Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Baoge Ying
Dear Board of Education members, I strongly support Dr. Chao Wu's plan. His plan will only move 3000 students, which is less than half of the Superintendent's Redistricting proposal. I believe that Dr. Wu has listened to the students/parents' voices and came up with a redistricting plan with minimal disruption and less transportation costs. In the meanwhile, his plan will also'reach the main goal of resolving school overcapacity.
Best Regards, Baoge Ying Polygon 3176 Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Bernard Meyer
Importance: High
Dear Howard County School Board, Even though I sent in the following weeks ago, I do not see said solutions to the school overpopulation mentioned in any ofthe reviews ofthe current meetings on the subject. So one more time:
Go to on-line teaching and/or closed-circuit/PBS TVteaching in the student's home or in a ^^. l'h.???-t'o. me.,withParental monitoring using PCsand7or large screen TVs? Hint: Universityof Phoenix,jhereby reducing the student population in brickschools and the need to build newones e.. the best English teacher in Howard County and/or Maryland and/orthe USA"preps~cTosed^circuit~ lessonsand tests. Testingwould bedone by on-line software testing oronce a monthtests atthe ^ULrentlwal. school_s:.. Andyes' thi.s-would involve lettin9 9° manyofthe current teachers'(Engiish, c' .F-o.reig-n Lan£luag??:social studies eto- whsre hands-on learning is not required)" fh'e' savingsjo taxpayers would be huge. Technology marches on. e. g. 50, 000 translators lost their iobs due to Google Translate. In the same vein as above, use teaching software commercially available for in-home or n.eighborhoodh, ometeachlng sites- LaPtoPS. tablets, PCS, smart-phoneoMarge screen monitors for would be Provided or subsidized by tax-payer"funds^ . fn^sting'. _ Tf1 es^ "Note:As"per" m.ygrandson' softwareis alreadybeing used in biologyclasses to simulate'experimentswith live' since these are no longer allowed in Howard'County schools. My grandson also noted'that even some Phys. Ed. classes are now using education software.
the social needsof students be can easily achieved via sports programs, .TendmgAO-, /or'sch001 clubs m*uis!c/band. s/orches. t.ras, and. at_the current schools or fromrvarous organizations like ' andYM/WCA teams or HowardCounty Library/Parks and Recreation learning'groups""
.And^why_not. use-Howard county Nbrarissand other Countyfacilities (e. g.volunteer fired de,p.a.rt.n,!ents-t.heRobinson Naturecenter'the col"mbiaAssociation'faci?ities)~manyof'them brand newwith plenty of space for classrooms and paid for in full or partially by my taxes???' B. H. Meyer, Elkridge, MD Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Tammy Baskaran
Dear Board Members,
I live in polygon #176 Walnut Creek, have 3 children, and would like to express my support of Dr. Wu's proposed plan, and strong opposition ofMs. Mallo's plan. After hearing Ms. Mallo and Dr. Wupresent their plans, Dr. Wu's plan is far more efficient for numerous reasons. Dr. Wu focuses on moving less students out of their schools, keeping costs lower, maintaining smaller feeds, balancing school capacity, and keeping communities together. This is less disruptive and much more logical. Alternatively, Ms. Mallo's plan violates Policy 6010, unnecessarily moves thousands more students, moves students out ofunder-capacity schools to other under-capacity schools, and is much more costly on the already strained budget. Also in her plan, it does not make sense to send part of our community #176 to Wilde Lake and send #3176 to River Hill. Our Walnut Creek/Grove #176/#3176 community shouldbe kept together as part of Walnut Creek is in Walnut Grove and only 1. 4 miles from River Hill. There is no logical reason to send polygon #176 past under-capacity River Hill to Wilde Lake. Let's "keep our children at the center of all decision making" as the Board ofEd site states. Thank you.
Tammy Baskaran Polygon#176 Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Meenu Yahoo
Dear BOEs
I have studied all 3 proposed redistrictingplans in detail.
We should really consider deep dive analysis for these proposals before making a decision. Just 3 weeks is not sufficient time to make the right decision that impacts thousands of kids and their families.
If we still have to decide by Nov 21 than I strongly support Dr Wu's proposal as it involves moving around 3000 students in total, less than half of other proposals(7500 or 9000). His explanation of these moves clearly reflects that he has considered a lot of feedbacks from communities. Dr Wu's plan proposes to move as less students as possible (spend as less money as possible too), keep community together and keep a good feeder system.
Thanks Meenu Suri Resident ofpolygon 176
> On Oct 29, 2019, at 8:34 PM, Meenu Yahoo
> >
> > Thanks > Meenu Suri > Resident ofPolygon 176 > > Sent from my iPhone Michael Kasbeer-Betty Polygon 181
Members of the Howard County School Board,
My comments address high school redistricting. There are a number of issues with the revised Adjustment Area Proposal plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019.
Polygon 181 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 QuarterMiddle School. The remaining -70% of FQMSgoes to Glenelg High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving polygons 180, 181, and 1180 to Wilde Lake High School this plan creates an unacceptably small feed (-12%) of students traveling alone to Wilde Lake. This small feed is directly against Policy 6010 of less than 15% feeds. Please do not create a small feed like this for our children. The children of our Woodmark community deserve better than this 2. Moving polygons 180, 181 and 1180 from RHHS to WLHSmoves children from one under capacity school to another. There is no reason per Policy 6010 to move children from their closer school - and one that is in their community - since RHHS is not overcrowded. 3. Moving proposed polygons 53, 66, 134, 1066, 1134, 2053, 2134, 2135, 2174 from WLHSto RHSS also moves children from one under capacity school to another. In addition, this results in polygons that are geographically disconnected from their new school. a. Road travel to RHHS is not straight forward and will result in excessive bussing and children who are not going to school in their direct community. Commute distances will almost double (2. 6 miles to 5. 1 miles) and will result in additional traffic on Cedar Lane through an already crowded area that passes in front of an Elementary school with many students who walk to school. b. Moving these polygons also causes conflict of interest since School Board members live in polygons where students are being moved from an under capacity school to a school that has better performing test scores. Moves per items 2 and 3 above will result in children attending a school that is not part of their direct community which negatively impacts parental support and participation in after school activities. Both ofwhich are key elements in the success of our children. a. It is important to consider that Communities are not established only by distances from schools but by road networks, shopping centers, places of worship and community gathering places to name a few. Neighborhoodsgo to the closest areas to do these things and that includes schools. We are close to the school in our neighborhood and can easily support it while maintaining jobs and extra-curriculars with multiple children. A school that is 35%farther awaywill be a burden to support and negatively affectfamily and student quality oflife. 5. Polygons 180, 181 and 1180 are in an area as likely to be affected by redistricting for HS#13 in 2022. This is against Policy 6010 to not allow more than one move in 5 years. Polygons180, 181 and 1180would be best served by staying at RHHS or by moving west to Glenelg High school to allowfor future moves from move heavily populated areas. 6. Moving students from their current communities and support networks to lower FARM rates does nothing to help students receiving FARM. It does not address issues that have led to them needing FARM in the first place -just puts them in a school that is farther from their homes and more difficult to get to. If making FARM rates more even is the reason - why is Atholton's FARM rate allowed to increase by 15%? It seems that is ok since it doesn't affect Wilde Lake. This is another item which also contributes to the conflict of interest appearance ofthis plan. 7. River Hill HS is the worst performing school in HCPSS in graduating FARM students - over 30% worse than the next school. How is a student receiving FARM going to benefit from this? 8. This plan continues to ignore the priorities of the community stakeholder votes and online responses of 800 and 2176 participants, respectively, that state the first two priorities to be: a. Limit travel times and distances b. Boundary continuity 9. Reducingthe "inequities in the distribution ofstudents affected by poverty" was cited as a reason for this plan. Why is distribution considered inequitable if children attend their neighborhood schools? Housing and development regulations of Columbia and neighboring communities have resulted in the current distribution. This is a County Council issue, not an HCPSSissue. Allow children to goto their neighborhood school andwork with the County COuncilto updatezoning regulations to naturallyfix these issues. This way people would exercise their choice on where to live with full knowledge of the school community that they are committing to living in. Not have their free choice wrestled from them in the name of equality.
I urge the board to reject Mrs. Mallo's proposal.
Additionally, Chao Wu also presented a proposal on 10/28/2019 that has many merits including: 1. The proposal focuses on redistricting to relieve overcrowding. Polygons are moved from under capacity schools only where needed to accept students from other overcrowded schools. 2. This proposal does not move students from under capacity schools to schools that are farther away and in neighborhoods that are geographically separated from students housing location. 3. This proposal does not use FARM rates asjustification for moving children. Allows chiMren to stay in schools that graduate a higher percentage ofstudents receiving FARM each yearthan RHHS. Thiswill allow schools with a higherpercentage ofFARM students to address those issues in many ways including through targeted social programs, additional funding for beneficial classes, and special engagement activities for parents including educational opportunities. 4. In selected cases, polygons are moved West from RHHS to geographically closer Glenelg MS to make room for students from Reservoir and Atholton. This helps alleviate overcrowding while: a. Keeping student commute times short b. Keeping bus costs as low as possible by minimizing commutes c. Sending children to the geographically closest school in the case of RHHS transfer to Glenelg HS d. Ensures continued parental support by keeping children at neighborhood high schools
Chao Wu's plan is the most reasonable plan that has the highest likelihood of success for students. It also allows parents, who are also taxpayers & voters, the best chance to be involved with and support their neighborhood school. This is why I ask that you approve Chao Wu's redistricting proposal.
Thank you,
Michael Kasbeer-Betty Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Aarnav Grover
Dear BOEs
I am a Resident ofpolygon 176 and have closed studied all 3 proposed redistoicting plans.
I strongly support Dr Wu's proposal as it involves moving around 3000 students in total, less than half of other proposals(7500 or 9000). His explanationof these moves clearly reflects that he has considereda lot of feedbacks from communities. Dr Wu's plan proposes to move as less students as possible (spend as less money as possible too), keep community together and keep a good feeder system.
Thanks Aamav Grover Student and resident ofpolygon 176
Sent &om my iPhone To whom it may concern,
As parents that both work full-time (one In Howard County and one in Anne Arundel County) and that have a one- year-old and a four-year-old/ my husband and I made the decision to move from Baltimore County, MD to Howard County, MD earlier this year. We wanted shorter commutes and good schools, which is why we chose Howard County. We also wanted as much stability as possible for our children, which is why we chose to move this year before our four-year-old enters Kindergarten next year.
We are currently living in an apartment in Ellicott City while our new home is being built in Polygon 127, but we drive our kids to the daycare/preschool they will attend once we move into the new house (expected completion December 2019), again to provide them with as much stability as possible. We follow Riverside on Nextdoor, and Rivers Edge Neighborhood Families as well as several other Howard County Groups on Facebook, but until now [ have not spoken up about redistricting because my children aren't currently enrolled in Howard County Public Schools (although they are both at The Children's Learning Center at Howard Community College) and we were not strongly opposed to anything that we had seen.
It seems that most in Polygon 127 have embraced the recent change to Pointers Run Elementary and Clarksville Middle and when The Superintendent presented his Attendance Area Adjustment Proposal, my husband and I were not surprised that the proposal included Polygon 127 moving from Atholton High School to River Hill High School. We are not opposed to this move, but wish it was accompanied by stronger feeds from middle to high school in the proposal.
Im only now voicing my opinion and concerns, because of the Board of Education scenarios presented yesterday. A number of these plans Involve keeping Polygon 127 at Pointers Run Elementary, Clarksville Middle, and Atholton High School, but result in an even less strong middle to high school feed than The Superintendent's proposal. In addition, one scenario includes moving Polygon 127 from Clarksville Middle School to Wilde Lake Middle School. Some of those children will have had to start at new schools four times in four years and this scenario creates the biggest feed problem I have seen to date.
In summary: Polygon 127 was redistricted last year at the elementary and middle level to fix a small feed and relieve proposed overcrowding at our old schools. Many proposals we are seeing for our neighborhood create an even smaller feed for our kids and/or force kids currently enrolled to switch schools again, both of which are concerns of mine while wishing for stability in our children's lives. Please do not move Polygon 127 from Pointers Run Elementary or Clarksville Middle as moves to those schools were Just implemented in the last round of redistricting and please consider a stronger feed from Clarksville Middle School to the High School level.
Thank you for reading!
Respectfully, Kimberly Griffin Polygon 127 October 28, 2019 Howard County Board of Education 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042
Dear BOE:
Mrs. Malta is clearly well intentioned, intelligent and devoted to her cause. However, I have to wonder that given hundreds of testimonials and thousands of letters overwhelmingly against an intrusive overreaching and ineffective redistricting plan, how could anyone propose a plan that is even more disruptive and experimental than the initial proposal?
I was gratified that some sanity was interjected into these proceedings by way of a thoughtful and considered plan as was presented by Dr Wu. Likewise Mrs. Delmont-Smalls statements regarding this process and how it affects real people in a real way was comforting and well received. In that moment I felt that at least some BOE members truly understood what this means for the effected families. Insensitive and inconsistent statements from some like "all schools in Howard County are good", or "your kidswill be fine" have us wonderinghow someone can beso out oftouch withthe majority ofthe community they were elected to serve. During this entire ordeal, the ENTIRE community was asked what was important to them about their schools. By way of surveys and written statements to verbal testimonial and In the form of peaceful demonstration, the overwhelming majority of people said we don't want a plan that uproots this many communities. The public said from the beginning community, transportation, and feeds are most important to us. Next, public officials interject themselves into the process by pressuring school officialsto disregard the public, arrogantly arguingthat they know what's best for your kids. The results are obvious. Please, do not bow to political interests and let's look at reasonable plans that don't move this many kids. Let's first and foremost address overcrowding, then study and address the root causes for underachievement. We should not be using our children as a mechanism in an ill fatedattempt to achieve both in one stroke. Nothaving anything else to look atyet, I wholeheartedly endorse Dr Wu's plan. I also ask that you keep polygons 176 and 3176 in River Hill.
Sincerely
Zahid Khan (Polygon 176) October 29, 2019
To: Howard County BOE, Dr. Michael J. Martirano, Superintendent, Howard County Public School System
Cc: County Council Members, HoCo County Executive, District 9 State Senator, District 9A State Delegates
Subject; Community feedback from polvgon 176
Dear Board of Education (BOE) Members,
I have watched the first two working sessions regarding redistricting and I have the following feedback (I am in polygon 176).
1. I am happy you are considering a feeder system and starting your discussions from High Schools as well as considering HS13 boundary lines. I am also happy you are considering transportation 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 while to get back to you with accurate and real data. 3. Regarding Ms Jen Mallo's plan for HS: I am disappointed you are splitting 3176 and 176. Polveons 176 and 3176 should be kept toeether at River Hill Hieh School. Both are only 1.4 miles away from an under capacity high school. Also, they are a single community. The entrance for Walnut Creek phase 1(22 homes) is through Walnut Grove entrance (if you drive through it, you would know). Also, Walnut Creek phase 1 residents living there are shared with the Walnut Grove HOA. Finally, the bus stop at Preakness Circle Lane is common to Walnut Creek and Walnut Grove residents. 4. Regarding Dr Wu's proposal for HS, MS and ES -1 fully support it as we like the approach of optimizing capacity, keeping communities together, minimizing student commutes (therefore cost considerations), organization of a good feeder system ES->MS->HS and also socioeconomic equity. This proposal will greatly benefit ALL students.
Thank you,
Vanita Tuliani (Very concerned resident and grandparent)
Polygon 176
c, Z Kathleen V. Hanks
From: AmitGmail
> Dear BOE members > > I am resident ofpolygon 176. > >LBack_m^ug'DrM, art"lar,ocameup with a Plantotally different than suggestions from feasibility studies. It | swapping7k kids and not addressing over crowding effectively. >..YesterdayMs Mall°came up.wit11another new Plan just 3 weeksbefore the final date that involves busing lot more proposals should be throughly analysed not rushed like that. Istongly-support witilDr wu 'spla"as it onlyfocuses onmovi"S kids out of over capacity- schools andto i
^"^ i^m"elfr°m Hs. md.veIy, CI.T.lyconnected withP°Iye°" 3176 (our adjacent communities). Piskeep both and 3176 communities together and at RHHS. *. -It - " -, \' *-. ..^, 1SS^_ .. ^.,. ''-11a-
./
/ /
'\.
^.
;':1
. ;. -.
> Thanks > Amit Grover > Resident of Polygon 176 > > Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Walnut Creek HOA
Dear HCPSS Board of Education -
We are wnting asthe Board ofDirectors for the Walnut Creek Homeowner's Association, which is located in po-ygo.n, 176'As youconsider Ms- Mallo's proposed plan md all other plans for redistricting, we respectfully requestthat jou considerpolygous 176and 31 76 as one contieuous commumtv. WalnutCreek neighborhood is polygon 176; however, a portion ofour neighborhood is only accessible viapolygon 3176, the Walnut Grove commumty.
