^ i£~/(, l^fle- y^BW /f' So here can be a solution. According to hlCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 ignatun ^Mu fc^o^ ^fte^o^^T^^- 'yy^ ^f^f /f^l"^/^^^^ ^/?/{wt ^^)^ ^-yffle^j^^'^ (6|4b? <^^4 }io . ^/ /7'fi///»<»<~i y y ^ ^s~ So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 Nam' iigna ^., YaaM [-/'2^f^ Xw^^^' ^^^^ Yv ef/^^iy Hftt-Te lly^^ /^/it. ?^^>^ y D{if?6l7s^f Yuc So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 igna ^'lt ^ 0\AK^( itnjiJ^/ ^W ^^Q^^k/Sww/ i^- IM 0)^ Wi^ OV^ (lyW ^^A/Y& $)li^( f'/(A«^ '^-u^1'. 'u^- -- "^ . &$y& ' ' /0//^/^ ^ji^So^-0 ^^< ^3 So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 Nam igna (^.^ -ez^^L^i. (/7<-^to- /^i/ / f"?. v-7'i^^<5^ ^. 4^, w'^/! J f/l \n^ Tw^^^^^t^ ^4 f /^^t'/ ^b( ^rze/U (;-73-/rX^7% CX^S^-^./1' ;o/^//f A'^W /^vrz^o ^O^-if^UJUL- i^izc mon^c^Wtr^ io(i3f[^ .^K. f^u'rz^ ^CU^L. ^-i^-. '-''73,, -Ot077^(3C^?M^4v / So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 Nam Ignatur 'fo^n'^ ^/'fl^.t ^^^- //^?- '7ft. ^C^s^B^ ?A//T ^/^J^SL ^P^p u^Y ^.^f^Grs^^L^. ^^2-w \^ t^ ^l\)^c<^ ^^y^- \\-~i"i. '~( T<-o-T'^u-C .i>'^ L-. cf/3.[/i^ '(^ /'7?f T-^l^'Cyo{ So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. V\fe propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186. Nam (t<*l 6^?^^c^^f ^ 7^^f\^-^fr^ '0^^. I ' ?(^ fy- S^c ^3^S Qs^t^^z pl ?A?/^ D/S.AfL '<7s7£~ &33S Gsl^ S-k^. ?! ?/%>/^ (/K-Hpt-ys- ^3^5 6^<&wS-kf- /7/ Cf/zof^ CriWi^ c4o 6?Z^ ^f^<^^. P/ ^zo/n J<. l^ (^0 ^^ ^/(^l &^f} .s 7/^//^J^[Le^7^ f( UM S i)>a»t[ It is NOT safe. It VIOLATES our kids' right to stay within their communities. So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. V\fe would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186. Signatun Addres; 02^-^-(^-fi^f'? T^^^^^^^y^^ }^^- V^ 64-$-^ SU;"J C<- A^i;c, ^v //Y^ ^ ^e^sL^y ^1 ^ w'^, c/y (^'4 ^t7 '3'|a^-,nJ .3t>an3 i»»l"s!n' ^ &ctS-5. & u?:»(j Cir Col"J>i0'-'i.^ 1'(^{ict, ^ ^^ 6^ . ^ ^... ^'L x^^^ ^^v^^^y^M/ ^4^- ^Wi p. ^'^/l - ^f^l^ ^JLs^Mi .s-Vn uj^v,^£r/^^ ^^^S;^ JmiA^t^ o So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186. Nam' Signal ^^ s^^ ^-w ^^ ?/^y^ ^^ I I (, U-oj/l[Mv^nf. l^^^ ^l^t'f ^ .. _ , . ^^/'^ r[j^ ^P/)0 ^y7/ S^/^& ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^'^£^ M^-f- ^ ^ &A/^. ^2iA- ^.^ ^^n^, ^^^C.^^ ^TC/^h^L ^-f^/ fli/W^CtM ^ ,1 , 1 If 1~I (I i^f. Wei^~^///- fw^-^s^St ^J^M^\o^ ht^Q cn-epoN a,t)iM^ 6^'o +yw snRCT. oocWft^ 2iowV^ ^iP6^TGELeoow B-cALiK r .' . ^20,^ ^^t5^ (j^fl /(4^-- <$/,'l°/1.? ^^ M^ . %^- ^.^^ ^ol^ ^ 4^1'/^ W\^A M^i '^W\ J^^^ &^' ^ ^ It is NOT safe. It VIOLATESour kids' right to stay within their communities. So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 N am ilgnai ~])/\Uib ^ ^^ /^W/(^ ^'' V^r ^-/^X f/f ^/^^^^^ ^f ^_ - /a//6/rf jf\^ ^lo^^ J^x^ j^/^ BI^M^-^ 5^7 ioi^/C/ ^"t ^-kftk^^ '^oc% ^^/^ So here can be a solution. According to HCPSS School Profile, CMS total enrollment is 666 students with a capacity of 643, but this does not include additional capacity provided by 5 portable classrooms. Harper's Choice MS enrollment is 503 with a capacity of 506. Exchanging kids does not help address overcrowding in the two schools. We propose to move HCMS kids to CMS only. CMS currently has a 5% FARM rate. We propose to survey FARM families in HCMS and ask if they are willing to voluntarily move to CMS. For those who are willing to move, we wholeheartedly welcome to CMS and are willing to work with HCPSS to provide community support and help as needed. We would greatly appreciate your careful consideration. Your kind decision will save distress for hundreds of families, keep hundreds of kids in their communities, and even FARM rates across the schools. Below are signatures from concerned families in Polygon 1186 Ndm iignatyr ^ Huz^i 5^s m ^Cl'/l SVA^ ^ 7^<^Afe^, . ^N^ Ha> 3^- i^te Trc^-fti &^it^J*|> (^/2^J '^\w- ^ ? 