Both polygons 176and 3176 sharean ep-ess withonly one roadin/out ofthe neighborhood viaPreakness Circle Lane for that portion of Walnut Creek, which begins at Clay Circle Lane. Additionally, polygonl76and3r7 6" share 176 areone in ^°l^. TS. 3^,7^a?d. community many ways and we coordinate our HOA efforts, children play togetherwalk between neighborhoods. Pleaseconsider us one community forredistricting anddon't split a bus stop or our community between 2 high schools! ^L.a diti^nL.we, as,k y?uto p!?ase consider Poli(:y 6010 as you review Ms. Mallo's plan and any others. Particularly the small feeds created, transportation costs, safety concerns andtime/d^tance travelled. Agai°_'asy^"workthrough. theve!7diffi<'UIttask P'a""i"g for our community schools, please consider 176 and 1376 as ONE COMMUNITY and keep them both at RHHS.""""""'' """""'' Thank you! Walnut Creek HOA Ed Suess - President Christopher Sajewicz- Vice President Sarah McCormell - Treasurer & Secretary Email: WalnutCreekMDHOA®,email. CQm Architectural Committee Andy Mattai Christian Steiner Christi Snyder Kathleen V. Hanks From: Julia Ju Dear BOE members, Thank you for your efforts inproducing a redistricting planwith community input! I sawsome greatprogress at lastnight's work session! Forexample, Keeping a consistent feeding system. Dr. Wu'sredistricting plan, and Mrs. Mallo's proposalto keeppolygon 3176 at River Hill HS,et al. Thankyou so much for these great improvements! Onerequest I would love to make isto keeppolygon 176at River Hill. Polygon 176is immediately next to polygon3176 and students from these two polygons attend the same ES, MS, and HS ever since the community exists. I am very impressed that Mrs. Mallo stated that shetrys to avoid increasing traffic onroute 108 asit is a very heavytrafficked road. However, in order for polygon 176to go to Wild LakeHS, wehave to drive on SheppardLane, turn into 108,pass by River High School, then get to Wild Lake HS. Remember, My house and some^other houses in our polygon are 0. 8 miles from River Hill HS. Please keep our community together tha1; both 3176 and 176 stay at River Hill HS. Thank you so much! Sincerely, Julia Ju and Family Polygon 176 Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Casey Conner I support Dr. Wu'sproposal as it focuseson balancing school capacity while minimizing student's travel times andimproving equity. It addresses the highest number of concerns tliat have been addressed by residents in the county that havebeen heard through testimonies andhearings over the past two months. It also addressesthe feedersystem andkeeping schools together. Wu'splan addresses not moving childrenwithout a reasonunlike any ofthe otherproposed plans. I doNOT support Mallo's plan, asaresident ofpolygon 176Wahiut Creek, it isunfair and unjust to splitour community apart from our connecting coimnunity 3176 Walnut Grove aswe are contiguous neighborhoods. Phase1 ofWalnut Creek js inWalnut Grove and we share a contiguousbus stop .Maffo's plan would create very smalHeedsbetow 15%if other polygons stay atRHHS. Thetime anddistance from Sheppards laneat- polygon 176to WLHSis 7 miles and 10stop lights. Additionally, ifcapacity isthe overarching driving factor ofpolicy 6010why move students out of an under capacity school that is 1. 5 milesaway. Why are no students moving out of Centennial HS that is currently over capacity? ^Lproposethe county tables Mallo's andDr, Martiano'splan as they both suggest to move 7,000+students and busthem across the county increasingstudent traveling time and diminishing feeder system. I proposethe couiity use Wu'splan to look at a Feedersystem andif need be extendthe vote so a logical redistricting oYancan be agreed upon. Casey Conner Resident Polygon 176 (Walnut Creek) Kathleen V. Hanks From: JeremyHammond Good evening, Ms. Mallo'sproposal wouldmake polygon 183part of a very small feedto WildeLake from FQMS. Firstand foremost small feeds shouldnot becreated under anyplan especially whenthere is capacity at RHHS Any feed less than 20 percent should be discouraged. Please look in detail atthe FQMS to WL feed Ms. Mallo Proposed. Ifthe feed is lessthan the target minimimi it must berejected. Jeremy Hammond Polygonl83 A Call for Equal Dignity and a Measured Approach to Socioeconomic Integration (B) Dear Members ofthe Howard County Board of Education: Ournames areRyan Pollard and Jennifer Pollard andwe live in Polygon 1200. We are writingthis letter to follow up onour prior letter datedSeptember 11, 20-19,and titled "A Call forEqual Dignity and a MeasuredApproach to SocioecoiiomicIntegration" (the "Origir Letter"). s.t,off;^!^'.ou.ldhke to thank each of the members ofthe Hoard County Board of Education(the "BOB")for their respective efforts thus far. It isnot loston us thateach of the BOBmembers (i) satthrough manylong meetings to hearthe community's responses to Superintendent Michael Martirano's Attendance AreaAdjustment Plan, datedAugust 20,2019, (i) aremaking efforts to take the concerns of the community into account, and (iii) expended s.-^ £Ican!amo^ oftime to come up with sensible alternative scenarioswith stability being a significant goal. These past efforts are appreciated by our community; we continued efforts. OurOriginal Letter was supported by over 140of our neighbors in Polygon 1200.We bel,ievetflearca ad). ustmentPlan proposed by Dr. Chao Wu at the BOE meeting on October 28, 2019("Dr. Wu'sPlan") serves asthe best template from whichthe BOB to workbecause it sest the lo^es-t.. -eclo, to, sat.isfying numerous issues outlined in our Original Letter. As compared !^ .i. o^CTP_l_an^ submitted thusfar, we believe Dr. Wu'sPlan most closely satisfiesPolicy 6010 andthat itprovides forgreater community stability, aswell asan opportunity to maintam a true system in Howard County. h!leDr' w"'s plalt sel'ves m thebest template from which to work, we believethat p^8.0"}200 l"tller Dr:.wu's pla" s1"'"111Ae riaterf to ?0 to Kiver Hill High School c'RHHS")mste'"tofGlenelg!I'8h School("GHS"), UnderDr. Wu'sPlmPoIygons 203and 202are slated to remain at RHHS. Asnoted in the Original Letter, giventheone''routeofi'n 'egre_ss, forpo!ygo" 120°through Lindenchureh Road. ourimmediate neighbors are" no,ygons20. 2.and.203'The aPProximate distances and travel times from Polygon 1200 to RHHS-districted 203 and 202 Polygons are approximately 1. 1 miles'and 3 minu tes and 0. 6 miles 12minutes. ^ In fact,_the current RHHS busroute forPolygon 1200, accounts'forth'eefficie ofgrouping^olygon 1200with Polygon 202 as the current bus makesasto7at''HamsFami"Lane Inn^olyg°n^02- while;t istruethat polyson mo neighborsGHS-districted Polygons UOSand 8'^se_POIygo,nsare further^way from Polygon 1200 than RHHS-districtedPoTygons-203~ '202'^nd. anybus routeforPolygon 1200under Dr. Wu'sPlan willrequire'a'busTodriw'' ugh RHHS-districtedPolygon 203 andpast RHHS-districted Polygon'202. Accord'ir 1200 keepi ng Polygon at RHHS will maintain the greatest efficiency^nd avoid requirmgTbus to drive through another school's district. Groupi"fpoly80n 120°with p»ly8ons 1183and 2183 and additional Polygons to the land North East does not make senses as Polygon 1200 isgeographically ^lated'from otherpoly80"s-Jy detailed inthe Original Letter, there are"no°roadways-di'rectir connecting Polygon 1200to Polygons 1183 and2183 andthe additional Polygons-tothe°North andNorth East. In fact, Polygon2183 isthe closest ofthe group slatedto be movedto GHSand is approximately 7. 7 miles and 12 minutes away from Polygon 1200, which is greater than the distance between Polygon 1200 and GHS. Keeping Polygon 1200 at RHHS will not have a material impact on the utiliwtion capacitiesof KHHS or GHS. Inpresenting Dr. Wu'sPlan, Dr. Wuindicated that moving Polygon 1200to GHS was for capacity purposes. There are, however, expected to be only 31 high school students in Polygon 1200. With RHHS and GHS having capacities of 1,488 and 1,420 students respectively, keepingPolygon 1200 at RHHS will not have more than a 2% effect on school capacity. Accordingly, there is little need to shift Polygon 1200 from RHHS to GHS solely for capacity purposes, especially when efficiency favors keeping Polygon 1200 at RHHS. furthermore, as outlined in detail in the Original Letter, Polygon 1200 is very much a part ofthe RHHS community and, given the small number of students from Polygon 1200, we do not believe there is a meaningful needto divide the community. Therefore, we askthat you keep Polygon 1200 at RHHS under Dr. Wu's Plan. Thank you again for your time and consideration. Sincerely, /s/ Ryan Pollard /s/ Jennifer Pollard Kathleen V. Hanks From: Sarah McConnell Dear HCPSS Board of Education, I am writing with concerns for Ms. Mallo's proposed plan presented on Monday 10/28. My name is Sarah McConnell and I amresident of Polygon 176. 1 encourage Ms. Mallo and the Board to look at Polygon 176 and 3176 aLonec°m^nunity' part °f p°ly?°n 176 ls °nly accessible via the neighborhood entrance of 3176" In fact, polygon 176 and-31, 76share abus stop ^clay c"'cle Laneand Preakness Circle Lane) andthe first house in Polygon 176is closerto RHHSthan the first housein Polygon 3176. Pleaseconsider Polygon 176and 3176together for RHHS as both polygons are less than 1. 4 miles from the school with the only access in/out of the Walnut Creek and Walnut Grove neighborhoods via Shepard Lane. In addition, please review Ms. Mallo's plan in comparison policy 6010: ^,!.he,suggested_m°ye °f 176. wi11create a VERY sma11 feed than is in violation of Policy 6010. The feeds from TRES and FQMSwill be <10% if you split polygon 3176 and 176. ^Thejime and distance busedstudents travel is significantlygreater if 176goes to WLHSinstead of RHHS: p°lygon 176 is only 1 . 4 miles from RHHS and actually has the first home closer to RHHS than 3176. It takes 3 minsto driveto RHHSfrom even some ofthe furtherest points of Polygon 1 76. - Please don't split contiguous neighborhoods - Part ofWalnut Creek (176) is'in Walnut Grove (3176) as I've explained above. We work together as one community in many respects. ^With capacity as a driving factor ofpolicy 6010, please don't move so many students out ofan under capcity RHHS. -Please^considerthe additionalcosts underMallo's plan fortransportation with additional buses, aswell asthe cost oftime for community students/parents aswell asthe safety and environmental concerns ofmore vouna drivers on the road. Again, as_youwork through the very difficulttask ofplanning for our community schools, please consider 176 and 1376 as ONE COMMUNITYand keep them both at RHHS." --.--, --..--, Thanks! Sarah McConnell Resident Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Julia Ju Dear BOB members, Thankyou so much for your time andefforts in working on the redistricting plan! Weare especially gladthat Dr. Wuhas developed a greatredistricting proposal thatsolves the overcrowding issues,with minimal community disruption, least amount oftransportation andadministrative costs, andthe most community support! Very importantly, Dr. Wu'splan also allows consistent feeding system whichthe board members unanimously agreedto do at lastnight's working session. Weare soproud to havesuch talented anddedicated BOB members representing us! Please use Dr. Wu's proposal to move forward! Onthe otherhand, Mrs. Mallo's redistricting plan moves 1372more students thanthe Superintendent's redistnctmg plan which is abs unacceptable! Mrs. Mallo's plan moves 4096 ES students/1632 MS'students and 1616 HS students (rising junior and senior exempted) Which are 7344 students in total. Note that the superintendent's redistricting planmoves 3196 ES students, 1351 MSstudents, and2851 HSwithout exempting nsmgjunlor andsenlor whi':h are7396 students includingrising Junior and Senior. Ifexempt junior andsenior", Mrs. Mallo'splan will move 1372more studentsthan the Superintendent's planwhich should be i discarded! Ithas become very conceming^that thesuperintendent's officeand the consultants cannotprovide accuratedata to produce valid projections. The reliability andvalidity ofdata used in Mrs. Mallo's andsupenntend'enfs olm are questionable! ^^rd^to_h?ve. r^eaningfuldiscussions and make evidence based decisions, we urge you to request appropriate ,ata, Mid_a:lalyzeitappropriately andreschedule the work sessions accordingly! Pleaseput kids before anyAing else! Please make sure that the redistricting plan is safe and beneficial for ALL childreni Thank you for your time andconsideration! We appreciate your effons! Sincerely, Julia Ju and family Polygon 176 Sent from my iPhone Keep Pointers Run Neiehborhood Toeether in Community Schools I would liketo respondto the two newplans posted by Dr. ChaoWu and Ms. Jen Mallo. Dr. Wu's plan; Dr. Wu:Thank you for keeping Pointers Run neighborhood polygons located along Summer Sunrise Drive (64, 129,1064,1129)together at Pointers Run Elementary! I strongly supportthis proposal. Thesepolygons were proposedto move to SwansfieldES in the Superintendent's proposal, whichis a significantdisruption to communitystability. Movingpolygons 189and 1189to Clarksville Elementary and polygon 1192to Dayton Oaksto is a much more practical solution to alleviate overcrowding at PRES than the Superintendent's plan since it moves students from an overcrowdedto schoolto under capacity schools while maintaininB community stability. In addition, I askthat you reconsider moving 190and 1190from Atholton Highschool to River Hill High school. We would like to keep the entire Pointers Run neighborhood together at the high school level, either at Atholton, or moving all polygons to River Hill. Pointers Run neighborhood includes polygons 64, 1064, 129, 1129, 295, 190, 1190, 128. This is a well-established neighborhood with interconnected pathsand friendships formed at PointersRun Elementary School and Clarksville MiddleSchool. Keeping these polygonstogether at the highschool level wouldpreserve strong feeds and community. Ms. Mallo's Plan Ms. Mallo: Thankyou for keeping Pointers Run neighborhood polygons located along Summer Sunrise Drive(64, 129, 1064, 1129)together at our alternate communityschool, Clarksville Elementary. While our preference would be for our neighborhood to remain at Pointers Run since we can walk and bike to school, movingas our four polygonsto Clarksville Elementaryschool would be another reasonable option. Clarksville ESIs still a neighborhoodschool andwould maintainstrong feeds to Clarksville Middle School and River Hill High School. I implorethe boardof education to reject Dr. Martirano'splan for Pointers Runpolygons 64, 129, 1064 and 1129 and instead adopt Dr.Wu's plan to alleviate overcrowdine at PRES_whjchJeaves our 4 polYRons at Pointers Run Elementary. Alternatively, Ms. Malta's plan which moves usto our other neighborhoodschool of Clarksville Elementary, isanother reasonable option. I addition,I askthat all efforts be madeto keepthe entire neighborhood of Pointers Run (64, 1064, 129, 1129, 295, 190, 1190, 128) together at Atholton or River Hill High School. Deborah Goldberg Polygon 1129 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Christine TAOMOTOR Hi, BOE committee, How are you ,we are 1007 family . a proposal by Jen Mallo, which will send our kids from the nearest schools to thefar away schools The driving distance to Murray Hill middle school is more thantwo times faraway from the Hammond Middle School. The driving distance to Laurel woods Elementary is4 times faraway more tfaanthe nearest elementary school Wedefinitely against this plan. Your irresponsible actions may affecting this community and society. It further causesthe hate enhanced. Kids areyoung middle school andelementary school ages. They haveno rights to control the BOB. Butthey knowthat the BOBin this year fay to change their friends, affecttheir study, andmay seriously affecting their regular life. And inthe future, theymay do the same selfishthings to thepublic. Your wrong action destroy the U. S. future. As adults, parents, wehave to standout definitely againstthis ridiculous planto the end. Against This ridiculous Thing! Yanxia Qin Kathleen V. Hanks From: Eun-A Kim Dear BOE members: I would like to provide feedbackon BOEWork session on 10/28/19. Pleaseremember thatthe 1stpriority ofthis redistricting effort should becentered on dealingwith "over- capacity" issue. I have noticed that whenever you tried to bring other secondary issues into the equation, then thingsgot too complicated, andyou appeared to forget the center ofthe issues. In that regard, our Polygon 1199unanimously supports Dr. V/u'sorooossC, plan as it: . Moves the least total number of county students Ensures walkers remain walkers . Reduces FARM percentages in schools . Keeps all schools 110% capacity or less Hehas wisely applied essentialguiding principles that asa whole achievesuccess in specificmetrics andcause the leastdisruption ofcommunity andwalkers. Inaddition, heavoids overshifting polygons andmoving excessive students out of undercapacity schools. We are pleased that the Board will explore the feeder concept which can be used to guide current decisions and laythe groundwork for perhaps future incremental changesthat will cement stability inour expected schools and support family choice. We understand thatfuture sessionswill be providing FARMSdata as requested. Weurge you to examinethe data but not useit to bethe primary driver insignificant decisions. Asyou areaware, community input submitted thusfar conveys overwhelming concerns about budgetary costs (with highvolume ofmoves), community continuity especially at the High School level, and negative effects on children. Please do not underestimate or undervalue these ongoingconsiderations. Thank you for your hard work in this grueling process. Sincerely, EunA Kim Polygon 1199 Kathleen V. Hanks From: LinZhou Dear BOE members, After hearing hundreds of residents testify against massive moving of students, Ms. Mallo proposed a plan that moves even more students"at each level (ES, MS, and HS) than the Superintendent's plan. As a voter, I am^ really disappointed by this. Please keep in mind about what residents'said during the public hearings when you make any decisions Thank you, -Lin Kathleen V. Hanks From: Wenzheng Hu Dear BOB 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. Betweenthe two proposal lastnight, I strongly recommend to use Dr. Wu'splan as stoningpoint, whichis least disruptive more cost effective ( given us HCPSS budget concern), and common sense focusing on moving overcrowding school to under capacity school. her 9^t ot. handl ^s Mallol 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 ofMiddle Patuxent Environment Area. This creates unnecessary inconsistent feed which will leadto future redistricting issueswhen HS13 comes. Weare strongly againstit! Please keep 1186 at Clarksville Middle and thanks for your consideration! Respectfully, WenzhengHu (Polygonll86) 1185 Harper's Choice Harper's Choice MS 1028 2028 1l86 28 186 Clarksvtlte MS WRITTEN TESTIMONY FOR THE BOARD OF EDUCATION REGARDING BOUNDARY LINEADJUSTMENTS Constituent's Name: Ross ToDeI Polygon Numbers: 65, 1065, 2065 My family lives in the Glenmont subdivision. My oldest son currently attends Thunder Hill Elementary School(ES). I am concerned aboutthe island inpolygon 65, 1065, and 2065.I am really worried aboutthe impact the transition from MS to HS will be for our students with the y!'7-sma1.1 feed'estimated at lessthan 3%.That figure is significantly lowerthan BOB Policy 6010minimum of 15%. I knowthere areno badschools in HowardCounty, but leavingthe students in our polygon isolated, without a cohort offamiliar peers, as a result ofsuch a small feedwill put them at anunnecessary disadvantage. I'm concernedthat this small feedwould cause idable ayo social and emotional stress during a time of their lives that is, arguably, already rife with social and emotional stress. Keeping feeds ator above 15%is the most important criteria for evaluating a redistricting plan, but there are other aspects to consider in accordance with BOEpolicy 6010. Polygon 2151 is exclusively BlandairPark, soalthough it appears to connect Glenmont to the community across StateHighway 175,no students live there. Thus, Glenmont Islandwould be created, which conflicts with Policy 6010. For these reasons, I urge you to keep polygons 65, 1065, and 2065 as walkers to elementary schooland high school. Andplease keep Glenmont ata middleschool with a strong feedto Howard HS. Thank you for considering my input. Respectfully, Ross Topel October 29, 2019 Dear Board of Education, After review of Ms. Mallo's redistricting proposal presented on 10/28, wefelt the needto write to point outthat it disregards the desireto retain largefeeds, keepcontiguous communities together, andcompletely misses any semblanceof proximity to schoolsas an attendance area consideration. Pleasesee the attached map with linesdrawn from the Woodmark neighborhood to all 4 ofthe nearest sets ofschools. Currently, we are inthe Triadelphia Ridge ElementarySchool (TRES), Folly Quarter Middle School (FQMS), and River Hill HighSchool (RHHS) attendance area. Simply from viewingthe attached map, one can easilysee that both Glenelg HighSchool (GHS) and Marriotts Ridge High School (MRHS) are significantly closer than Wilde Lake HighSchool (WLHS). Driving routes from Woodmark are S~2 miles to MRHS(2. 7 direct), 4. 9 milesto GHS(3. 7 direct), 5.3 milesto RHHS(4. 1 direct), and7 milesto WLHS(5. 2 direct). Simply based on proximity, GHSis the closest school at 4. 9 miles and WLHSis a nearly 43% increase in distance. Notto mention that there are largefeeds from both nearest elementary and middle schools to Woodmark (TRESand FQMS) into GHS(70%) and RHHS(30%). Wefail to see how busingchildren to schools that arewell beyond 3 closer options m- -anyse"se' whatsoe'/er- Even more concerning isthat the projected highschool students in all 4 polygons (180, 181, 1180, and 1181) combined for 2025 is lessthan 68, with 1180and 1181being less than 10, sothat total number of high school students in 2025 could be as low as 48. The decision to move forward with Mallo's proposal would produce a very smallfeed from FQMSto WLHS,which is in directopposition to the goals of HCPSS Policy 6010. In addition, any attempt to changeWoodmark from TRESand FQMS to simplyalleviate the small feeder concern would bus our children muchfurther from theircurrent schools,which are 3. 1 miles from Woodmark (2. 4 direct) The only reasonable ESand MSthat would alleviate the verysmall feeder concern are Longfellowand Harpers Choice, which are morethan doublethe distance at 6. 4 miles(4. 4 direct). Again,see the attached map to understand the magnitude of that additional distance. Whilemany avoid this topic due to risksof being labeled elitist or privileged, wewill notshy away from it. Weare proud that we haveworked and continue to workvery hardtowards a good education andsecuring good careers to achieve manyof the goals that we've set for ourselves andfor our family. Itwasn't an easy road, so achieving those goals is an Immensesource of pride andanyone who thinks otherwise is perfectly safe in theirfreedom to think otherwise, while also doingthemselves a hugedisservice. Wegive quite generously to community organizations and charities when we are able,and we take pridein doing so. However,we will notsit idle if HCPSSredistricting decisions are made on s^ocioeconomic conditions and not with proximity and community cohesiveness taking priority. Residents of Howard Countyhave been investing in real estate nearschools of choice and paying the propertytaxes commensurate with thosedecisions for many decades, which has provided HCPSSwith significant funding to havedeveloped sucha great system. Real estate in the county is largely marketed on the high school district while being built and'in resale. To redistrict any areas to schools that aresignificantly further than 3 schools in closer proximity issimply reckless. We movedto Woodmarklast Novemberafter 12 years in Wheatfieldand a substantial portion ofour decision to doso was driven bythe proximity ofGHS, MRHS, and RHHSto have a nearguarantee our children would attend one ofthe'three" Things change and we have no doubt in the educational potential ofall Howard County public schools, butto significantly invest in real estate a year agothat Iswithin a few miles of a set ofschools only to discover that there's the outrageous potential for our children to be bused further than those 3 much closer schools is beyond frustrating and absolutely unacceptable. I'mall for raisingthe standards of the entirety ofHCPSS, but this simply should notbe accomplished by busingour children such unreasonabledistances from their communities when viable schools are already within a reasonable distance. separatinEP°'yB°"s. 180'181'1180'and1181 should not ""ur in any acceptable redistricting plan and proximity should bethe highest priority ofthe board. Withsuch budget problems as already exist, wefail to see'how additional" transportation expensesattempts to pushthe needlein the appropriate direction, ratherit putsthe weight of much of the county's children in the opposite direction. Westrongly oppose both Dr. Martirano's andMs. Malta's plansfor redistricting. Infact, we oppose anyplan that doesn't seriously consider budgeted newschools, newdevelopments, and updated data.Any plan that considers soaoeconomics before proximity andcommunity cohesiveness should bediscarded outright. Ifnot, wefear the stability and associated attraction ofthe HCPSSwill besignificantly compromised with long-term effect. Dr.Wu's proposal on 10/28/2019provides a muchmore reasonableapproach but splits the Woodmark neighborhood between RHHSand GHS.We askthat Dr. Wu reconsider maintaining the contiguous Woodmark community (180, 181, 1180,and 1181) in anyfuture revisions, whichwe would be more likelyto support. Wedon't envy your position of havingto consider all manner of needs, wants, desires, etc., but please baseyour decisions on logic and proximity. Please do not make anydecisions that would bus anychildren further awaythan even the nearest 2 schools. Doing so makes absolutely no sense when considering the education/health of our children and the continued prosperity of HCPSS. Thankyou for your consideration and for the opportunity to bevirtually heard/recorded asa long-time citizenof HowardCounty, with hopesof continuing my family's residence insuch a finecounty and school system. Please represent your constituents effectively. Avoid outside pressures that might distract you from following the guidance of Policy6010 and makethe best decisions possible in support ofthe education ofour children by keeping them enrolled in schools that are within closest proximity of their neighborhoods. Sincerely, John H. Rehmert and Darlene A. Rehmert Polygon 1180 Marrlots Ridge HS Glanelg HS River Hitl HS Wilde lake HS . -. )iS E-'rien^a ;. , aF -is'F t.. ; ...., ir. Marriots Ridge HS ::snp~h>-.