3 A- 7^tfc< /^/ C^s^ii^ (^/3^o // £WUy Don 9 ^'bt ^Y(^\^ ^G|^WW^ ^o!\'31\cl S^2U1. 'rrtej^-l&( ^h^f {0'-13- ^ ^^-^ J^^-^Y-t ^ -Z-- ^-^ Fg36 Tte-fcferM. A^s^ MD . (^S/?^ Uy &c»^. (J^SL^^r^c-i^. (TT?^ Wo-fsfy^-yA. ci^i^ [o/il>Al ^t'au^t (§t'01^. ^ ^^^^ ^^(, ~[^^^-^. dfiMsAsL. ^p f''/ts/(^ _1 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Tom Ess Dear Board of Education Members, Since I have no other outlet to express my concerns over Polygon 2183's children's potential ofbeing redistricted to a highschool that is so faraway from their homes, I amwriting you againin hopesthat you read these emails and consider my points. My two children, and the other children in our neighborhood, will experience something most adults, let alone children, experience every morning if you approve the redistricting plan without any modifications. Their alarm will sound at 5:00 am. Whendid your alarm soundwhen you were in highschool? Wasit at 5:00 am? If so, was there a high school 2. 5 miles awaythat you could attend? What else will the children experience every daythat most adults do not? They will leave the house at approximately 5:45 am. Why? To catch a bus to the FIFTH closest high school to their home. They will be on that bus for well over anhour every morning. How long wasyour commute to high school? Wasthere a high school 2. 5 miles away? Pleasedon't feel my oppositionto my children attending WLHSis anti-equity. It surely is not. I knowteachers at WLHS; they are great. I am not opposed to the plan's stress for equity. But I am strongly opposed to such a long bus ride. I am opposed to my children getting up before most adults do. Why must children so far from WLHS be sent there? Whynot select polygons that are closer to WLHS in order to balance equity? Itjust doesn'tmake senseto put childrenon a busat 5:45 amto be in a classroom by 7:25 am. It just doesn't make sense. I did not purchase my home expecting that my children would go to a specific school. But I most certainly did not expect them to be bussed 8 miles to high school when there are three high schools within 4. 5 miles. Please consider modifying the redistricting plan and move Polygon 2183's children to their closest high school. GHS. - " '" -^-^------"----., Thank you for your time and consideration. John Sharbaugh, a concerned parent Kathleen V. Hanks From: Stephen Seliger Stephen L. Seliger Polygon 1065 Dear Board of Education Members: I write in regard to the proposed redistricting ofthe HCPSS schools to express my concerns with the Superintendent's plan. I am the father ofthree children, two who attend Howard High School ("HoHS") and one who is in second grade at Thunder Hill Elementary ("THES"). The Superintendent's plan violates critical mandates ofpolicy 6010 regarding providing healthy feeds ofgreater thaa 15% and ensuring fiscal responsibility inthe use ofHCPSS funds bynot incurring unnecessary bus fees. These two lapses significantly andadversely impact my polygon andthose ofmy Glenmont neighborhood, which is also composed ofpolygons 65 and 2065. Inprinciple, I am a strong supporter ofthe Superintendent's stated goal ofincreasing equity within our school system. However^the "ask"of my neighborhood inparticular to achieve this goal is simply too greatrelative to any potential benefits. The Superintendent wouldchange Glenmont children's middle school districting from Ellicott Mills Middle School to Oakland Mills Middle School ("OMMS"), whichwould result in anextremely low 2. 