^ ... '.... I--1 ..:". ;»-:, ... ^-.. . i- .. . - . te- . -!i"-. . c' -'.1 . i-'jhf' 'v, Glenelg HS FOMS T-KES Longfellow ES River HilTHS wnde LBke Hs Kathleen V. Hanks From: Hang Lei Hi, BOB committee, We,the people in 1007and 7, noticedthat the crazyplan proposed byJen Mallo, whichwill sendour kids from the nearest schools to^thefar away schools. The driving distance to Murray Hill middle schooYis~moreflian"two tolesfarawayfromthe HammondMiddle School. The driving distance to Laurelwoodsikmentaiy'isTtim'es ^aw^ymore than the nearest elementary school. Wedefinitely against this plan. Yourirresponsible actions" may aftecting this community and society. It further causes the hate enhanced. Kidsare young middle ^school and elementary school ages. They have no rights to control the BOE. But I ; BOEi"toyear .tryto change.theirfriends. affecttheir study, andmay seriously affecting'their regular lite. ^And^in the future, they may do the same selfish things to the public. Your wrong action i the U. S. future. As adults,parents, wehave to standout definitely against this ridiculous plan to the end. Against This ridiculous Thing! Hang Lei Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ming Du Good evening, respectful BoE members and Superintendent, Firstof all, likealways, I wantto thank you for all yourhard work on this redistricting matter- it isthe hardesttask to crack because it involves affecting people's lives and children's education greatly. s'Mal10 their _a^tn, '?ht' lyl a!'1d. Dr;wu Presentsd own versions of redistricting plans. By now you've probably.got a 9rasP ofwhat people thinkabout the plans. Ifyou stand back'andthink'about the big wiil P?^r?. ^?j. 1 c.. oj11T.ents' y°u hear a very stron9 message from every corner of the county: DO NOT MOVE ME! This voice comes from all schooldistricts, regardless ofpeople's races and socioeconomic background. Letme giveyou an example:during the publichearing phase, peoplefrom polygon 147and surrounding area never sounded anyvoice because theywere' not on Dr. M's pian. However, in ^lc.°._..^?? session, afterthe first session decided thatwalkers could be moved, they showed up on first row of the seats with signs reading "Do Not Move Walkers". Frankly think that 15 miles to 2 miles to school should not be categorized as walkers, but it is what it is. _??. me_giv,. e.^ou a.notf?erexamPle abc)ut my own polygon 176: part of it resides virtually inside polygon 3176 and is the closest point to our community high school River Hill within these two rage to RHHS is 2 miles ?.ol.y.?ons^xaye distance. exactly (are we also walkers???). TogotoRHHS, on ^si.g.e. i^aj<.es. u^5. m"?s' lfwe 90towLHS we haveto left-turn on Shepard Laneand go through' Homewood etc to 6. 5 miles away. Today, I did a test drive right after school buses were off the'rMd oh, and I flew my car by driving 10 to15 miles faster whenever I could - it took me'21 "mmutes'to and 23_m!nutesfrom. wLHS'.ThesirrlPte. truth isthat iswe get moved, all ofour lives will bedisrupted, and hence my message will be exactly like thatfrom others: please do not move us' s even more students than Dr. *i'.. s'iMa.Hols-pla. rl. moye Martirano's. That is why the plan that proposes the least amount of disruption - Dr. Wu's plan - gets the loudest support on the internet l. d.°nLt-perce've n1yselfas a saint] and ' think. franklythere's nosaints inthis madness - ifanyone ^^?l!-li^-?, ne'jr,? becausehe/she is notaffected - thosewho do not go to war like'to wage'war, ecausethat's really somebody elsel s Problem. There are however hard BoE members like . working you all, parents who are deeply concerned, and children whowill be greatly afferted.-Pleaseh'ear'the voice of the people. - beside - lssue. moving children around hopefully as little as possible, other ..sfolLoye rcrowdin? any way that it can be fixed? For example - by increasing the capacity of'the schools oi-allowing ODen'-" enrollment in under-capacity schools? And there's future planning. I spent great deal of time to study the polygons and high school locations today, and I see why Dr. Wu is pushing for nailing down the boundaries ofthe high school #13 before any further discussion - frankly the school is in a VERY bad location. But we can7t change the past. Looking forward, I'm especially delighted to hear what Ms. Delmont-Small said about fuTure development - if there's no school capacity in the location, there's no development. Please consider keep my polygon 176with our community highschool - RHHS! I strongly encourage you to do a test drive from our community to WLHS, and you'll see why I'm pleading with'you to us local. Thank you for your time! Sincerely Ming Du A parent from Ploygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Christos Agelakopoulos Good evening BOB, My name is Christos Agelakopoulos. My wife, OUT two children and I happily reside in polygon 183. After reviewing the working meeting information to date, I encourage all board members to reread my four- page testimony presented on Monday, October 14. Generally, you are still sending childrento the =>third closest schools from their homes. There are pending lawsuits in jurisdictions around the country that challenge this approach. At this point, I will not focus my energy on the unconstitutional race-based integration you are trying to employ for your redistricting efforts. In my testimony, I noted that we should not make the redistricting a Columbia vs. the rest of Howard County showdown. I want to now amend this by adding the Centennial area to a three-way fray. https://www. gooele. com/amp/s/www. baltimoresun. com/maryland/howard/cng-ho-redistricting-work-session- high-schools-1029-20191029-aquheetsebfvdloyirihqrfFdq-storv. html%3foutputType=amp How is it possible that only one member of the seven-member BOB is directly (child(ren) involved) affected by these redistricting proposals? So, sb; BOB members have no formal "skin in the game?" Why are the Centennial areapolygons largely untouched despite their relatively closer proximities to some Columbia schools? Howis all ofthis reasonable given what you are asking from the HowardCounty community at large? Of all the redistricting proposals put forth at this time, Dr. Wu's ~3k child version is the most reasonable. It displaces fewer children at a lower cost while addressingthe capacity issues facingHoward County schools. Pleasetake my note andtestimony to heart. They will serve you well. Thank you, Christos Agelakopoulos Kathleen V. Hanks From: Henry Lei Hi, Board of Education, We,the people in 1007and 7, noticed that the crazy plan proposed by Jen Mallo, whichwill sendour kids from thenearest schools lofbefai awayschools. Thedriving distance to Murray Hill middle school is more thantwo timesfarawayfromtheHammond Middle school- The driving distance to Laurel woods'Elementary'isTtimes nearest far_awaymorlthaDAe elementary school. We definitely against this plan. This ridicuious proposal to yprove theBOE isa group ofunqualified education experts. Yourirresponsible actions mayaffecting this community and society. It further causes the hate enhanced. ^. ?S..T.^U:n^^ddle, s<:h001an, d elementm'y school ages.They have no rights to control theBOB. But they talowtha"he BOE in th^year changed their friends, affecting their study, mdmay'seriousiy affecting thM regular life. And inthe future, they may dothe same selfishthings to thepublic. As adults, parents, wehave to standout definitely againstthis ridiculous planto the end. Against This ridiculous Thing! Parents in 1007 and 7 Henry Lei' Family (4 people), Shabile'sFamily (7 people) Kathleen V. Hanks From; Wendy Koch To the Howard County Board of Education: I am sure you are getting many emails, each with their own plea. I am sure they all read pretty much the same. And yet, here I am, hopelessly maybe, submitting my own plea. My familyjust relocated to Howard County from Kentucky in September. We knew about the Superintendent's proposed redistricting plan. And we took the options listed on that plan into consideration when purchasingour home. My husband does not work in Howard County. We could have moved elsewhere in Maryland. We came to Howard County for the schools. We bought our house for the school district. We paid a premium price for that school district. My husband endures a long commute so that our kids can go to the schools within our current district or the schools that were listed on the superintendent's plan. Polygon 1180 currently attends Triadelphia Ridge, Folly Quarter, and River Hill. Under the Superintendent's plan they would remain at Triadelphia and Folly Quarter and attend Glenelg. This change did not really impact us other than to separate us from our Woodmark neighbors. I considered that a small price to pay considering our polygon would be keeping many school friends. Last night a new plan was presented at the last minute, creating wide-spread panic. The new plan allocated polygon 1180 to Wilde Lake. The concession maybe was that Polygon 1180 would now be with the Woodmark neighborhood which was also going to Wilde Lake. That is not what our polygon wanted. This new plan took a Polygon that was basically "okay" with the proposed changes and has now completely upsetthem!! ! You know the reasons. You do not need me to reiterate why everyone is upset. This would be creating a very small feed and alt the ramifications that come with that. But also, how would moving these polygons to the farthest school impact participation in after-school activities? I currently have my two children enrolled in activities after school most days of the week and not because I need to. I often pick up one child only to have to return and pick up another 45 minutes later. I can do this because I live down the street, 6 minutes away. I could not do this if there were longer commutes. Drama, chess club, art club, computer class, etc would not be an option. My husband and I did not move to this area to go to Wilde Lake. He is not enduring a long commute for his kids to go to Wilde Lake. And I know there are several other families who work outside of Howard County and can, therefore, relocate. Has the Board considered that many families might just move to another county rather than subject themselves to this redistricting? Or that they might choose private education? What are the economic impacts on the communities if the wealthy, high test scoringfamilies leave? Whatwill this redistricting do to the real-estate market in the area? How will commerce be affected? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that they need to be considered. Which brings me to another point. All of the meetings heretofore have been to voice opinion for the Superintendent's plan. All the research and questioning has been centered around that plan. Then last night additional plans were released with no allotment for additional research and questioning. When making a decision that affects so many and can have so many ramifications, each plan should be given equal 1 questioning and research. Why were those affected under the Superintendent's plan allowed to be heard but not those affected by subsequent plans? Not only is this not operating in good faith but this doesn't allow for all potential unforeseen outcomes of the plans to be realized. You need to give each plan its due process. Polygon 1180 should stay with River Hill or Glenelg. Sincerely, Wendy Koch Resident at 12318 Fawn River Way Kathleen V. Hanks From: Rajani Kancharia Dear Board Members, My name is Rajani Kancharia and I live in Polygon 176. -l-w.°"ld iike to thank you a" for examinin9 key issues related to school capacity while considering major roads and other natural boundaries that may cause transportation difficulties and possibly safety issues. Lsfr°"gly_supp°rts.. Dr'. wu.'s Pr°P°sal which focuses on balancing school capacity while minimizing students travel times ?. -j?!?'?y^?. e_';luity_'ltacldresses the highestconcerns ofcitizens across the county, whichhave been identifiedby Dr. Martiranothrough hiscommunity sessionsand online surveys - studenttravel times. Thisproposalwill benefitstudents across the county. It's a true effort to provide leadership to advance excellence in teaching and learnina for Howard County. PLASEkeep Polygon 176at RHHS. CHSis way over capacity, RHHSunder capacity. WLSHneeds to gainsome capacity, and WLHS should get from CHS, not from RHHS. ^ -.y.m^students. °u^°f anunder capacity school (RHHS) that is 1. 5 miles awayto 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. Polygor^ 176does not havean exiton FollyQuarter Rd. Inorder to getto the Homewood Rd, we needto take North b°""d shel:>pard Ln. which .is a °ne lane corridor. Since many polygons west of uswill be moving to Wiide Lake his, east bound Folly Quarter Rd and Homewood Rd will be packed during high school rush hour. YVT. ;,',ITf,d-t°. -tu.r-."-rig-ht.at.the roundab°"tto getto the Homewood~Rd"and traffic inthe roundabout hasthe rightof way. It will take us forever to turn right to the Homewood Rd and it does not make sense to moveT76 to Wilde Lake HS. Anc'-als°with the f°".y quarte1' area bein9 to slated to wilde lake hi9h area the traffic used to be-o~n SheppardTan'e'would switch to home wood and pile up the one lane corridor so makes school bus very difficult to use homewdod route. Thanks and Regards Rajani Kancharla 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 (polvaons 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 (Dolvaons 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 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 gaps 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: Deborah Goldberg Polygon 1129 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kanwal Razzaq Dear BOE members, wanut, _creekand walnut Groveare sister communities whichare contiguous, partof Walnut Creek ^lare the same-entrance anda common busstoP' Both communities haveaccess via Sheppardlane. There. are.several. provisions of policy 601°that aPP'yto these commun iesto"keeptogethe7and"not be separated at RHHS. * . The.first housein WalnutCreek is in factcloser to RHHSthan Walnut Grove houses. It is i 1. 4 miles from RHHS. Walnut Grove polygon is 3176 and Walnut Creek polygon is 176. They are separated by a thin which bisects the community into two. '.. MS;,Ma"°'s. Plan is^keeping 3176at RHHSand moving 176to WLHS,disrupting contic communities against policy 6010. The only feed from FQMS to RHHS would be from 3176. The feed from FQMS to WLHS would be less than 10%. RHHS as Dr- we.requertyoutoj Regards, Kanwal Razzaq 5041 Lindera Ct. Ellicott City, MD 21042 Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Stephanie Mummert I am writing youtoday to oppose Mallo's plan inthe strongest possible terms. Until Ms. a's announcement of her details Mani plan this morning (10/29/19) our polygon has not been mentionedAT ALL as a targetfor redistricting. Asof today, not only is polygon lO'fgnowpropos'edto move iHammond ESto Guilford ES,it isalso proposed to move fromHammond MSto Patuxent Valley MS. Thankgoodness I waspaying attention becauseno oneelse in my community waspaying attention because theyall thought we were safe. Congratulations to the board, we me now all paying attention!! enrompassesaneighbol'hood oftownhomes ^oygo*nloi8 called The Hideaway and a large apartment complex acrossthe^street. Thisneighborhood was districted for decades to Atholton ESas an isl'anl Iwas'movedt^" HammondES in 2012. Then in 2013 it wasmoved from Patuxent Valley MS to HammondMS. This plan moves us from Hammond MS back to Patuxent Valley MS. OTsix years of amazmg stability andconfidence inour schools, ourneighborhood hasadjusted to thepric and^nowwe are thriving. Thekids love beingall Hammond: HammondES, HammondMS'and" HammondHS. Beingpart ofHammond has become part of our identity and part of the fabric of our community;our childrenleam together at school andplay together in Ae neighborhoodmd they are so much more than data points on a graph or pieces to be shuffled on a'board. IfMallo'sextremely sweeping and disruptive plan is adopted, I'm sure our students mil learnto adjust to new SAOO!SAGAIN'but they should NOT HAVETo adjust without good, solid reasonsi base7inTogrc. "For"a) igent people, logic has been in finstratingly short supply during this process. T e.creati°nofyet. aDotherJtinyfeed inour vast county can't be because of overcrowding. HammondES is not overcrowded andGuilford ESis actually undercapacity. Why areyou moving usthereW' Theproposed move(s) for my polygon doestwo things: ^,creates aosma11feedfromGul. lfordto patuxent valky Ms mto Hammond Highthat will onlyinclude four polygons: 18, 1018, 20 aud 1020. -it needlessly disrupts the lives ofmultiple communities Givemeow goodreason you have to pickup my neighbors andmy daughterand turn their worlds unside a. ^Ifyoumove myvery happy and FINALLY well-settled 2ndgrader as she mo'vesinto'3rd'era^'7ou will notolllyimpact where sheattends school, it will impact so many aspects of what'makes her happv6anF ^c !.artroom. and. shecould lose. that'too- .Mostimportantly to her,' she will lose'friends shehas'm'Se^ince the ' she walked in the doors ofHammond ES as a kindergartener. She needs~extra~supportTat''sch"oolo at7m^. andI am honestly terrified at makingher start over at a new school. The blow to her confidence could be really dramatic. Speaking of which, if this plan is about equity, real equity means so much more than SES and FARM data. It should also includes equal opportunities and access for all students who need help to succeed. That includes students in special education who receive services in inclusive classroom settings. Students in the special education program often stmggle with disruption to their routine. DO NOT forget them as this process moves forward andplease make accomodations for them. To be clear, my objection is NOT about where you propose to move us. I am sure Guilford is a wonderful school. The problem it is that we are proposedto move at all. We love our schools andwant to stay there. Just like every other parent and studentthat has beenpleading with you for months duringhours of testimony. Please tell me you were listening. We all know you have a difBcult, if not impossible, task ahead of you, but please do it thoughtfully and carefully. All of the students ofHCPSS are counting on you. While I'm sure Ms. Mallo put a lot of thought into her plan, when you dig into the specific moves it creates more problems via small feeds than it fixes at individual schools regarding capacity. Instead, please give real considerationto Dr Wu's plan that moves a fraction ofthe students andpresumably achievesthe same degree of capacity adjustment we need without uprooting so many students. Thank you, Stephanie Mummert PolygonlOlS Jennifer Mallo BOE member October 28, 2019 Howard County Board of Education 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Mrs. Mallo: My name is Zahid Khan and reside in the Walnut Creek subdivision off of Sheppard Lane, a 1. 7 mile driveto RiverHill High.Thank you again for your service to the childrenof Howard County. I havebeen an active participant and avid follower of the recent proceedings and have taken special note of your remarks and you're carefully considered questions during board deliberations. That is why I am appealing to you asregards to thisrequest. Your plan andthat of Dr. Martirano would havethis polygon (176-WalnutCreek) moved to WildLake HS. During the second working session, you modifiedyour plan so asto keep our sister neighborhood WalnutGrove (polygon 3176) in River Hill. These two adjacent and intertwined communities were developed at the same time by Heritage Reality Trust and have alwaysbeen at RiverHill since their inception. The fact is that a sectionof Walnut Creek (polygon 176) canonly beaccessed from the singleaccess road (Preakness Circle) into polygon 3176.The remainder of Walnut Creek (Polygon 176) has its own single road entrance/exit (Hayland Farm Way) adjacent to polygon 3176. 1 amasking that you reconsider your planand include notonly this section ofpolygon 176 thatis a bubbletrapped withinthe Walnut Grove community butthe entirety of Walnut Creek (polygon 176)along with Walnut Grove (Polygon3176) withinthe River Hill HSboundary. I encourageyou to drive into these communities to see for yourself. I have confidence that once you do, you will'see it makesno logistic sense to exclude polygon 176 while including 3176 within the River Hill HS boundary. Sincerely Zahid Khan Dear BOE Members, In response to the secondwork session, specificallywith regardto the future disposition ofpolygon 1200/200, wethe residents ofpolygon 200strongly oppose beingmoved to Glenelg HS. Wein generalsupport Dr. Wu's plan. However, Dr.Wu's plan has effectively carved polygons 1200/200out ofa contiguous RHHS district, isolating us in a land island. We are MUCH closer to River Hill HS and all ofthe polygons around us are RHHS districts. 176 1. 5?OIt 20J m 3.'7b 3EQ 1. 199 1^2 1, 176 .t. 2C1 a»i 19 Polygon 1200/200 has always been part of River Hill HS, and our position has always been staying with River Hill HS as we love our school and community. Our kids know each other and play with each other yet, but this plan will force our kids to go to Glenelg, whileall ofour neighbors andtheir friends goto RHHS- which is not healthy. Forpolygon 1200/200, we are a tight and close community with a very small population and would not impact capacity issue so we should stay with RHHS. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely Polygon 200 Richard Li Sharon Wen Miya Paterniti Shawn Paterniti hlelen Pappas Khaled Helmi Safiya Helmi Naj'waAwad Hend Elgendi Ahmed Elkachouty Steven Light Sarah Tunson Shawn Tunson Chen (Cindy) Wang Daniel Birzak Gertrude Birzak Jessie Luo Xi Cheng Katherine Murphy Steven Murphy Quentin Murphy Branden Murphy Susan Dragonette Kassi Buscher Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jennifer Meckes Good Evening- ^!,wmpolyg^-. 3034mdT thought. itmay be beneficial if you knew the geographic boundaries of the Valley ;. arealfmlicottcl, tySPecificallyu relation to polygons 159and 115'9 which havebeena&equent'topi'c of ^formwing^The^greater ValleyMede area is'a continuous neighborhood bordered byR?. 99"to'the'' lorfh, 29to Ae East, Rt. 40to the Southand Bethany Lane(2 lane divided road) to theWestAssuch. 'thFs" nelghbo[hc'odhas_been goingto thesame schools forover 50years (St.Johns Lane, Patapsco. Mt.'Hebroii). I mtis anextreme luxuryin Howard County however, theplanning was well thoughtout in the-1950s- especially to the elementay and high school locations. Thankyou for maintaining this contiguous community many of which are walkers to Mt.Hebron. Under no circumstances shoulda small feedbe created that sends parts of this community to Mano/Woods/BurIeu Thankyou, Jennifer Meckes Polygon3034 JenniferMeckes, Realtor The Legal Team of Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. 10805 Hickory Ridge Road Columbia, MD 21044 Office: (410) 715-2748 Cell: (937)829-8418 www. LegalHomes. com "TheLegal Team - #1Real Estate Team for over 10Years in the #1 Long & FosterOffice in the Region" Sent from my iPhone - Please excuse brevity or typos. Estate win never send infomation A,ulRTLL,mg&-FostCTReal. you wirmg via email or request that you send U^SP^SODalfmaD, cidlIlfc",natio,nbyemail-Ifyou rcceive an email message like this'concemingan^^a^oa ing & Foster Real T°iv Long Estate'do not respond to the email-and-imiSediately"contact''yo^a"ge'ntTiI aa Thecontents of this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, any review, dissemination, copying, distribution or other use ofthe contents ofthis message or any attachment byyou is strictly prohibited Ifyou receive this communication in error, please notify us immediately by return e-mail, andplease delete thismessage and all attachments from your system. Warning. Ifyou receive anemail from anyone concerning a transaction involving Long & Foster Companies ("Long& Foster")which requests that you wire funds or that you provide nonpublic personal information by unsecured return email, do not respond to the message. To protect yourself, immediately call your real estate agent or other contact at Long& Foster. Kathleen V. Hanks From: LinZhou Dear BOE members, As a nother of two young children, I would like to provide as much predictability and stability to them. ; really appreciate that Dr. Wu's incorporated feeder system in his proposed plan. The plan addresses overcrowding issue, balances FARM numbers and has minimal impact to communities by moving "lUch less students compared to the superintendent's plan and Ms. Mallo's plan. Please use his plan as a starting point for future work sessions Thank you, Lin Zhou Polygon 1028 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Beth Kunkoski Dear Board of Education Members: Our neighborhood, Woodmark (3 polygons), is currently districted to River Hill HS. Ms. Mallo's plan moves our entire neighborhoodto Wilde LakeHigh School. Currently there is a 30% feed from Polly QuarterMiddle School to River Hill High School. By keeping polygons 3176 and 176 at River Hill High School and moving only our 3 polygons to Wilde Lake HS, you create animacceptably small feed of students traveling alone to WL. This is projected to be a 12%feed which is smaller thanthe 15%mandated by Policy 6010IV. B.2a. We are also geographically separatedfrom the others bythe University ofMaryland agricultural farm and Franciscan Friary. Please abide by Policy 6010. Thank you, Elizabeth Kunkoski Polygonl81 12209 Mount Albert Rd EllicottCityMD21042 Polygon #HS Students Current HS 1180 <10 River Hill 180 31-35 River Hill 181 16-21 River Hill about:blank 1 of 1 10/31/2019, 1:22 PM Kathleen V. Hanks From: Z. Han Dear BOE members, I really appreciatethe BOEwork session yesterday 10/28, andall theefforts you havebeen makingto improve the redistricting plan. Two plans were discussed yesterday, one is from Ms. Mallo moving 7, 500 students and the other is from Dr. Wu movir 3, 000 students. I will support a plan thatreally addressesthe over-crowding issue. Dr.Wu's plan byfar is the most reasonable plan we have seen, it is least disruptive and most cost effective. Natural boundaries and community togetherness are considered aswell. WhileMs. Mallo's plan is not much differentthan the previous proposal from the superintendent, and actually it moves more students, and tears apart more communities, like 186 and 1186, 3176 and 176, 28, 1028 and 2018, just to name a few in my surrounding neighborhood. Thus, I strongly oppose Ms. Mallo's plan, and strongly support BOE members start your next work session based on Dr. Wu's plan. Thanks, Zhiyang Han Polygon 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: linglei ma Dear Board of Education members, I attended yesterday's Attendance area adjustment work session 2 and would like to make some comments about it. I applaud and strongly support Dr. Chao Wu's plan. His plan will only move 3000 students, which is less than halfof Dr. M's proposal. He has listened to the students/parents' voices and came up with a redistricting plan with minimal disruption and less transportation costs. Inthe meanwhile, his plan will also reach the main goal of resolving school overcapacity. In contrast, Ms. Mallo's plan is irrational and illogical. Her plan will not be a good reference forthe following reasons. ... -MS'. Mall°'s plan .is m°re massive and costly than Dr. M's. Shewill move a total of 7344 students, including 4096 elementary school students, 1632 middle school students, and 1616 highschool students (with rising seniors andjuniors exempted). In comparison, Dr. Marterino's proposal will move 3196 ES students, 1351" middle school and 1426 high school students (with rising seniors andjuniors exempted). Ms. Mallo have not addressed the concerns from parents and students at the hearings. Her plan will move a lot more students, which is worse than Dr. M's proposal. 2. Ms. Mallo proposed to move Wilde Laketo west. Why not move it to northwest? Shedidn't explain her rationale clearly. By moving Wilde Lake polygons west and shifting polygons from folly quarter Rd and homewood rd, it will worsen traffic burden on both sides of harpersfarm'Rd as well as Rt 108. In comparison, by moving Wilde Lake northwest, the traffic incurred will be only one way northbound. 3. Ms. Malta attempted to move polygons 1066, 134, 66 and 2053 from Wilde Lake to River Hill. What's the purpose of this move? Capacity? Of course NO. Balance FARM rate? Apparently NO. Historically, these polygons have very low FARM rate (<10%). Please explain. 4.^Ms^ MaNo^wasJrying to divide the community and neighborhood. For example, in her plan, she separated 3176 and 176to RHHS and WLHSrespectively. She also separated 28from 1028 and2028'. In summary, please use Dr. ChaoWu's plan as a starting point forthe nextwork session. His plan makes the most sense. Regards, Linglei Ma (polygon 3176) Kathleen V. Hanks From: Sugato Bhattacharjee Dear Members of the Board: Likeall ofour neighborsin and around Polygon 1 76, I havebeen following the deliberations of the hearing andwork sessions. I am compelled to write again to voice my significant concern and strong opposition to the subject attendance area adj"stment plan as it pertains to the proposed reassignment of high school students from River Hill High School (RHHS) to Wilde Lake High School (WLHS). I am extremely concerned about the test scenarios presented by Ms. Jen Mallo which completely misses essential details about Polygon 176 and it's adjacent Polygon 3176 in reference to RHHS. Ms. Mallo'stest scenario proposes to fracture large parts ofthe Walnut Creek (WC) Community in Polygon 176away ot. .ersections °fwc..ar":l.its..sistercommunity ofWalnut Grove (WG) bysending someto WLHS while keeping the rest with RHHS paying little attention to howthese communities live together asone neighborhood. Logistically^ herplan makes no sense since parts of WC that are being proposed to go to WLHS are indeed closer to RHHS than sections of Polygon 3176. Ms Mallo also seems to fail to notice that theWalnut Creek community in Polygon 176 has no access to Folly Quarter road other than traveling in excess ofa mile on Sheppard Lane before reaching a roundabout that also connects to Homewood road A trip to WLHSfrom Walnut Greek in the morning via Homewood road could be a logistical nightmare with recurring trafficgridlock and delays for both the students andcommuters from thesurrounding community. Andall these while the nearest high school of RHHS itself happens to be only a mile away from Walnut Creek. I urge you to decide and keep Polygon 176 assigned to RHHS. The plan being proposed by Dr. Chao Wu is worthy of your consideration. Sincerely, Sugato Bhattacharjee Polygon Number 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jonathan Weiner Dear Howard County Board of Education, Pleasedo not movepolygons 200and 1200from River Hill HS to Glenelg HS. I ama resident ofPolygon 1200 andour childrenwill benefitfrom stayingin their current assignedschools withtheir neighbors andcommunity members. Both Dr. Wu's andMs. Malta's plans leave adequate capacityto accommodate therelatively small number of students from our two polygons. Keeping our polygons at RHHS also avoids an island or odd separation on a map showingthe high school assignments. Thank you for yoiir consideration. Sincerely, Jonathan Weiner Polygon 1200 5007 Altogether Way (I previously testified before the BoE on October 15, 2019) Kathleen V. Hanks From: dena brzezicki October 29, 2019 Dear Board Members, I would first like to thank you for your service to the children of this county. I appreciate the Board's hard work and dedicationto drafting a redistricting plan and your openness to listen to hours of community input. I am writing to voice my opposition to Dr. Martirano's redistricting plan and support of Dr. Wu's Plan to retain our polygon 1183 in the River Hill Schooldistrict. River Hill is presently undercapacity. It is hard to understand whychildren in an undercapacity school are beingshifted to the east. I believe that Dr. Wu's Plandoes the bestjob of minimizing transportation costs and community disruption for the overall county by moving less than half the number of children compared to Dr. Martirano's Plan. I do understand that redistricting needs to take place to address issues such as over capacity but to take a quote from SabinaTaj's campaign web site published in mid 2018, (httk)://sahina;ai. orF/i.>districtin, »/) "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.... ! would also have the redistricting apply beginning with the rising9th graders, whowill alreadybe at a naturaltransition point, ratherthan disrupting kidsalready settled intheir high schools. " With that in mind, ifthere is a need to address capacity in the east and a shift to the west will help alleviate the burden on the school in the east, the next logical move for our polygon would beto Glenelg HighSchool whichis only 2.5 miles to the west of our neighborhood, not a move to Wilde Lake,which is 10 stoplights and 7. 3 miles away. Maintainingfiscal responsibility by minimizingcapital and operating costs is critical especially in light of continued pressure from rising healthcare costs. I am also concerned about the potential for further cuts in technology instruction dueto budget pressures. Wecannot divert funds from technology instruction or layoffteachers/paraeducators to pay for more buses to swap children between schools. Please knowthat my disapprovalof Dr. Martirano's Plan is nota vote againstequity. I believethat addressingequity will need to entail so much more than busing FARM students. The reason for the achievement gap is multi-faceted and rather than spending money to bus students to manipulate percentages on paper, I would implore you to find meaningful ways to make a difference in these children's lives. These children deserve more. They are worth it! One issue that could have a big impact on bridging the achievement gap is by screening for learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Mydaughter's dyslexia went undiagnosedfor years and she was falling behind. Ifnot for our tenacity and financial abilityto take heroutside the school system for testing and tutoring she would have continued to fall behind. Insummary, please keep polygon 1183in the RiverHill, a schoolthat is presently undercapacity. Ifa move isnecessary to alleviate overcrowding in the east, please considermoving our polygon to Glenelg HighSchool. Respectfully, Dena Brzezicki Polygon#1183 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kate Dear Howard County Board ofEducation, Thankyou so much for your service anddedication to our community. I am a member ofPolygon 1200where our current high school is River Hill. I think there was some confusion about how some people were scared about being moved to a school very far away so were offering alternatives. I know for a fact that almost everyone in my neighborhood would prefer we stay at our community school. River Hill, and NOT Glenelg. River Hill is still underenrolled andwe wouldprefer to stay with our children's friends from elementary school andour neighbors. River Hill is part ofour community. Manyof us havehigh schoolers already attending River Hill. We welcome the new students to River Hill with open arms and I'm excited to see more socioeconomic diversity in the coming years at RHHS. Thank you again for listening, Kate Benjamin Kathleen V. Hanks From: dark Hu Dear BOE members, Thanks for all board members spending countless hours on this redistricting, special thanks to DrWu 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 undercapacity 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. Malltfspla" d""ded P°lyg°n 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 ?.?."?ent Environment Area This creates unnecessary inconsistent feed which will lead to future redistricting issues when HS13 comes. We are strongly against itl Please keep 1186 at Clarksville Middle and thanks for your consideration! Respectfully, Lily Hu Polygon 1186 Dear HCPSS BOE members, I am writing this letter to express my deep concern over proposed redistricting plan offered by BOE member Jen Mallo. I already testified during public hearing against Dr. Martirano's proposed plan. I specifically am concerned about issues listed below; 1- Mallo plan actually moves more highschool students than original plan by Dr. Martirano. As we are all aware that there was strong public opposition to moving large number of students as proposed by Dr. Mastriano's plan. I am surprised that BOE education is now going to consider even more disruptive plan than previous proposed plan despite strongcommunity opposition. It makesme believethat public testimony was for show only. 2- Mallo plan proposes moving polygon 176 from RHHS to WLHSwhile keeping adjacent polygon 3176 at RHHS.These polygonsare lessthan 0. 5 mile apartand I still don't understand rationalfor keepingone polygon at current school while moving the adjacent polygon to high school at distance3 times as far. 3- During last nightwork session, no one hasasked for transport and other impacts for eitherof new proposed plan (Dr. Wu's or Mallo plan). I find it troubling that we are talking about budget constraints (as reflected in cuts for para-educators last year) while no upfront discussion occurred about assessing transportation costs for a plan that moves even larger number of students. 4- It is important to HCPSSparent community aswell as BOEto maintainstrong feeds as is apparent from last night's work session. Malta's proposed plan creates even smaller feeds. Forexample FQMSwill be sending feedsto 3 different high schools (RHHS, WLHSand GHS). Our polygon 176 will be part of small feed from FQMSto WLHSwhile majority of feed will be goingto RHHSand GHS. I would hope that BOEwill consider other alternative plans that are less disruptive and don't add unnecessary costs. I favor Dr. Wu's plan given that it maintains strong feeds and is less disruptive. As much as I would liketo see problem ofovercrowding solved, I begyou not to provide any reason to our local Govt. officials to keep granting building permits that would further compound already existing problem ofoverdevelopment in eastern Howard County. If Mallo plan goesthrough as it is, I guarantee youthat there will be more overdevelopment in Eastern HowardCounty without any future room to move children westward. I also believe that contiguous communities should be kept together especially if these are in close vicinity to a school that is either under capacity or within capacity. Thanks you for time and consideration. Sincerely, Sadia Khan Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jianli Dai Dear BOE members, I really appreciate all the efforts you have been making to improve the redistricting plan. In the BOE^work session yesterday I sawtwo plans discussed, one is from Ms. Mallo which would move 7, 300 students and the other is from Dr. Wu that would move only 3, 000 students in total.'Due to the tight budget of our county and also the disruption ofthe communities, I strongly recommend you to adopt Dr. Wu's plan. Although Ms. Mallo's plan isan improvement overthe previous proposal, it still leadsto farmore , ^1x^Tmun?ie?. and students in terms of transportation costs, longer rides, community disruptionthan neededto achievethe goals set in Policy6010 including addressing equity and overcrowding. As«a. res'dert. !n. polygon 1186and votin9 district4-'have beenstron9iy opposing being moved from i, an area and community we have little connection with due to geographic boundaries ie Middle Patuxent Environment Area). My concerns are: been a coherent «^l1 86-and-186_haye community with residents with many different backgrounds. iy residents in this area are first generation immigrants. Separating out the community of' immigrants deeply hurts our kids and families. 2.^ Moving 1186from CMSand HCMSessentially would transport our kids to a communitywe cannot Lany connection with due to Rt. 108 and the natural boundary set by the Middle Patuxent" Environment Area (see the map attached). We should not ask our middle schooTkids tobe'bused into out of an area they have no connection whatsoever due to geographic boundaries" 3, ^Rt^'108 lrafficcan be imPacted and much longer rides will be required for our kids to be moved to vs. CMS they are currently in. 4^Mo^of. our-immigrantfam. iliesare hard-working couples both with full-time jobs. Longerbus rides . locations will create many real issues fortransportation and after-school a^ra'ngements.^ 5Lstu<;lentsfeed. s..wi". beSreatly disrupted bymoving kidsin 1186from Clarksville Elementaryto Harper'sChoice Middle and to RiverHill High. ItJust does notmake sens"e~whatsoew"r'.' I strongly urgeyou to keepfamilies in polygon 1186with Clarksville Middle andadopt Dr.Wu's plan. Sincerely, Jianli Dai, Ph. D. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Michael Goldstein Dear Board of Education Members: Asresident of Polygon 129, I'm amwriting to supportBoard of Education Member Jennifer Mallo's recommendations for redistrictingfrom theOctober 28, 2019's Attendance Area Work Session related to Polygons 64, 1064,129, and 1129 (Pointer'sRun neighborhood of the Village of River Hill). Ms.Mallo's proposal is effective for the following reasons: 1 Reducesthe significant overcrowding atPointer's RunElementary School,while balancingutilization with CIarksville ElementarySchool. 2. Movingall ofthe above referenced polygon's to RiverHill HighSchool better aligns the feeds between elementary, middleand high school for our community as a whole.This is consistent with the Community Stability standard within Policy 6010. Pleasenote that thereferenced polygon's were originally districted at River Hill High School, andwere moved to Atholton High School within thepast ten to fifteen years. 3. Dr^ Chao Wu'sproposed alternative atthe October 28,2019 meeting would cause Polygons 64, 1064, 129,and 1129to bepart of a veiysmall feedfrom Clarksville MiddleSchool to Atholton HighSchool, which is not consistent with Policy 6010. I urgethe Board of Education to considerMs. Mallo's thoughtful approachto redistricting. I appreciate your consideration ofmy support on behalfof Polygons 64, 1064, 129,and 1129. Sincerely/ Michael Goldstein Polygon »129 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Matthew Bankert Good evening BoE, I wantedto respectfully askthat you consider keepingthe Woodmarkneighborhood together in a large feed. Our neighborhood is polygons 180, 181, and 1180. While Jennifer Mallo's proposal does keep our neighborhoodtogether, it sends us to Wilde Lake High School. WLHSwould create a small feed of 12% from Folly Quarter Middle, whichis belowthe 6010 standard low threshold of 15%. Also, WLHSis the 3rd or 4th furthesthigh school awayfrom us. We have hundreds of acres of uninhabitedfarmland between us and WLHS. Dr. Chao Wu's plan, while keeping the feed larger, will divide our neighborhood. Halfwill go to Glenelg, and halfwill go to River Hill, where we are currently districted. Since Glenelg and River Hill are the closest high schools to us, it makes sense for our entire neighborhood to go to one of those. Thankyou for your consideration, and for all the hardwork you do! Matthew Bankert, polygon 181 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chunxiao Zhu Dear BOB 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, 1 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 CIarksville 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! 1185 185 1028 2028 ^ 28 I 186 Respectfully, Lily Zhu Polygon 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Leslie Toussaint <12saint@gmail. com> Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 8:48 PM To: Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Concerns over Polygon 1181 Dear Board of Education members: I am in a very large polygon with very few students. Some of the plans put forth have us staying at RHHS, others have us moving to WLHS. I would prefer that my son stay with the majority of his classmates, and that you keep the neighborhoods west of the Folly Quarter/Sheppaid/Homewood circle together. These include: Woodmark, Glenelg Estates, Maryvale, Shepherd's Glen, Buckskin Lake and Ridgewood. I also want to draw attention to the flaw in Ms. Malta's plan for the FQMS to WLHS. Dr. M's feed from FQMSto WLHSwas already low at 17%, but estimates have Mallo's proposed feed between l2-14%. UndertheCommunity Stability section of 6010, Section 2, point "a" calls for "feedsthat encourage keeping students together from one school to the next. For example, avoiding feeds of less than 15% at the receiving school." Know that I advocate tirelessly with the county council to adequately fund our schools. It makes me very upset to hear that we are behind on so many capital improvements and have made cuts to paraeducators and academic/curriculum support specialists. Please don't waste much-needed funds on transporting students away from schools that are under-capacity. The drive to Wilde Lake involves many lights and negotiating our traffic circle in the morning commute can take upwards of 30 minutes. Meanwhile, Glenelg HS is the closest school to us, most ofoiir FQMS feed is slated to attend, and it is under-capacity. Just a thought... Thank you for the work that you are doing. I know it is difficult, and feels thankless at times. Leslie Toussaint PolygonllSl 12540 Folly Quarter Rd. EllicottCity, MD21042 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Karrie Goldstein Dear Board of Education Members: As resident of Polygon 129, I'm am writing to support Board of Education Member Jennifer Mallo's recommendations for redistricting from the October 28, 2019's Attendance Area Work Session related to Polygons 64, 1064, 129, and 1129 (Pointer's Run neighborhood of the Village of River Hill). Ms. Mallo s proposal is effective for the following reasons: 1. Reduces the significant overcrowding at Pointer's Run Elementary School, while balancing utilization with Clarksville Elementary School. 2. Moving all of the above referenced polygon's to River Hill High School better aligns the feeds between elementary, middle and high school for our community as a whole. This is consistent with the Community Stability standard within Policy 6010. Please note that the referenced polygon's were originally districted at River Hill High School, and were moved to Atholton High School within the past ten to fifteen years. 