9% feed from OMMS to HoHS. Glenmont children walk to HoHS, which is critical to preserve. But, placing them at OMMS meansthat they would be the only neighborhoodgoing from OMMSto HoHS. Enteringhigh school knowing so incredibly few peers is unjustifiable - it is equivalent to making Glenmont students brand newto the school system' most years'my neighborhood's children wouldknow only 5-10others entering a school ofover 1900 students. Thiswill simply be overwhelming to the vastmajority ofkids at a critical time in their development. I cannot imagine subjecting my sonto sucha transition andwill strongly consider alternatives if thispart ofthe Superintendent's plan isadopted. I do not believe thatequity should beachieved byplacing a group ofchildren in such a precarious position. Pleasekeep GIenmont children at a middle school that feeds to HoHS. Additionally theSuperintendent's plan moves Glenmont's elementary school from THES to Talbott Springs Elementary. We walk to THES and the health and social benefits ofwalking are well-established and substantial. My sonwalks to andfrom schoolevery day he possibly can (our cut off is below 25 degrees). My olderchildren also walked to THES. Theydeveloped a real'comfortwith the entire THES communhy neighborhoodand independence - atan early age, they walked to friends'houses, the pool, etc. Busing childrenat considerable expenseis not fiscally responsible (especially consideringhow many HCPSS priorities arenot being fundedright now, like renovation ofTalbott Springs), andlosing the benefits ofwalking makes no sense. I urge you to keep Glenmont at an elementary school to which we can walk. Additionally, Talbott Springs really is not part of our neighborhood community. It is across Route 175 and separated &om Glemnont by BlandairPark (labelled aspolygon 2151, eventhough no people live there). I have heard wonderful things about Talbott Springs ES, but I believe the benefits ofmy child attending a neighborhood school to whichhe can walk and where he canmake friendsthat live nearby, cannot be replicated. I urgeyou to weighthe costs andbenefits ofthe Superintendent's plan andrecognize that the costs to Glemnont are extreme and unfair and cannot bejustified, regardless of the Superintendent's laudable goals. Thank you for your consideration, Stephen Seliger Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ashita Singh Howard Country Board of Education Members: My name is Ashita Singh and live in Polygon 176. I had a chance to attend the first session of the public hearings, I appreciate the considerations that you have shown in the course of discussions. As you get ready to discuss the boundary changes for High Schools, I fully believe you will consider keeping Polygons 176 and 3176with River Hill High School (RHHS). These polygo'ns arewithin 1.4 miles from RHHS, with a commute time of just about 5 minutes. I strongly urge that you will take a common sense approach and keep these two polygons with RHHS. Thankyou for your service to the county, understand, decisions regarding school redistricting across the county are tough to make. However, the decision to keep Polygons 176 and 3176 with RHHS should be relatively easy and straightforward to make. Thank you for your time and thanks again for your service to the county. Regards, Ashita Singh Polygon 176 Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android