3. Dr. Chao Wu's proposed alternative at the October 28, 2019 meeting would cause Polygons 64, 1064, 129, and 1129 to be part of a very small feed from Clarksville Middle School to Atholton High School, whichis not consistent with Policy 6010.I urge the Board of Education to consider Ms. Mallo's thoughtful approach to redistricring. I appreciate your consideration of my support on behalf of Polygons 64, 1064, 129, and 1129. Sincerely, Karrie Goldstein Polygon #129 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jabin Janoo Dear Members of the Board: Thankyou thetime andeffort that you areall putting in to makethis redistricting inthe best interests ofall students. <-sl. wat ^the red.is.tr":ting p''ocesis'am concemed aboutthe proposed move ofpolygon 1200and 200 being moved fr°, mthe Ri'/el"t""highSI:h°°'to Glerlelg hieh sch001'As y°u cansee fr°m themap attached belowwe-areth°e'only2 PO.Ygo"s-thatare 's°lated. andremoved from°ur immediate neighborswho remain at Riverhill highschool. With only one egress in and out ofthis community the commute of this high schoolers is already long and Riverhill isthe closest geographic location. us Moving away to any other school increases the commute time and"is detrimentalto'theheaith At this timc R"/erhi" Highsch°°l is under utilized and the OJ°u-r-cl,"ldren'. small number of students coming from' thls*s-ection-°fthe. c°mm."nitvwl"rlot substantia"y burde" the current high school and if an-ything'will"hei^ keep cont'gu°"s communities together and save on transportation cost. Pleasetook again asthe propo'sal and7eave~the 81 studentsfrom polygon200 and 1200 stay together at Riverhill highschool in the best interests"o7t'he student as weN'as the county school system. hope you give this matter your due diligence. JabinJanoo !2010 Catherine Close road Clarksville, MD 21029 Polygon 1200 v^ r uno \ Sentfrom Mail for Windows10 POLYGON 176 29TH October 2019 Dear Board Members Thankyou for all your hard work, effort and dedication in trying to resolvethe overcapacity and concentration of poverty issues faced bysome schools. It is a shame that the CCis passingthe buckto the BOEand to digout ofthe hole and solve the problems created bytheir policies. It is a daunting task to saythe least and a struggle 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 rightthe firsttime and cannot risk dire consequences of a hastydecision. Thanks to Ms. Mallo and Dr. Wufor the time and effort put in propose their own plans. Aswe digestthe intricaciesof both these plans and their overall impacton our polygon aswell asthe is school-SYStem'!t apparent that Dr wu sto°d by his words when creating the plan. His plan DOESNOT move kidsunless necessary, considersHS-13 boundary plans to the extent possible andminimizes double moves in future. Hisplan also moves over 50% less kids, which directly corelates to less transportation cost, less disruption and stress for kids and their families. DrWu listenedto thetestimonies andspent time readingthe written ones, analyzedthe other options proposed bythe community aswell asthe feasibility study and the community survey results, keepspolicy 6010 in mind and still achievesthe goal of solving the over capacity problems. We do not havethe FARM rates impact for his plan yet, but it does seem like he would havefactored that issue in his planningas well. Moving on to discussing the impact of the two plans to my polygon (#176). Please see the table below for specificcomparison: Superintendent's Plan Jen Mallo's Plan Dr. Wu's Plan Moves to WLHS: 176, 181, Moves to WLHS:176, 180, No moves from RHHS to 183, 1181, 1183, 1185, 1200, 181, 183, 1180, 1181 and WLHS 2176, 2183, 3176 2176 :17% feed From our analysis this NA would be a <10% feed from FQMS to WLHS Increase in commute time by Increase in commute time NA over an hour each way by over an hour each way In addition, it is important to understand the connection betweenthe two sister communities- Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek. Walnut Grove falls in Polygon 3176 and Walnut Creekfalls in Polygon 176as shown in FigureA andFigure B below'respectively: Figure A Walnut Grove Community- Polygon 3176 \ y \* ' Tfffff, [ ^ / '" »< --S. / ''«». ^ Figure B- Walnut Creek Community- Polygon 176 ~^-' '': .i .-»-^' / ..} / s y _/ '\ ..- /. \ Here is a map of both the polygons together, note the two communities circled in red as well as RHHS which is just down the road circled in red: "s .-- / < .t;l, -. v \. Themost important thingto notehere would be that the busstop for polygon 176is in polygo"3176at the. i"tersection ofPreakness Circle and Clay circie lane. This is a verytight k"Ltc°mmunltv and°"r k'ds ha''e friends a"d families inthese two communities/Spl'ittTn'gus anddividing our neighborhoods will be devastating to the friendship kids have cultivated' since they started TRES. It is a strong feed from TRES->FQMS^RHHS. Secondly^notethat per Ms. Mallo's plan taking out polygons 3176, 1183, 1185,1200, 2183 f''o,m.the^QMS^. RHHS-feed"""res"lt'"a sma"feed from FQMS^WLH'S-evenaft'e7 adding polygon180 and 1180. This is in clear violation of policy 6010 for both polygonl76and~317^. ^ommendDr:w"'Ms' Delmont-SmaN, and Ms. Cutroneo for their attempt to keep policy 6010and strong feeder systems. fiscal responsibilities, do not harm attitude andmmmize studentmoves as the core guiding principles in this process. Ms. Mallo has followed these principles for somepolygons, howeverthe causeis lostwhen it comesto the number of' students being moved, the numerous small feeds being created, and the high cost associated with her proposed changes. The problems facingthe school system are enormous and need more than one tool of redistricting to resolve the issue. It was encouraging to see the board raise and discuss other options such as magnet programs, IB schools etc. and is reassuring to know that testimonies were not a lost cause. Please ensure that costly and irreversible mistakes can be avoided now, do not be pressurized by time, so not be pressurized by the unavailability of data till last minute. These are not averaging of numbers game, but actual valuable kids and their crucial academic years that are at stake. So please do take the time needed to ensure that you DO NO HARM. In closing, I encourage the board to focus on Dr. Wu's proposal, its essence being balancing school capacity while minimizingstudents travel times and achievingequity. 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 drivingfactor of policy- why move students out of an under-capacityschool 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 Mandeep Sawhney Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: honesty@peltierphotos. com Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 8:38 PM To: Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Jen Mallo's ES proposalSend I am respectfully requesting that Jen Mallo's proposal for the Elementary shifts from Ilchester to Waterloo be reconsidered. The shift makes minimal difference to the capacity chart and will create an island of ele.mentary. l<'d.s^wh°. wi"., be P'ucked fr°m Ilchester (part way through Elementary sch'oori nou'rcase'), send-them_t°waterl°°' then retum them back to Bonnie Branch to"be reunted'with'their'onginaFsoc'iBl group. I could understand this shift if it solved an actual problem with utilization. Based on ?he''in'itial~ T'2.r c°ded. <::hart'thel'e lsn't a problem with Ilchester utilization, so I can't imagine'what is'causingThe t. I know there are many more meetings and likely more proposals that will be considered Please focus on the schools with overpopulation as indicated by your visual guides to minimize ti-ieimDact on the entire community. Thanks for your consideration. Honesty Peltier (Polygon 1095) Kathleen V. Hanks From: JeremyGold Hello, I wantedto urge Ms. Mallo and Dr. Wu and the entirety ofthe boardto re-examine the move in the new proposals as well as in the Superintendent's proposal that redistnct polygons 1065, 2065, and 65 from Ellicott Mills Middle to Oakland Mills Middle. This move would create an extraordinarily small feed, made up of only these three polygons that would go from Oakland Mills Middle to Howard High School. This new feed would only be 2. 9%, well below the 15% feed that is strongly recommended by BOB Policy 6010. Our neighborhood polygons (1065, 2065, and 65) walk to Howard High School and I would strongly urge you to reconsider moving polygons 1065, 2065, and 65 to Oakland Mills Middle, and instead leaving them at Ellicott Mills Middle which has a strong feed to Howard High, or moving them to another nearby middle school that also has a sto-ong feed to Howard High. Regards, Jeremy Gold Polygon 1065 Dear HCPSS Board of Education Members, I am writing this letter to express my concern and opposition to the proposal (i. e., 'test scenario') for Howard County school redistricting posted byJen Mallo on her Facebookpage (https://www. facebook. com/ienmallo4boe/). Though, I am grateful for the BOE's time and dedication to the school redistricting process includingfor Ms. Mallosharing her 'test scenario', herproposal has several issues. First, the total movementof 7, 300 students is too large of an impact for redistricting in SY2020-2021 when HS13 will open shortly in 2023. Considering that Dr. Martirano's proposed plan will move similar numberof students (-7,400), I believe Ms. Mallo's proposal will havea similarfinancial impact, whichis not fiscally responsible with the consideration that HCPSS already has a limited budget where certain programs (e. g., technology) and staff (e. g., paraeducators) had to be cut recently. Although I acknowledge Ms. Malta's proposed plan may reduce the individual school capacities, the plan will split communities and school feeds. Dividingone or more polygons from the rest oftheir established, cohesive community neighborhood destroys the very community stability that your constituents have repeatedly voiced as the number one priority. Keepingthese highly diverse neighborhoods together in their neighborhood schools directly upholds the standards in Policy6010 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. Furthermore, sendingstudents outsideof their communities without addressing the root causeof the achievementgap places greater barriersto student achievement. Movingany child awayfrom their neighborhoodschool andcommunity supports doesmore harmthan good. I would also like to remind the BOEthat through online surveys, community input sessions inJuly, and written and spoken testimony that an overwhelming majority of Howard County residents strongly value community stability, strongfeeds from one school level to the next, and minimized transportation costs when redistricting. Ms. Mallo's proposalwould not bealigned with the HowardCounty community's input. Inclosing, urgethe BOEto consideralternative redistricting plansthat better balanceemergency capacity issues with community continuity in mind and wait to do any major redistricting until HS13 is available. Furthermore, I askthe BOEto consider choice-based alternative methods such as Magnet schools and Controlled Choice Policies to address equity instead ofjust redistricting. These alternative methods can be developed aswe wait for the availability of HS13 and concurrently implemented with its opening. Thank you, District 4 Voter: Christian Cao Polygon tt 1186 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Dave Buscher Ten of my grandkids attend Howard County Schools with another one joining in a few years. I support Dr. Wu's plan. This plan is the best and will minimize disruption for students. It isn't a political plan, but a common sense plan. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Meenu Yahoo Dear BOB members Welive in polygon 176which is 1. 5 milesaway from RiverHill highschool. Theproposed Redistrictingplan by Dr. Martinaro andMs Mallo plans are against policy 6010. They are swapping our kids out ofRiver Hill high school which is under capacity schools to WLHS which is 7-8 miles away (pis see attached map). Swapping does not address overcrowding nor does changing buildings and busing kids achieve equity. Back in Aug, DrMartinaro came up with a plan totally different than suggestions from feasibility studies. Yesterday MsMallo cameup with another new plan just 3 weeks beforethe final date.Its like everyone isbringing band- aid solutions that does not fix theroot cause. These proposals should bethroughly analysed not rushed like that. Weare looking at 7, 000plus kids andtheir families. And nowwe are listening to new plansjust 3 weeks before Nov 21 th confirmation? AsBOB, you should not rosh thru this. This is very seriousissue and should be addressed with adequate research. Durii yesterday's work session, most of the relevjmt datawas not even availableto review. Howcan you possible make right decisions within such short period of time?? Weteach kids to follow therules andprocesses. This is setting a very wrong example. Peryesterday's Ms Malta's new plan, polygon 176 and 3176 are divided into 2 separate high schools. Polygon 176and 3176 (walnut grove and Walnut Creek communities) areextremely tight knit communities locatedon Sheppard lane, Clarksville. Pis see attached map. These are notjust polygons. '.. walnut creek starts from within Walnut Grove and several homes cm be driven to from the Grove entrance which is via Preakness Circle Ln. l. _ T e first bus stop .forbot11 Grove andcreek is atthe '"tersection ofPreakness Circle Ln andClay Circle Ln. Kids from boththe communities meet at this location. Thisbus 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 feed from FQMS to WLHS would be less than 10%. Pisdo not break our communities. Pleasekeep 3176 and 176at River Hill highschool. / / ./ ,' // / \/ \ ilf \':. \ Thanks Meenu Suri ResidentofPolygon 176 Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Tangie Smith Good Evening Board Members: Thanks for your time and commitment to Howard County Public School students. My name is Tangie Smith, and I have a 4th grader and a 2nd grader at Forest Ridge Elementary (FRES) and a 6th grader at Patuxent Valley Middle School (PVMS). My family and I reside in Polygon 46, and we have for 15 years. Last night at the work session, Chao Wu presented a proposal that moves Polygons 46, 12 and 2046 from Forest Ridge Elementary (FRES) and Patuxent Valley Middle School (PVMS)to Laurel Woods Elementary School (LWES)and Murray Hill Middle School (MHMS). If this move comes up for a vote, please vote against it. My neighborhood, Kings Woods, consists of Polygons 46, 1046 and 3046. Moving 46 essentially removes one small portion of our community from FRES, which we have attended since it opened in 1992. This move cuts off 1/3 of Kings Woods off from its neighbors and remove my children from the schools they've attended for the last six years-one where I have been heavily involved and active in PTA and school volunteer activities. Under the two feasibility study options and the superintendents' proposal, the FRES community was not impacted. My children have attended FRESsince 2013. It's truly a special place that literally checks every box when it comes to racial, cultural and socio-economic diversity. In fact, I believe the diversity in culture, race and socio-economicfactors is a significant reason that FRESwas not proposed to be moved under any other scenario. Moving us disrupts that delicate balance of diversity that makes FRES such a wonderful, organic model of equity that was the driver of the Superintendent's proposal. In addition, it doesn't seem prudent to move polygons from a school that doesn't have a capacity issue or overwhelming FARMs numbers. FRES'current utilization is around 95 percent, and FARMs rates are a manageable 27 percent. Dr. Wu's proposal could actually increase FARMS to FRES and PVMS. Last night, as suggested by Christina Delmont-Small and supported by all the Board members, there is a desire to create a true feeder system in the County. With our community of schools in North Laurel/Savage, we are one of the few communities that are almost there. There were several scenarios presented at the work session that have our polygons moving to HS #13 when it opens. Currently, all of FRESfeeds into PVMS, and potentially when HS #13 opens we could see all of PVMS feed into the new school and could potentially have children who have attended school together since elementary school. That is if we don't move any students out of FRES. As a resident of Polygon 46, we'd like to stay at FRES, if possible. If you must vote to move this polygon, urge you to consider allowing 5th graders to finish at their school next year. Most sincerely, Tangle Smith 9605 Jester Court Laurel, MD 20723 (301)213-1977 Dear BOE Members, In response to the second work session, specifically with regard to the future disposition ofpolygon 1200/200, we the residents ofpolygon 200 strongly oppose being moved to Glenelg HS. We in general support Dr. Wu's plan. However, Dr. Wu's plan has effectively carved polygons 1200/200 out ofa contiguous RHHS district, isolating us in a land island. Weare MUCH closerto River Hill HS and all ofthe polygons around us are RHHS districts. in 1^fl35 M3 aca S. i?6 2(K> i, isa t^St 1.17B l. ifll Stft i9e 1,137 <^. .V ^-n^ / ." Polygon 1200/200 has always been part of River Hill HS, and our position has always been staying with River Hill HS as we love our school and community. Our kids know each other and play with each other yet, but this plan will force our kids to go to Gtenelg, while all of our neighbors and their friends go to RHHS - which is not healthy. For polygon 1200/200, we are a tight and close community with a very small population and would not impact capacity issue so we should stay with RHHS. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely Polygon 200 Richard Li Sharon Wen Miya Paterniti Shawn Paterniti Helen Pappas Khaled Helmi Safiya Helmi Najwa Awad Hend Elgendi Ahmed Elkachouty Steven Light Sarah Tunson Shawn Tunson Chen (Cindy) Wang Daniel Birzak Gertrude Birzak Jessie Luo Xi Cheng Katherine Murphy Steven Murphy Quentin Murphy Branden Murphy 29 October 2019 Dear Board Members: Wewould liketo express ourpreliminary support for Dr. Wu'sredistricting plan. Although wewill study it furtherthis week, it looks likea sound starting pointfor discussion, forthe following reasons: 1. It addresses overcrowding while minimizing impact to students and families (3000 moved vs. 7000-8000 in other plans). 2. It minimizes the fiscal burden of redistricting. In a constrained budget environment, we would not want to see any cuts to paraeducators, academic programs, or student supports to underpin increased spending on elective transportation costs. 3. It appears to be an attempt to keep walkers as walkers and communities intact. as much as possible. Wewould also like to highlightspecific concerns regarding our particular area: 1. Another plan, introduced by Board Member Mallo, proposes to send our sister polygon (1186) andfour others (185, 1185, 1028, and2028) out ofClarksville MiddleSchool. This would involve transporting children who live within the village of River Hill out of River Hill in a very circuitous way-they would have to be funneled around a large natural barrier (the Middle Patuxent EA), down a busy 2-lane highway, and into another village to the school. There are not multiple great optionsto circumvent the EA-in fact, there aren't any-this is a bottleneck. 2. These moves would be elective, since both schools are undercapacity. 3. These moves would not minimize impact. A round trip pickup from afterschool activities could shift from a quick 10-15 minute trip to a 40-45 minute ride through much heavier traffic. Assuming that other parents, like us, chose a house and arranged work schedules with the commute time to school in mind, this creates significantdisruption. 4. It hinders a sensible feed of students. A cohort of River Hill students should not be selected for transportation to another middle school. Wewould also like to express our support for a magnet program in Howard County as broachedby Ms. Ellis, aswell as the feeder system proposed byMs. Delmont-Small. Anything thatthe board can do to create a sense of permanence and stability in school assignments would be very much appreciated! Wethank you all foryour hardwork on behalfof our childrsn and appreciatethe opportunity to comment. Sincerely, Ted & Joey Przyzycki (District 4, Polygon 186) /'i/ M ,7 I . t'l. ;. !. r''f A ! i- j-v . !\ n.' c t '4',' I";;'- 1+1 ..!., '- ' f I-. ..// . u'" ^,- ?'.; /.-/.;< /.-' Kathleen V. Hanks From: Nora Flack Dear Howard County Board of Education, My husband, Rob Flack, and I live inpolygon 1200. The proposal that Dr. Wu presented for redistricting last night was well thought out, on target and addressed many of the concerns of the parents of Howard County. However, we believe there may have been. a misunderstanding regarding polygons 1200 & 200. Dr. Martirano's proposal moved us from River Hill High School to Wilde Lake High School. Under his scenario, we would have preferred to be redistricted to Glenelg High Schoo] because he mapped all other adjacent polygons to Glenelg. However, we have always preferred the continuity of remaining with River Hill. Under Dr. Wu's proposal, River Hill is the ideal choice for 1200 & 200 as it will keep our polygons contiguous with the community and eliminate disruptions to students currently enrolled in River Mill. We don't believe that the quantity of students in 1200 & 200 will impact the capacity of River Hill. Please reconsider keeping 1200 & 200 at River Hill High School. Thank you. Sincerely, Nora Flack 12945 Linden Church Road Nora S. Flack, RDH, BA Mobile (202)207-6299 October 29, 2019 To: Howard County BOE, Dr. Michael J.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 oolveon 176 Dear Board of Education (BOE) Members, I havewatched thefirst two working sessions regarding redistricting and I havethe following feedback(I am in polygon 176). 1. I am happyyou areconsidering a feeder system and starting your discussions from HighSchools aswell asconsidering HS13boundary lines. I am also happyyou areconsidering transportation and safety concerns raised by the community. 2. I am disappointed you have such weak quality of consultants who are not confident in their answersand aretaking a whileto get backto you with accurateand real data. 3. Regarding Ms Jen Malta's plan for HS: I am disappointed you are splitting 3176 and 176. PolYRons 176and 3176 should be kept toeether at River Hill Hieh School. Both are only 1.4 miles awayfrom an under capacity highschool. Also, they are a single community. The entrance forWalnut Creek phase 1 (22 homes) isthrough WalnutGrove entrance (ifyou drive through it, you would know). Also, Walnut Creek phase 1 residents living there are sharedwith the Walnut Grove HOA.Finally, the busstop at PreaknessCircle Laneis common to WalnutCreek and Walnut Grove residents. 4. Regarding DrWu's proposal for HS, MSand ES- I fully support it aswe likethe approach of optimizingcapacity, keepingcommunities together, minimizingstudent commutes (therefore cost considerations), organizationof a goodfeeder system ES->MS->HSand also socioeconomic equity. This proposal will greatly benefit ALLstudents. Thank you, ReenaTuliani (Veryconcerned parent) Polygon 176 . "t. Jtathleen V. Hanks From: Jeffrey Rogers Dear Board ofEducation, I amwriting tojequest that the Board keep Polygon 1200 in the River Hill High School district. While I apprcc?ate-, le_BoaId'leffort.to-lmprove"PPortunity across the county, it appearsthat one cun-ent option is to separate Polygons 1200^and 200 from their surroimding neighbors and communities and to-sendou7kids to a school. Thisproposed move move creates a significant fracture within our community fo7our~ students and families. ^urAl e,n havedeveloPedstrong relationships asthey have progressed throughDayton Oaks ES and Folly QuarterMS. Separatingour kids from their peers will onlymake the transition to high schooTthat much morei Ig. I^askthat^you keep Ae communities residingin Polygons 1200and 200 connect their communities andwith the River Hill HS district. Thank you for your consideration. Jeffand Kathy Rogers 12725 Chapel Chase Dr Polygon 1200 JeffRogers (301)346-9095 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ashley Serio Alfeo Forwarded message From: Ashley Serio Alfeo Dear Ms. Mallo, This plan that your introduced is extremely flawed. I know you probablyworked hard on it, however, 9,000 is too many children. I do applaud your logical feed for 1176 to move from Folly Quarter to Clarksville since it is closer. This is my former polygon andwould have helpedmy previous commute with my child. It also alleviates the single feed from Clarksville Elementary to Folly. I don't, however, understand the move ofpolygons on Folly Quarter Road to WLHS. There are several Centennial High polygons that are closer to WLHS. CHS is severely overcrowded, RHHS is not. It is more logical and less dismptive to keep the polygons off Folly Quarter at RHHS or maybe moved them to GHS. WLHSis just too far and will significantfyraise transportation costs. I know you respect financial responsibility but Dr. M's andthis plan aie not financially responsible. Dr. Wu's plan is more reasonableboth financially and with logical feeds and less dismption. Please consider revising your plan to be more financially responsible and less disruptive to all students in Howard County Public Schools. Thank you, Ashley Serio Alfeo Polygonll87 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chris Buscher Hi, I believe you are setting the county up for failure. You are going to destroy property values and desecrate the taxes collected in doing so. I am going to watch this play out first handed as a 15 year seasoned realtor. With that being said. If one has to pick from which pile of crap smells the least. It would be Dr. Wu's plan. Christopher Buscher Century 21 New Millennium Realtor Cell (301) 752-5963 Office (410) 730-8888 Buscher(a), c21nm. corn Kathleen V. Hanks From: sung cho Hello BOE, My family lives at polygon 176 and we would literally have to pass River hill to go to wild lake high school. Please see below and vote for our polygon 176 to stay at River hill high school. Thank you, Mrs. Sung Cho 12212 Basslers way, Clarksville MD 21029. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chris Buscher Hello, Besides the fact that there is a social engineering plan in effect which I am 100% against at all levels. The least damagingplan is Dr. Wu's it will be the least disruptive Thank You, Chris October 29, 2019 Howard County Board of Education I am writingfor three distinct purposes: 1) To re-express mystrong opposition to Superintendent Martirano's proposal and its negative impacton the Woodmark Community. Pleasereference our community letter inyour files to fully understand our positioning. 2) Toexpress my strong opposition to the redistrictingplan presentedby Board Member Mallo. The treatment ofthe neighborhoodof Woodmark (Polygons 180, 181, 1180,1181) is notviable within this proposal. Thefeed from FollyQuarter Middle Schoolto Wilde LakeHigh School is in violation of policy 6010. Thisfeed isaround 12%which is lessthan the 15%threshold required. Students should besent to either River Hill and/or Glenelg HighSchool to satisfythis requirement. Anything less is unacceptable. 3) To express mygeneral support for Board Member Wu's proposal. While not perfect. Dr. Wu's proposal provides a compromise and keeps community at its core. Whilehis proposal does divide upthe communityof Woodmark, it at least providesadequate feeds (above the required 15%)to RiverHill and Glenelg High School. Twoseparate sections of the Woodmark community canstay intact and with peers of neighboring communities. While not ideal. it is a better alternative than bothof the above plans byfar. Italso minimizes oreliminates thesocioeconomlc redistricting that isthe backboneof the other proposals, of which I am adamantlyopposed to. Lookingto the future, Polygons 180, 181, 1180 (collectively the Woodmark neighborhood) should be combined to form one polygon to avoid this dividing in the future. Woodmark has been around for nearly 50 years. I think it's about time. Withthe veritable tsunami of opposition to theSuperintendent's proposal, andby default Board MemberMalta's which is along similar lines, I would beshocked to seethe Boardapprove either. Remember, you areelected officials and represent us, your constituents. I askyou to take credence to the cryof outrage you have heard overthe lastthree months. Through hundreds oftestimonies, thousands of letters and many protests, the Howard County community hasspoken. It isclear. ' Now, please do your part and listen. Rachel Walter Wilde Lake High School Graduate, 1986 Polygon 180 Kathleen V. Hanks From: ruda lee Dear Board Member, I am emailingyou to oppose the proposed redistricting ofpolygon 176 (Walnut Creek] to Wilde Lake high school (WLHS). As it currently stands we are 1. 4 miles from River Hill high school (RHHS). Ms. Mallo's plan supports keeping polygon 3176 at RHHS and moving polygon 176 to WLHS. I ask that the board keep the two communities and polygons districted to the same high school. Phase I of my neighborhood (Walnut Creek) is actually in polygon 3176. We share a mutual bus stop with the Walnut Grove neighborhood and many of my children's friends live in this neighborhood. This effort to split the two communities would separate friends and also make car-poolingimpossible. From a logistical standpoint David Clifton's testimony eloquently addressesthe increased driving times and unfavorable traffic patterns that would occur by moving polygon 176 to WLHS. Specificallyrouting busesto Homewood from our polygon in order to get to WLHSposes serious traffic concerns. With the influx ofhomes redistricted to WLHSwest ofpolygon 176 the roundabout at Folly quarter and Homewood would be incredibly busyand further backed up. The turn onto Sheppard Lane from polygon 176 is a right turn and then it is a one corridor commute down Sheppard Lane to Route 108 to make it to RHHS. The Walnut grove HOA (polygon 3176) presented extensive traffic pattern analysis at the testimonies a fewweeks ago. As highlighted by the attached drawingprovided by David Clifton in his testimony these traffic concerns are also directly applicable to polygon 176. The route in blue outlines the current drive from polygon 176 to RHHS.The red and yellow routes outline two possible routes to WLHSin the event polygon 176 were to be redistricted to WLHS. For this and all the aforementioned reasons please consider an alternative plan. I endorse Dr. Wu's plan that takes all of this into consideration and keeps polygon 176 at RHHS. Please work closely with him to modify Ms. Mallo's plan. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. I appreciatethe hard work that all the board members that invested into this process. Sincerely, Ruda Park Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: mariamnaveedkfs Dear Board members Both SupenntendantMartmaro andJen Mallo's proposed redistricting planrisks having significant impacton n-^on ?, 12?9'th?families'andthe community as a whole.We are in favor and advocate for a planthat keeps Polygon 1199 as it has been assigned for many years to Riverhill highschool. . Creating a small feedsending students inthe community in Polygon 1199to Glenelg highschool will destabilize social structure built over the years in elementary and middle school. <-Students will havea longer^commute goingforward if movedfrom RiverHill HSto Glenelg HS, increasingthe already existent stress of eariy days and less sleep for young children . chao^wu^altemate plan keeps Polygon 1 199 and neighboring communities together in River Hill high school and avoids the associated negative impacts of reassignment to Glenelg ° .e'ncrcasedpsych°l°, gicalstress ofbeingac;cepted into newsocial circles whileadjusting to anddealing with t-het:ha!l_en9esof. ea''ly teenaSe years and academics is unnecessary. The arbitrary reassignment ofa small population ofstudents does not address the perceived underlying issues attendant in school system "There is no clear articulation ofthe benefit of reassigning a population of students from River Hill to Glenela. What is the objective? How was the carving of Polygon 1199 arrived at? » The proposal to changethe assigned highschooifrom Riverhill to Glenelg will haveadverse and impact on an existing and established community Mariam Shah 13601 sheepsheadct polygon 1199 Sent viathe Samsung Galaxy S 10:, an AT&T 5G Evolution capable smartphone Kathleen V. Hanks From: parkj07. Dear Board Member, I am emailingyou to oppose the proposed redistricting ofpolygon 176 [Walnut Creek) to Wilde Lake high school (WLHS). As it currently stands we are 1.4 miles from River Hill high school (RHHS). Ms. Malta's plan supports keeping polygon 3176 at RHHS and moving polygon 176 to WLHS. I ask that the board keep the two communities and polygons districted to the same high school. Phase I of my neighborhood (Walnut CreekJ is actually in polygon 3176. We share a mutual bus stop with the Walnut Grove neighborhood and many of my children's friends live in this neighborhood. This effort to split the two communities would separate friends and also make car-pooling impossible. From a logistical standpoint David Clifton's testimony eloquently addresses the increased driving times and unfavorable traffic patterns that would occur by moving polygon 176 to WLHS. Specifically routing buses to Homewood from our polygon in order to get to WLHS poses serious traffic concerns. With the influx of homes redistricted to WLHS west ofpolygon 176 the roundabout at Folly quarter and Homewood would be incredibly busy and further backed up, The turn onto Sheppard Lane from polygon 176 is a right turn and then it is a one corridor commute down Sheppard Lane to Route 108 to make it to RHHS. The Walnut grove HOA (polygon 3176] presented extensive traffic pattern analysis at the testimonies a few weeks ago. As highlighted by the attached drawing provided by David Clifton in his testimony these traffic concerns are also directly applicable to polygon 176. The route in blue outlines the current drive from polygon 176 to RHHS. The red and yellow routes outline two possible routes to WLHS in the event polygon 176 were to be redistricted to WLHS. For this and all the aforementioned reasons please consider an alternative plan. I endorse Dr. Wu's plan that takes all of this into consideration and keeps polygon 176 at RHHS. Please work closely with him to modify Ms. Mallo's plan. Thankyou for your time and consideration in this matter. I appreciate the hard work that all the board members that invested into this process. With sincere regards, Justin J. Park, MD Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Yuansha Chen Dear BOE members, First, thank you for your service. It is a stressful time for you, for Howard county parents and students. After listening to last night's work session. I support Dr. Wu's proposal, which is the the least disruptive amon{ all proposal so far. I strongly urge you to support his proposal as well. I opposed tMs. Mallo's plan, which I believe is not better than Dr. Martirano's plan. My family lives in polygon 1186. Our kids always go to CES, CMS and RHHS because these are the closest schools andthey are withinwalking distance. I ask you, please keep our polygon in these schools and don t cause non necessary disruptions to families live here. Thank you Yuansha Chen Dear Board of Education Members: Myname isNaseem Dawood. I live in polygon 176. I would liketo writeto you insupport ofDr Wu's proposed plan and in opposition to Ms. Malta's proposed plan. Dr.Wu's plan movesthe fewest number of students whilestill addressingovercrowding issues that occur in the eastern part ofthe county. He is looking at moves that cause the least disruption. In Ms. Mallo's plan, on the other hand, over 7000 students are still affected bythis plan, double Dr. Wu's plan and about the same as the superintendent's plan. The movement will worsen the cost oftransportation andtraffic asthere will be multiple bussesgoing to the same neighborhoods and then driving cross county. Looking at our polygon in particular the move for 176 to Wild Lake from River Hill does not make sense. The distance to Wild Lake versus River Hill isabout four times further. Thiswill haveall ofthe negativeimpacts on sleep, afterschool activities, and parental involvement that have been discussed in detail in the public testimonies. Additionally, we live in Walnut Creek, which is part of polygon 176, movingto Wild Lake, but our neighbors in Walnut Grove polygon 3176 will remain at River High. Our section. Phase 1 ofWalnut Creek, shares an entrance with Walnut Grove from Sheppard Lane. This is the only means of entering and exiting our development. Our children use the same bus stop and therefore ride the same bus as the Walnut Grove students. In fact, some of our homes are actually closer to River Hill than some homes in Walnut Grove. In addition. the second phaseof Walnut Creek hasonly one access point, on to Sheppard Lane, and noneto Folly Quarter Road or Homewood Road. Therefore, River Hill HSwould bethe closest and easiest highschool to reach from Walnut Grove (3176) and Walnut Creek (176). Both Walnut Creek and Walnut Grove are a very tight knit community. We plan cultural and social gatherings at various times ofthe year. Separating our children by sending them to Wild Lakewhile the children ofWalnut Grove (polygon 3176) goto River Hill will cause my 9thgrade son to lose hissocial supports and strong friendships that he hasdeveloped through hisyears at Triadelphia Ridge ES, Folly Quarter MS, and hisfirst year at River Hill HS. Myyounger son who is currently in 7thgrade at Folly Quarter has hissocial supports from hisfriends in Walnut Grove and the larger Walnut Creek. Both of my sons would be profoundly affected if 3176 and 176 do not remain at River Hill High School together. Kelli Bhattacharjee Polygon Number 176 Boardof Education (BOE) Howard County PublicSchool System (HCPSS) 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Subject: Keep Polygon 176 at River Hill HighSchool Dear Members of the Board: am writing to voice my concern and strong opposition to Ms. Malta's proposed redistricting plan to move polygon 176from RiverHill HighSchool. It makesabsolutely no senseto move polygon'176 from an UNDER-capacity school to a school farther awaythus increasing the transportation costs forthe county. UnderMs. Mallo's plan ourcommunity. WalnutCreek, isproposed to moveto Wilde LakeHigh School whereasour neighboringcommunity, WalnutGrove, whichis located acrossthe roadwill remain at River Hill High School. Our community not only attends school with the children from Walnut Grove. but weride the same bus as well. Aside from the disruption of friendships, I worryabout the logistics of this decision. Polygon 176does not havean exit on FollyQuarter Road, so inorder to getto Homewood Roadwe need to take North bound Sheppard Lanewhich isa one lane corridor. Since many polygons West of us will be movingto WildeLake High School, Eastbound FollyQuarter Road and Homewood Roadwill be- packedduring high school rush hour. We will needto turn rightat the roundabout to getto Homewood Road,and traffic in the roundabout has the rightof way. It will take us forever to turn rightto Homewood Road. Inaddition to creating a logisticalnightmare, as a parent, I worryabout the safety of our kids. Whenmaking these decisions aboutour kids, please consider the best interests ofour children. Considering allthe disheartening developments thathave transpired throughout thisredistricting process I implore youto pleasefocus on the betterment ofour children. Let's notlet political agendas take priority over making the right choice for our kids. I havefaith that each Board of Education member entered theirposition withthe goal of helping our children. Let's not lose focus. Let s adopt Dr. Wu's proposed redistricting plan as a fair compromise to improve our schools, community and most importantly to help our children. A concerned parent, Kelli Bhattacharjee Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Rita Morsberger BOB, I wouldurge the Board of Education to rejectMs. Mallo's plan, sinceby removing contiguous neighboring communities, shecreates anisland and a small feedto WLHS,not in compliance withPolicy 6010"We have the opportunity to move to an undercapacity school, (not many polygons are close to GHS) Glenelg High School, remain in a larger feed with our lower and middle school, andmove out ofRiver Hill High School, freeing capacity for others for a shift, if capacity is needed at River Hill High School. I also would urge the Board to reconsider their decision to no longer consider walkers as children that should be at a particular school. Saving bus costs, allowing young people to get fresh air and exercise, which is proven to reduce anxiety, seems like a very sensibledecision. I do notunderstand whythe vote wasnot in favor ofsuch a common sense decision. I see no downside at all. Respectfully, Rita Morsberger Polygonl80 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Subba R 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: WALNUTCOMMUNITIES WalnutGrove andWalnut Creekcommunities are extremely tight-knit communities located on Sheppardlane, Clarksville. WalnutCreek starts from within Walnut Grove. Severalhomes 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 1 76. The first bus stop for both Grove and Creek is at the intersection ofPreatai ess Circle Ln and Clay Circle Ln which is in polygon 3 176. Kids from both the communities meet at this location. This bus stoo 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. Kidsfrom the same bus stop will besent to 2 differentschools in Ms. Malta'splan. The only feed from FQMSto RHHS would be from 3176. The feed from FQMS to WLHSwould be less than 10%. s Please do not split our communities. Thanks, Subba R Kathleen V. Hanks From: Adora Ndu Dear Board members My family writes to request that Polygon #1199 be kept assigned to Riverhill Highshool as it has been for many years. When I informed my daughter of the proposal to change her high school to Glenelg she broke down in tears and this broke my heart. My husbandand I, as well as our children, young and black, haveworked for many years to develop strong relationships within our community to ensure we have a community that supports their growth and continued development. What they have now provides that, Therefore, the idea that this could be ripped away from them due to a desire to increase diversity is an affront to what they have built. As young black children they also deserve to have a voice in this. They have spoken loudly to share their desire to stay with their current assignmentto Riverhill High school. Both Superintendant Martinaroand Jen Mallo's proposed redistricting plan risks having significant impact on Ploygon # 1199, the families, and the community as a whole. We are in favor and advocate for a plan that keeps Polygon 1199 as it has been assigned for many years to Riverhill highschool. Here are some additional points below. We hope and pray that you will make the right decision that considers all children, including the children of color that this proposal will destabilize. i- Creating a small feed sending students in the community in Polygon 1199 to Glenelg high school will destabilize social structure built over the years in elementary and middle school. u Students will have a longer commute going forward if moved from River Hill HS to Glenelg HS, increasing the already existentstress of early days and less sleep for young children i ChaoWu's alternate plan keeps Polygon 1199and neighboringcommunities together in River Hill high school and avoids the associated negative impacts of reassignment to Glenelg c The increased psychological stress of being accepted into newsocial circleswhile adjusting to and dealing with the challenges of early teenage years and academics is unnecessary. The arbitrary reassignment of a small population of students does not address the perceived underlying issues attendant in school system " There is no cleararticulation ofthe benefitof reassigninga population of students from River Hill to Glenelg. What is the objective? How was the carving of Polygon 1 199 arrived at? ° The proposal to changethe assigned highschoolfrom Riverhill to Glenelg will have adverse and unnecessary impact on an existing and established community Kind regards, Adora and Obi Ndu Polygon#1199 Adora Ndu, Pharm.D Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kathy Good evening- I appreciatethat Mrs Mallo andDr Wu both put together plans that balance capacity. I wrote a detailed letter regarding redistricting back in September that spoke in general terms about what I see asthe best for all ofour students inHoward County. At thattime, I wasnot focused on my own redistricting. I wasmore concerned aboutlimiting disruption asmuch as possible andfocusing on initiatives thatwill involve choice. I havethe unfortunate position of living in a neighborhoodthat planners seemto think they can stick anywhere. Currentlyslated for River Hill, I figuredthis would change since there is so much over development East of us. Sowhile the plans came out I watchedand figured we go to River Hill, orGlenelg or Mamotts Ridge. Withthe release ofDr M's plan I realizedthat the never considered Wilde Lake HS was now in play. My half ofthe neighborhood wasnot part ofDr M's planto send students to WLHSbut I figured they'd addus in at some pomt' LivlnS inWestem HoCo, I never thought my kids would be goingto school by themall, but several oftheir friends from TRES andFolly Quarter were alsopart ofthis plan soI wastrying to staypositive Not idealsince it's fartheraway but a goodschool and plenty oftheir friends were heading there. But the latest iteration ofthis plan in which Mrs Mallo pulls several polygons out ofthe FQto WLHS feed is just not thought through, it may look like a lot ofstudents but this polygons are mostly farm land. Thiswill^result in about a 12%feed to a Highschool that our kids have had no affiliation with in the 50 year history of our neighborhood. Wego to gradeschool in the west, we play sports as part of west HOWARD county leagues. Our community is primarily west of 108. To take a small feed ofkids from their community andput them in Wilde LakeHigh isjust not fairto those kids. Nor does it make any kind ofsignificant impact on equity percentage. I^hope youwill re-consider moving this small feedEast and either keep them with their friends in River Hill or Glenelg. Thank you! Kathy Polygon 180 Kathleen V. Hanks From: zhangx Hi, BOE members Strongly recommend usingDr. Wu'splan. Dr. Wu hasdemonstrated that it is possibleto addressthe overcapacity problem without causing a tremendous deficient in the county budget in addition to breaking up communities. Our community polygon 1186 is an indivisible part ofthe Riverhill community. Middle Patuxent Environment Area is a natural boundary of our community. The map is as below. llli. M^jwr w. Chc-c.. us :<; I. ;y? 11-; CI:.rtiE>ir: MS We strongly urge you to keep our kids in 1186 at Clarksville Middle School. Best Regards XiangZhang 2407130010 Kathleen V. Hanks From: WertherMitchell Dear Board members BO c, sl;pe""ten-da"t. Martinal'oand Je"Ma"°'s Pro.Posed redistricting plan risks having significant impacton Ploygon # Ltne t.arr""esL, a"d _ec°mmu"ityas a. wh.°le- we are in favor a"d advocate for a"plan that-keepsPolygon"lT99as it has been assigned for many years to'Riverhill high school. a Creating a small feed sending students inthe community in Polygon 1199to Glenelg highschool will destabilize social structure built over the years in elementary and middle school. . Studentswill have a longercommute goingforward if moved from RiverHill HS to Glenelg HS, increasingthe already existent stress of early days and less sleep for young children ° ChaoWu's alternate plankeeps Polygon 1199and neighboring communities togetherin RiverHill high school andavoids the associated negative impactsof reassignmentto Glenelg ° Theincreased psychological stress ofbeing accepted into newsocial circles whileadjusting to anddealing with thechallenges ofearly teenage years and academics is unnecessary. Thearbitrary reassignment ofa small population ofstudents does notaddress the perceived underlying issuesattendant inschool system . There is noclear articulation ofthe benefitof reassigning a population ofstudents from RiverHill toGlenelg. What is the objective? Howwas the carving of Polygon 1199 arrived at? ° Theproposal to changethe assigned highschool from Riverhill to Glenelg will haveadverse andunnecessary impact on an existing and established community Sincerely, Mitehell Werther 13645 Gilbride Lane Clarksville, MD 21029 Polygon#1199 Kathleen V. Hanks From: tingting niu Hi BOE members, This is Tingling Niu, resident from polygon # 1186. 1 fully support Dr. Wu's proposal which is less disruptive of community and will move less students to different schools. The new high school 13 will be open in 2023 and another redistricting is inevitable. Moving 7400 students in 2020, then another redistricting in 2023 are not reasonable. Thanks for your hard working and please understand that the kids should go to their community schools. Tingting Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Ozcan Jon OMURAL October 29, 2019 Howard County Board of Education By email: redistrictineiahcoss. org Re: Polygon 185 Dear Board members, As a resident of polygon 185, and to add useful detail to the redistricting conversations had by the Board in last night's Board meeting, please consider the realities ofour polygon asyou consider not moving it to Harper's Choice Middle. Whilethe reasons whythe community should remain at Clarksville Elementary and River Hill high are obvious, the details below highlightalso clear reasonswhy our middle schoolers should remain at Clarksville Middle School. First, our community of 49 homes hasvery low student density and extremely low turnover. For example, by fall 2020, we will have 7 middle schoolers (of which 3 will be last year students). As a starting point, please consider grandfathering these children to avoid considerable disruption to their days over the next couple ofyears. With regard to turnover, roughly eight homes have been sold over the last ten years (again extremely low), whythe community will continue to increasingly be a very low contributor of students per home. Second, given our 14 - 24% FARM rate (we have 2 FARM kids now, although that could change, maybe increase, by next fall), the neighborhood doesn't help Harper's Choice FARM rate changeto the downside as much as it disproportionately helps increase Clarksville Middle's (ifthe students stay there), consistent with stated BoEobjectives. Third, transportation times by bus are five times (5x) longer to Harper's Choice vs. Clarksville Middle from polygon 185, mainly due to buses moving and stopping with rush hour traffic on route 108 and through Columbia proper during same peak hours. Thisgenerates most of the concerns already voiced by physicians and safety experts heard from in the recent public testimony portion ofthis redistricting process. Driving to Clarksville Middle is straight forward (15 minutes by bus) as necessary back roadsare lowtraffic, even in the mentioned "peak" hours. Transportation costs of plans that move so many students are an important consideration given the budgetary constraints the Howard County Board of Education is facing. For example, our calculations, which are automated and takeGoogle MapsAPIS based on road distanceand resulting drivingtimes from polygon centersto the assignedschools, showthat Mrs. Mallo's plan (for example) results on transportation costs that are only $100k lower than Dr. Martirano's, or $2.5M peryear ($25M overthe next ten years). This is an important consideration that needsto be seriously addressed and balancedwhen system financialsolvency isa priority ofsame or higherconsideration vs. perfect balancing of socioeconomics. Ifthe schools aren't solvent, closed schools cannot educate our students, our future. As an important aside, by deliberately bringingALL high schools below 110%capacity, the BoEwould enable additional development (based on County Council policy) in areas ofthe county that really don't need it or havethe infrastructure to supportthe newadditions, inclusive ofschools. Ineffect, that capacity management tool can bevery effective for the BoE at managingrequirements on ITto redistrict in the future, particularly in an environment whenfunds are limited or at a deficit in the short term. Inother words, it could make sense to keep target areas in the county slightly above llOpct to add a "lever" that BoEcan pull (and should use wisely) to alleviate requirements on IT(and designated areas) in the nextyears in already-challengingareas of the county. In the meantime, for the reasons mentioned above, please keep polygon 185 at Clarksville Middle School. Sincerely OzcanJon Omural 11913 Evening Ct Clarksville, MD 21029 Sent from Jon'siPhone Sorry for the typos Kathleen V. Hanks From: Uday Sreekanth Dear Board Members I have been living in polygon 185 for the last 15 years. I wouldlike to addmore informationto the redistricting conversations hadby the Boardin last night's Board meeting. PLEASE consider the realities of our polygon before you consider moving it to Harper's Choice Middle from Clarksville Middle School. 1. Ourcommunity of49 homes in the polygon hasvery low student density. 2. Given our 14 - 24% FARM rate (we have 2 FARM kids now, although that could change by next fall), we don't help Haqier's Choice FARM rate move in the right direction asmuch aswe disproportionately help bring Clarksville Middle's in the right direction. 3. Transportation times by bus arefour to five times longer to Harper's Choicevs Clarksville Middle from polygon 185, mainly due to buses moving with msh hourtraffic on route 108 andthrough Columbia proper during same peak hours. This generates most ofthe concerns already voiced by physicians and safety advisors inthe public testimony portion ofthis redistricting process. Drivingto Clarksville Middleis straightforward (15 minutes by bus) as these necessary roads are low traffic, even in the mentioned "peak" hours. 4. Transportation costs ofplans that move so many students are important to consider giventhe budgetary constraints the Board ofEducation of Howard County is facing. For example, our calculations, whichare based on google maps APIs based on road distance from polygon centers to the assigned schools, show that Mrs. Mallo's plan results on transportation costs that are only $ 100klower thanDr. Martirano's, or $2. 5Mper year (S25M over the next ten years). This is an important consideration that needs to be seriously considered and balanced whensystem solvency is a priority ofsame or higher consideration vs. perfect balancing of socioeconomics. If the schools aren't solvent, closed schools cannot educate students. Thanks for considering keeping polygon 185 at Clarksville Middle School. A Concerned Resident, - Uday Sreekanth Kathleen V. Hanks From: Xuming Lei Dear BOE members, As a resident in polygon 1199, am writing to support Dr. Wu's proposed plan for the following reasons: i. 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. 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 ONLY ONE that takes public input into serious consideration. Dr. Wu's plan keeps all schools' capacity at 110% or less. Dr. Wu's plan reduces FARM percentages in schools. Dr. Wu's plan keeps walkers as walkers. Another option is to use the options of feasibility studies since they are equally less disruptive. On the other hand, urge you to disregard Ms. Mallo'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 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, XumingLei Polygon #1199 Kathleen V. Hanks From: H Kan Dear BOE members, We residents in Polygon 1186 strongly oppose any proposal of moving our kids from Clarksville Middle to Harper's Choice Middle, an area and communitieswe have virtually no connection with due to geographicbarriers. We have the following concerns: 1. 1186 and 186 have been a coherent community in River Hill with residents of many different backgrounds. Many residents in this area are first generation immigrants. Separatingout the community of immigrants deeply hurts the bond between our kids and families. See the map below. 2. Moving 1186 from CMS to HCMS essentially would transport our kids to communities we cannot have any connection with due to Rt 108 and the natural boundary set by the Middle Patuxent Environment Area (see the map below). We should not ask kids to be bused into and out of an area they have no connection with due to geographic boundaries. 118S Harper's Choice 18S MS 2028 M81 28 ^ Ctarkftville MS 3. Rt 108traffic can be impacted and much longer rides will be required for our kids in 1186to be transported to HCMS vs. CMS they are currently in. 4. Most of our immigrant families are hard-working couples both with full-time jobs. Longer bus rides and farther locations will create many issues for transponation and after-school arrangements, making life even tougher. 5. Students feeds will be disrupted by moving kids in 1186 from Clarksville Elementary to Harper's Choice Middle and to River Hill High. It just does not make sense whatsoever. We respectfully and strongly urge you to keep families in polygon 1186 with Clarksville Middle. Best, Hong Robert & JennfierMcCormick Polygon 181 October 29, 2019 12123 Mount Albert Road Polygons 180, 181 and 1180 will be part of a small feed from FQMS to WLHS under Board of Education member Jen Malta's proposed plan. Dear Board Members: Thankyou for the tremendous amount oftime this is takingto construct a logical andfair plan to accommodate multiple values. Ourfamily lives in the Woodmark neighborhood, located in Western Ellicott City (Polygons 180, 181, and 1180). Woodmark consists of approximately 232 modest homes that were built almost 50 years ago. We are the parents of two boys, one is currently a sophomore at River Hill High School (RHHS) and the other is an 8" grader at Folly Quarter Middle School (FQMS). We wanted to let you know that we have serious concerns with the redistricting proposal that was released on October 28, 2019 by Board of Education member Ms. Mallo. We have previously submitted testimony laying out our concerns with the proposal released by Superintendent Martirano in late August. Although we have many concerns with the proposed redistricting as a whole, this testimony is focused solely on the serious issues facingthe Woodmark neighborhood (Polygons 180, 181, and 1180). Our neighborhood has been referred to as the "Woodmarktriangle" during past school redistricting processes. We believe this name "the triangle" arose from the fact that Woodmark lies geographically almost in the middle of the GHS/MRHS/RHHS triangle. Over the past 23 years, the Woodmark neighborhood has been districted to four different high schools. Woodmark was moved from GHS to RHHS when RHHS opened. Then Woodmark was moved from RHHS to MRHS when MRHS opened. Then Woodmark moved back to RHHS when the FQMSfeed to MRHS dropped to roughly 1%. And now, underthe plan proposed byJen Mallo, the Woodmark polygons would move to (checks notes) WLHS in downtown Columbia. Woodmark is once again being used as o pawn by the Board of Education as we are clearly a neighborhood without the political clout and monetary resources of some of the newer neighborhoods in Howard County. In addition, with multiple iterations of the plan, we have been unable to advocate as an entire community because our neighborhood continues to be split apart under the various proposed plans. The long-term consequences from this redistricting proposal will negatively impact the children of Woodmark when they reach high school, as they will be split from the vast majority of their peers. Although exact numbers were not presented in Jen Mallo's plan, we believe that the feed from FQMSto WLHSwill be well below the 15% threshold that is a stated policy goal pursuant to BOE policy 6010. Forthe children of Woodmark, the proposal set forth byJen Mallo would make the transition to high school much more challenging. Our child and others will lose at least 90% of their network of friends and classmates that they have built up over the past nine years of elementary and middle school. Jenny McCormick is a licensed clinical social worker/psychotherapist in Columbia who sees the detriment to students and families who are in small feeds firsthand. It can be traumatizing and unethical in her professional opinion, especially if transitions are not made overtime. There have already been adolescent referrals made to her practice specifically for stress brought on by redistricting! Most practices in this county do not take Medical Assistance, so where will those children and families go for mental health support through all of these changes? Please remember that suicide rates and car accidents are the top reasons for death in these age brackets. As residents of Howard County, we understand that redistricting is periodically necessary as the county has grown and that several of the high schools are now well over capacity. As previously stated, Woodmark rests almost directly in the middle of three underutilized high schools: River Hill, Glenelg, and Marriotts Ridge. As we previously mentioned, over the years, the polygons that make up Woodmark have been redistricted to each of these high schools at various times. It appears that the majority of other proposed high school redistricting under Jen Mallo s plan has polygons moving north to south and east to west. However, a handful of polygons from FQMS are being moved from west to east in an attempt to balance FARM numbers in order to conduct a social experiment that may not work according to Superintendent Martirano. Is that simply posturing to say that something was done in that direction? The small feed and distance is illogical and not sustainable. Our neighborhood poiygons would likely end up back at Glenelg or one of the other Western high schools when HS 13 opens in 2023. We have grown tired of watching the children of Woodmark be moved around as pawns for the past 18 years that we have called Woodmark our home. Additionally, with such a material amount of redistricting being proposed at the high school level by the plans put forth by Jen Mallo, Chao Wu, and Superintendent Martirano, it will be necessary for the Board of Education to grant exemptions from the redistricting process on a case by case basis for trailing siblings. The logistical nightmare that will be faced by parents with Juniors and Seniors at one high school and a trailing freshman or sophomore at another high school will create much unneeded stress and anxiety for all members of such families as they attempt to juggle dayto day school transportation, along with transportation and parental support for extracurricular activities. Did we mention that driving all of this extra mileage and time will negatively affect the health (ever increased reduction of sleep) of these students, and also negatively impact our ability to care for aging grandparents and family? While socioeconomic equity should be considered as part of the redistricting process, how is that a priority over basic health and life itself?! We strongly encourage the Board of Education to vote no to the high school redistricting proposal put forth by Jen Mallo on 10/28/2019. We thank you for your time and consideration. Robert & Jennifer McCormick Written on behalf of Woodmark Neighborhood Members Polygons 180, 181, 1180 To Howard County Board of Education, Weare writing as dedicated parents, concerned citizensof HowardCounty, andcommitted members of the Woodmark Community. Weare a neighborhood (polygons 180, 181and 1180), established almost 50 years ago, located along Carroll Mill Rd. and consisting of 232 homes. Woodmark is still home to many of the original owners, new families, and all generations in between. In Woodmark, we have no public pathways, noshared playgrounds, and no "village center" within walkingdistance. Despite these barriers, we are a tight knit small community. We have manyannual events includinga Halloween paradeand party, a Fall Picnic,and Neighborhoodyard sales. Weeven havemonthly Buncogatherings. We pay community association dues. It requires effort, but we are dedicated to maintaining the close- knit community that is Woodmark. Underthe proposed redistricting plan andfeasibility studies, polygon 181, comprised ofapproximately 60 homes, is proposedto besplit from the rest ofthe neighborhood.This goes against many of the policy6010 factors, includingthose factors intendedto help stabilizecommunities. Summary 1) Woodmark is comprised of polygons 180, 181, 1180. This proposal would divide our neighborhood for highschool, sendingpolygon 181to Wilde Lake(projected only 19 children) and polygons 180and 1180to Glenelg (projected 35 children). 2) This proposalwould decreasethe highschool feed for polygon 181in halfdown to 17%. Not only would our children be without the support group that they've grown up with in the Woodmark community, but they would be cutting their feed percentage in half as a result of this proposal. 3) With the expected redistricting to support high school 13 in 3 years, there is a likelihood that kids moved as a result ofthis redistrictingare moved againwhen the highschool opens. This is disruptive. 4) Wilde Lakeis much further by carand bus than other alternatives. It is almost doublethe commute of Glenelg or River Hill bycar. Ifseparated from the rest of our neighborhood, carpooling to andfrom extracurricular activities becomes increasingly difficult. 5) While this proposal separates us from our immediate neighborhood and communities to the north and east, to our immediate south aretwo miles comprised of the University of Maryland Agriculture school andthe FranciscanFriary and their farmland. This natural land bufferserves to create even more ofa feelingof isolation from the rest ofthe proposed communities offSheppard and Homewood. Point by Point We understand that the Howard County School system is working to address a crisis of overcrowding. We understand children must move. Wewant the best for all students in Howard County. However, we want to draw BOE members' attention to how each plan would affect our neighborhood and what BOE members can do to help our neighborhood continue to thrive. Woodmark Community Letter page 1 Neighborhood Division Threeproposals havebeen released in2019 regarding redistricting. The Feasibility study provided two options and Superintendent Martiriano proposed one option. All options unanimously keep our entire neighborhood atTriadelphia RidgeElementary School (TRES),and Folly Quarter Middle School (FQMS). Yet, for highschool, a myriad ofoptions have been proposed, all ofwhich divide our neighborhood. The following chartsummarizes theproposed highschools for our neighborhood aswell as how many children are in each polygon. Projected # Current HS Feasibility Feasibility HS students study Option Study Option 2020-2025 ffl #2 Martiriano's Plan 1180 < 10 River Hill HS Glenelg HS j Glenelg HS I Glenelg HS 180 31-35 River Hill HS River Hill HS Glenelg HS GlenelgHS 181 16-21 River Hill HS River Hill HS River Hill HS Wilde Lake HS ALLOPTIONS send all three Polygon's to TRES and FQMS Asyou can see, our neighborhood iscurrently districted to River Hill HighSchool (RHHS). The feasibility study options divide our neighborhood between RHHS and Glenelg High School (GHS) and Martiriano's plan divides our neighborhood between Glenelg HighSchool (GHS) andWilde Lake High School (WLHS). We OPPOSEthe proposals that divide our neighborhood and would argue that our neighborhood should be districted TOGETHER to one of the geographically appropriate highs schools such as RHHS orGHS. Facility Utilization In Policy6010, facility utilization includessubcategories of efficient use of available space, long-range enrollment, fiscal responsibility by minimizingcapital and operating costs, numberof studentsthat walk or receive busservice, and location of regional programs. Target FacilityUtilization is defined as enrollment either below90% or above 110%of capacity. Forthe three highschools being considered for our neighborhood (RHHS, GHS,and WLHS), the Superintendent's plan does not improve target facility utilization, but, in fact, exacerbates overcrowding. Historically WLHShas hadthe highest ofcapacities of the three high schools (see below): 2017-2018 School Total % Capacity school Capacity Enrollment profiles GHS I 1420 1173 82% RHHS 1488 1157 78% WLHS 1424 1276 89% In his proposal, the Superintendent plans to move part of our neighborhood from RHHS (at lower % capacity) to WLHS(at higher% capacity). Ratherthan improving facility utilization, his plan Woodmark Community Letter page 2 exacerbates overcrowding at WLHS. In his plan, WLHSwould be at 108% capacity the year of 2024-2025 making it more crowded than GHS and RHHS. Longer Commute There arethree highschools (GHS, RHHS, and MRHS) that are closerto the Woodmark Community as you can see below: High Minutes Miles Traffic School drive from from Mt lights Mt Albert Albert Rd. Rd. GHS 9 mjn. 4. 6 mi I RHHS llmin. 5. 3 mi. MRHS 13 min. 6. 7 mi. WLHS 16 min. 7 mi. Driving directly without bus stops, WLHSis 77%further awaythan GHSand 45%further awaythan RHHS. Spending more time on a bus means that our children will have LESSTIME to sleep, complete homework, participate in extracurricular activities, and spend time with family. The riskfor accidents would begreater on a commuteto WLHS,especially for young drivers, which has 6-7 moretraffic lights than the alternatives. Importantly, parentswho have middle and high school studentswho chooseto drivetheir children directly to school in order to limit time on the bus will NOT be able to make it from WLHS at its start time of 7:25 and then to FQMS at its start time of 7:40. It takes 17 minutes without traffic to make this drive- meaningthat the middle school child would easily be 5 minutes LATEto school every day. Our carbonfootprint would also be much larger. Small Feeds Community stability, in Policy 6010, calls for "feeds that encourage keeping students together from one school to the next, " in addition to "areasthat are made up of contiguous communities or neighborhoods. " Atthe time ofthe writing of this letter, theentire Woodmark neighborhood goes from FQMSto RHHS.Our children are surrounded byabout half of their friends from FQMSwhen they arrive at RHHS. Currently about half of FQMSgoes to GHS (433/869) and halfgoes to RHHS (436/869). Put anotherway, when they are at RHHS32% of RHHSis comprised ofstudents from FQMS.This feed would be split in HALFunder the superintendent's proposal, includingfor polygon 181- whereonly 17%of WLHSwould be fed from FQMS(see chart on next page). Woodmark Community Letter page 3 Current Feed Superintendent's proposal Feed from FQMS to RHHS 32. 86% Feed from FQMS to GHS 42. 37% 45. 50% Feed from FQMS to WLHS 17% The superintendent's proposal divides our neighborhood, sending two polygons (1180 and 180) to GHS and one polygon (181)to WLHS.Our neighborhoodis literally beingsent in opposite directions-while our children can walk to each other's homes, they would be attending high schools 20 minutes from eachother. Weunderstand that the Superintendentwas likely unawarethat Polygons 181, 1180and 180were all part of one neighborhoodand would askthat this be addressed,and proposed schools reconsidered. Wedo not wantthere to bea precedentthat makes it acceptableto divideour neighborhood. Keeping our neighborhood together at RHHS or GHS should not significantly impact any overall plan's numbers as we are a relatively small neighborhood. In the schoolyear 2018-2019, Polygon 181 is currently comprised of 31 high schoolers, Polygon 180 has 21 high schoolers, and Polygon 1180 has <10 highschoolers. Thefeasibility study projected that Polygon 181would have 16-21 highschoolers, Polygon 180 would have 31-35 high schoolers, and 1180 would have <10 high schoolers. Our numbers are small and, considering the numbers, it should be feasible to keep our community together at one of the highschools that provide largerfeeds and closer proximityto our community. Ifthe BOEis committed to keepingPolygon's 180and 1180at Glenelg, as is recommended in the Superintendent's plan, we would request that Polygon 181 also be sent to GHS. Ifthe BOE is considering the ideas presented in the Feasibility study's proposal which provides GHS and RHHS as options to Woodmark, we would askthat our neighborhood be kept together as a community at either high school. Whatever option is chosen, we would request that there be a clause to keep rising Juniors at their current high school (which is RHHS) until they finish their education. Woodmark members work to promote community and continuity for their children. The superintendent s Proposal divides our neighborhood and sends it in different directions. We believe that sendingall three ofour polygonsto the same HSwould be most consistentwith Policy6010 in that these options provide efficientfacility utilizationand ensure community stabilitywithout significant impact to the distribution of farm percentages. In the Area Attendance Boundary Review Survey citizens in Howard County prioritized what aspects of Policy 6010 they believed were most important. Transportation considerations, keeping feeds of students together, and maintaining contiguous communities or neighborhoods were listed as the top three priorities. Considering demographic factors was the 5th most important priority. We would ask that these Voter's preferences be considered. Please vote "NO"on the Superintendent's Proposal. [community signatures begin on next page] WoodmarkCommunity Letter page 4 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jennifer Black Hello, I,T-aparcnt, ofachadJnPolygon. lol8-1am against the new last minute proposal to redistrict my polygon igwith 17and 18.TTiis is creating a small feedand splitting ourcommunity inhalf. Cuttingus off from e portion of network are- Also I ^CTe. alaf8 my support don't understand how this proposa.i helps to better students as ofthe is the Lthe-FARM my. portion community apartments and townhomerthatm^e up ; housing being offered for Hammond Elementary andMiddle School families. PleasTkeeoDr' Wu's plan that was thought out and with less students being moved. Thank you Jennifer Copeland-Black Sent from my iPhone Polygon 1183, Heather Dull October 29, 2019 Dear Board Members, Weare writing in supportof Dr. Wu's Plan to retain our polygon 1183along with our sister polygons 183 and 2183at RiverHill HighSchool. We realizethat no plan is perfect but believe Dr. Wu's Plan doesthe bestjob of minimizing transportation costs and community disruption forthe overall county by moving less than half the number of children compared to Dr. Martirano's Plan. As longtime residents of HowardCounty, we understandthat redistricting hasto happenfrom time to time to address overcapacity while also maintaining adherence to Policy 6010's objectives of community stability and student body diversity. We understandthat this is a complexand sometimes contentious process andappreciate the Board's hardwork andwillingness to shoulder this burden on behalfof our county's children. Weespecially appreciate Dr. Wu, Ms. Delmont-Small and Ms. Malta's obvious hard work and attention to detail in Grafting a workable solution to reduce the disruption goingforward by developing a true feedersystem. Westrongly supportfurther work in this areato improve predictabilityfor parents andfamilies in future redistricting waves. Maintaining fiscal responsibility by minimizing capital and operating costs is critical especially in light of continued pressure from rising healthcare costs. Weare also concerned aboutthe potential further cuts intechnology instruction dueto budgetpressures-something wecan ill affordin today's competitive landscape. We can ill afford diverting funds from technology instruction or having to layoff teachers/paraeducators to pay for more buses to swap children between schools. Asa former F. A. R. M. studentfrom Baltimore Cityand current RiverHill mom, I continueto support equity forsocio-economic status when economically and logistically feasible. Asa director of a tutoring centerIn Elkridge for the pasteight years, I alsounderstand that closingthe achievement gap is mostly about the teachers and parents and much less about geography and busing. Respectfully, Heather Dull Kathleen V. Hanks From: Alison Hickman Good afternoon, I amnot a parent inthe district youproposed to bemoved in OwenBrown, butdid grow up there andI donot generallythink making walkers become bus riders to a schoolis equitable (though I canimagine perhaps there couldrare exceptions). I don'thave students at either the sending or receiving schools for the polygons below, butas the parent of an elementary school age child who has been following this and submitted support of the feedbackyou were provided by the Owen Brown Community Association, I wantto sharemy feedback on this specific move. Inthe letter from the OwenBrown Community Association, the chairspecifically askedthat you not redistrict polygon 54 and2054 to Atholton Elementary School asit will preclude children inthose polygons from walkingto schoolas they are adjacent to Cradlerock.Please reconsider this suggestion. I amsupportive of the goalto not concentrate poverty within schools, but I am also concerned this is beingachieved bybusing walkers to a school from onethat they couldwalk to. Inaddition, the EastColumbia library provides a lot of community activities for the Cradlerock school -1 am concerned that this move could minimize the connection the EastColumbia library provides with students thatwould be strengthened bywalking home andpassing it daily. I am copying Councilperson Rigby as I believe she represents this district and may wish to either comment or provide more direct feedback from the residents impacted if she is aware of it. Thank you, Alison Hickmaa Kathleen V. Hanks From: krishna patel Dear Board of Education members, Underthe plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October28, 2019, ourpolygon 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% ofFQMS goesto ?lTnelsl-hllgh ^chooi By. f<.T.e.pin9. poly90ns 3176 and 176 atRiv^ HiTl 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 iike this for our children. The children of our Woodmark community deserve better than this. We respectfully request that you please keep polygons 180, 181, 1180and 1181 in a larger feed. Thiswould createa smallfeed forWoodmark from FollyQuarter Middle School to Wilde Lake High School and we believe it would also create a geographic "island". The creation of'small feeds' and 'islands' are items that the HCPSS has committed to eliminate per HCPSSPolicy 6010. We respectfully request you to eliminate this small feed for ourwoodmark community. Right now we see s eep deprived high school child in my own household. After the above proposal they will now have to travel further to go to another high school much further away from home. Thank You Krishna Patel Kathleen V. Hanks From: Shreya Dubey Dear Board Members, J.ha"ks fo,r.a"-yo."Leff°rts a"dw°rking late'." the evenin9S during work sessions. Yesterday, we sawalternate proposal DrWu and Ms Mallo. I will like to urge the board to take DrWu's proposal as base for additional discussio^T ^?T?-^y lik^?^ ProPosal because itcauses least amount ofdisruption to the communities and it is more surgical in its approach. This plan addresses capacity issue without causing too much disruption. l_also liked Mrs DelmontSmairs request to look at proper feed system where there is predictability offlow ofstudents from /'-M-'dd!e, and^Hlgh sch°.°1;This is highly desired by the community and should be on the high priority of board when makingdecision. Pleasepush to getadditional data before making decisions. Making'decisions basedon' incomplete or wrong data will do more harm than good. Thanks Shreya Tiwari Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: kripa tiwari Dear Board Members, Yesterday at the BOE work session, we saw the plans of Dr Wu and Mrs Mallo. Good effort put by both of them and we appreciate their hard work on this complex issue of redistricting. Looking at both the proposals, I strongly urge the board to take Dr. Wu plan as base as this plan causes least amount of disruption to the communities and also balances capacity to great strength. We see additional issue with the Mrs Mallo proposal regarding Polygon 176 where she has proposed to keep polygong 3176 at RiverHill whereas send Polygong 176 to WildeLake. Both polygon 3176 and 176 share common boundary. Also Walnut Creek community is shared between polygong 3176 and Polygon 1'76. This should be corrected and both polygon 3176 and 176 should be kept at RiverHill. Thanks Kripa Tiwari Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Karen Cohen Re: Polygon 185 Dear Board members, Asa resident of polygon 185 and to add useful detail to the redistricting conversations had bythe Board in last night's Board meeting, pleaseconsider the realitiesof our polygon asyou considernot moving it to Harper'sChoice Middle Whilethe reasonswhy the community should remain at Clarksville Elementary andRiver Hill highare obvious, the details below highlight also clear reasons whyour middle schoolers should remain at Clarksville Middle School. First, ourcommunity of49 homes hasvery lowstudent densityand extremely lowturnover. Forexample, byfall 2020, we will have 7 middle schoolers (ofwhich 3 will be last year students). As a starting point, please consider grandfatheringthese children to avoidconsiderable disruption to theirdays over the nextcouple of years. With regard to turnover, roughly eight homes have been sold over the last ten years (again extremely low), whythe community will continue to increasingly be a very low contributor of students per home. Second, given our 14- 24%FARM rate (we have2 FARM kidsnow, although that could change, maybe increase, bynext fall), the neighborhood doesn't help Harper's Choice FARMrate change to the downside asmuch asit disproportionately helps increase Clarksville Middle's (ifthe students stay there), consistent with stated BoEobjectives. Third, transportation times by busare five times (5x) longer to Harper's Choice vs. Clarksville Middle from polygon 185, mainlydue to busesmoving andstopping with rush hourtraffic on route 108and through Columbia proper duringsame peak hours. This generates most ofthe concerns already voiced by physicians and safety experts heard from in the recent public testimony portion ofthis redistricting process. Driving to Clarksville Middle is straight forward (15 minutes bybus) asnecessary backroads are lowtraffic, even in the mentioned "peak"hours. Transportation costsof plans that move somany students arean important considerationgiven the budgetary constraintsthe HowardCounty Boardof Educationis facing. Forexample, our calculations, whichare automated and take Google Maps APIsbased on road distance and resulting driving times from polygon centers to the assigned schools, showthat Mrs. Mallo's plan(for example) resultson transportation coststhat are only $l00k lowerthan Dr. Martirano's, or $2. 5M peryear ($25M over the next ten years). This is an important consideration that needs to be seriouslyaddressed and balanced when system financial solvency is a priorityof same or higher consideration vs. perfect balancingof socioeconomics. Ifthe schools aren't solvent, closed schoolscannot educate our students, ourfuture. As an important aside, bydeliberately bringing ALLhigh schools below 110% capacity, the BoEwould enable additional development (based on County Council policy) in areas ofthe county that really don't need it or have the infrastructure to support the newadditions, inclusive ofschools. Ineffect, thatcapacity management tool can bevery effective forthe BoE at managing requirements on ITto redistrict in the future, particularly in an environment when funds are limited or at a deficit in the short term. In other words, it could make sense to keep target areas inthe county slightly above . ?:>ct.t°add a "!ever"thatBOE can pul1 (and should use wisely) to a"eviate requirements on IT(and designated areas) in the next years in already-challenging areas of the county. Inthe meantime, for the reasons mentioned above, please keep polygon 185at Clarksville Middle School. 12074 Broad Meadow Lane Karen Cohen 443-703-9842 karenimcohen@gmail. com Kathleen V. Hanks From: barbkrup Board members, I applaud you for requiring staff to provide FARMs data for any potential student moves during the redistricting process. However, I implore you to ask for additional data as well. HCPSS has large achievement gaps for English Language Learners and Special Education students well. There are overlaps in these populations, but in order to ensure the appropriate supports and resources are in place after students are moved, the school system MUST know what resources will be necessary in each school. I hope you will request that information and ensure resources are available to meet the needs of ALL students who need extra support in their new schools. Thank you for all the hard work and long hours you are putting in. Thank you also for exempting rising juniors. I hope you will disrupt the least number of students possible and work with staff to ensure resources are allocated to support students who need them. Barb Krupiarz Sent from my Virizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jen I'm writingabout Jen Mallo's test planfor ES. Movingstudents from Polygons20 and 1020out of Bollman Bridgeto Guilfordjust to swapthe studentswith incomingstudents from Guilford (polygons 26, 27, 1026,and 1027)to Bollman Bridge seems to be pointless. The swap also moves kids in both directions across Guilford Road. It splits up the Huntington neighborhood when neither school is overcrowded and, although no FARMSdata is yet provided, it seems to be detrimental to Bollman Bridge, which is already a Title 1 School by moving polygons that appear to be lower FARMSaway from the school. This would take away resources aswell. It isfixing no feeds and disrupts an existingfeed to PVMSand Hammond. I believethat myson will be 1 ofonly a handfulof students to move awayfrom hisschool for 5th grade (I canthink of only 3 other students in hisentire gradethat would move). It will have a negative affect on the PTA because most ofthe executive board would be affected by the moves. It alsoseems to bedetrimental to the students in the polygons mentioned abovefrom Guilford. Theyare immediately beside Mission Road where the new HSwill be built. It does not make sense to move them now only to have them move back in a few years. Please do not make these moves. Sincerely, RobCaruso Kathleen V. Hanks From: R Meyers Polygon 1183, R. Meyers October 29, 2019 Dear Board Members, I urge you all to support Dr. Wu's Plan and keep our children, in Polygon 1183, at River Hill HighSchool, realize this is a hard roadfor you andthere isno way to makeeveryone effector interest happy. Butas the School Boardyou must work in the best interests of the vast majority of your voting constituency. It is clear that the data shows that the overwhelming majority oppose the Superintendent's plan. lam very sorry that he has places all ofyou in a hard position. He failed to look at the voters of Howard County and what they would desire and instead thrust upon the Board a lose-lose scenario where no matter what you do there will be disappointment. He should have been smarter andthought about all the ramificationsbefore leadingyou all downan impossible road. I am sorry he hasno concern for your positions. No plan is perfect clearly andwithout question Dr. Wu's Plan isthe best plan and far better in every manner then the Superintendent's. Itdoes the bestjob ofminimizing transportation costsand community disruptionfor the overall county by moving lessthan halfthe number of children compared to Dr. Martirano's Plan. As a lifelong resident of Howard County, my family has been here since 1891, 1 understand that redistricting hasto happen from time to time to address overcapadty while also maintaining adherence to Policy 6010's objectives ofcommunity stability and student body diversity. I appreciate Board's hardand I wasonce anemployee ofthe HCPSSand knowfirsthand the challenges you face. Why the present Superintendent placedyou all in sucha terrible position isbeyond me. Heis clearly andcompletely outof touch with the residents of HowardCounty. I especially appreciate Dr.Wu, Ms. Delmont-Small and Ms. Mallo's obvious hardwork and attention to detail in Grafting a workable solution to reduce the disruption goingforward bydeveloping a truefeeder system. Westrongly support furtherwork inthis area to improve predictability for parentsand families in future redistricting waves. Maintainingfiscal responsibilityand simultaneously minimizingcapital andoperating costs iscritical especially in lightof continued pressure from rising healthcare costs. Weare also concerned aboutthe potential further cuts intechnology instruction due to budget pressures-something we can ill afford in today's competitive landscape. We can ill afford" diverting fundsfrom technology instruction or havingto layoffteachers/paraeducators to payfor more busesto swap children between schools. I wasa student atthe ARLin electronics and went on to develop a fabulous company in Howard County with over 200employees. The ARLshould expand once againto offer more trades. The United States is losing skilled craftspeople. People have a tendency and wrongfully so to look down upon skilled blue collar workers and we need them! Teach the trades and expand ARL WhatI find ridiculous isthat some people havestated HowardCounty issegregated. Nothingcould befarther from the truth;. we. have famnies here from over 100countries speaking over 80different languages. We are a melting pot for theWorld! Pleasekeep up the good work and making Howard County one of the most integrated counties inthe country. I continueto supportequity for socio-economic status when economically and logisticallyfeasible. Theachievement gaps start before school enrollment and it starts with the parents at home. Ifyou start working with you child at conceptions by reading, listening to music, teaching manners and respect you set the stage for the child's success. Too many people want the schools to teach the children the basics and common sense. That is not the schools responsibility the child is molded, and it is hard to breakthat mold, before they ever start school. Again, I urgeyou all to implement Dr.Wu's Plan and keepour children, in Polygon 1183,at RiverHill HighSchool. Respectfully, R. Meyers, Esq. Kathleen V. Hanks From: Lauren Barnes Hello members of the Board of Education, I would like to express my support forusing Dr. Wu'sproposed moves during lastnight's work sessionas a starting point for further development and refinement offinal plan. I believe his plan makes very logical and effective moves withthe FEWESTnumber ofstudents beingaffected. 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 ofaction as, similar to the Superintendent's plan, it moves over 7400+students andincludes moves into and out of schools that are not logical. Going forward, please make every attempt to not move students out of an under-capacity school and into a school that is overcapacity. This causes disruption to far more students than necessary and increases transportation costs. Additionally, it makes no sense to move students out of a school that is overcapacity only to move students in to it from another school. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. Respectfully, Lauren Bames 5034 Durham Rd West Columbia, MD 21044 Polygon 144 Lauren Bames Kathleen V. Hanks From: Marisa Goyer To Whom it May Concern: I am writing to express my objection to Jenn Mallo's proposal for the Elementary School test scenario. This proposal moves most ofmy neighborhood, Montgomery Meadows (polygon 1095), from Ilchester Elementary to Waterloo Elementary School. I have many concerns with this as follows. 1. My daughter is very active at Ilchester and is at an age where friendships are extremely important to her andalready gets upsetif shethinks thatsomeone isn'ther best friend anymore dayto day. Shehas really enjoyed their after school programs and events. Any change for kids ofthat age is very difficult to adjust to. 2. She already had a very difficult time adjusting to kindergarten last year and the staff at Ilchester was absolutely amazingwith catering to herneeds andfinding a planthat helpedher to be successful. Shenow thinks ofthem as family andit wouldbe traumatic anddetrimental for herto betaken awayfrom them. 3. I am one ofthe troop leaders for her daisygirl scout troop whichis specificto Ilchester andthey meet directly after school at Ilchester. This is one ofmany troops (one at each grade level) that is only comprised of girls that attend Ilchester andwould be a major problem to split them apart and come up with logistics for meeting with other schools involved. 4. Wepurchased our house specifically for the schoolsthat it is currently districted for, whichhaven't changed since I was a kid. We did not expect any changes to this and there is a community here that has been together for a very long time. Our house is right across the street from Ilchester and is a further distance to Waterloo. Ilchester is a top notch school (rated 10) and Waterloo is rated a 7. I don't feel that she would have the same quality of education and staff at another school. Thanks for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Marisa Goyer Kathleen V. Hanks From: Timothy Dull From: Timothy Dull Respectfully, I have attended several meeting ofthe Board of Education since the superintendent's plan was announced. I understand the two driving issuesare capacityutilization and closingthe achievementgap. Both issues need to be addressed. I believethe superintendent's plan andthe plan proposed byjenifer Malo last nightare misguided asthey both have significantly highertransportation costs and neither addresses moving resources to help the kidsthat have achievement gaps when they are moved. If 'Title 1' kids are moved, that money moves with a one year lag and so if HCPSSwants to continue support for these children during the 1 year lagthey will haveto make up Title 1 money for a year from other sources. It is very disturbing that tech ed is already being deleted in middle school due to budget needs. It is also disturbing that 85 para educators have also been cut. I have included a link to Executive Ball's statement on the HCPSShealth fund deficit to emphasize the need for efficiency. We all know what we have or maybe what we don't have. The adoption of A HIGH COST redistricting plan will only exacerbate the achievement gap problem that exists andthe overall budget shortfall. It would be much better in my opinion to shift resourcesto the schoolsthat have achievement gaps bytaking from those schoolsthat don't without moving kids. In other words, move resources to wherethey are neededthe most and don't waste resourceson unneededtransportation! I know you will take this into consideration as you continue your work. Regards, Timothy Dull Polygon 1183 httDS://www. howardcountvmd. gov/News/ArticlelD/1723/Newsl02419c October 29, 2019 TO: HCPSS Board of Education Members RE: Redistricting Dear Members of the Board - Thank you for persevering in the thankless task of coming up with a redistricting plan to address the capacity issues within the Howard County School System, As you develop and debate various plans, ] respectfully ask that you keep the following in mind; . BUSING - we are already busing some students away from their closest school * WALKERS - there are already students who live close enough to walk to one school being bussed to another school . FEEDS-there are o/reody small feeds It may be that redistrirting results in different students being bussed to their next closest school, or c'ly/erenf students being walkers, or dgyerent students having smallish feeds (though hopefully none will) - but that does not mean that the status quo avoids any of these things, In addition, whiie the impetus for this redistricting may be our capacity issues, 1 think ft wouid be unconscionable if we did not take this opportunity to also address the growing segregation in our school district. Granted, the school board cannot be expected, on its own, to solve problems created largely by county housing policy, and it's true that some communities within the county are currently less economically and/or racially diverse than others. The Board of Education can/ however, ensure that the school boundary plan that it enacts does not perpetuate any current "gerrymandering" of FARMS students into specific schools (and away from other lower-FARMS schools) or increase the FARMS concentration at schools with already high-percentages of FARMS students. I encourage you to attempt to level out the FARMS distribution, where practical, in order to better serve all our students. Regarding the separate concern of racial diversity, I do not know of any tools the Board may have at its disposal to analyze the impact of school boundary changes on racial diversity at individual schools. I can only implore you to seek to lessen the racial segregation in our schools if it is within your power to do so - for the benefitof all of our students and our community at large. Finally, I want to encourage you to be resolute in looking for a solution that does what is best for the Howard County student body os o whole, rather than simply givingin to those voicesthat complainthe loudest. Stncerety, "r'Af Allyson B. Rogan Polygon 60 Testimony oiLB^haifofBesjdents otPolygonJlTS October 29, 2019 To the HCPSS Board of Education Members: Our community of Polygon 3176 stand united in opposition to Dr. Martirano's redistrjcting proposal. We strongly urge the BoE to not move Polygon 3176 for the following reasons: 1. Walnut Grove is part ofClarksville; we have a Clarksville address and the 21029 Clarksville zip code 2. Polygon 3176 is located 1. 2 miles from River Hill High School in Clarksville, MD whereas Wilde Lake is approximately 7 miles away from our neighborhood 3. Polygon 3176 drives directly past the River Hill entrance to reach Wilde Lake High School 4. Route 108 is a two lane major corridor (only one lane in each direction) - traffic is consistently at a standstill during morning and afternoon rush hour, when students are driving to school and returning from after school activities. Polygon 3176 students would commute pass RHHS on Route 108 contributing to the highly congested traffic during peak travel times. Per 6010 Facility Utilization, walkers and the time and distance of bussed students is an important consideration. 5. River Hill diversity - of 1382 students, 44% are white, while 56% represent all other ethnicities combined 6. Inaccuracy of FARM numbers across the county-for River Hill, FARM numbers were determined to be closer to 8% due to the Jumpstart Program 7. River Hill is under capacity (currently at 93%) and 478 current River Hill students are slated to be moved out of the school 8. We house a regional Jumpstart program specific only to River Hill and Oakland Mills, and many of our children are currently enrolled in this program. If moved, they will be ineligible to continue on a Jumpstart structured path 9. HS 13 is being opened in 2023 which will result in redistricting again in three years - please see policy 6010 V. B. 2. C - Frequency with which any one student is reassigned, making every attempt to not move a student more than once at any school level or the same student more frequently than once every five years 10. Policy 6010 Facility Utilization - School attendance should stay within the target utilization for as long a period of time as possible. River Hill is within/under capacity. Long range enrollment must be considered as well as fiscal responsibility, which is not achieved with the Superintendent's plan. 11.Superintendent Martirano's proposed redistricting plandoes not support equityto allstudents. Further examples ofproposed moves in Dr. Martirano's plan that runcounter to Policy6010 are as follows: IV. B. l.d:The numberof students that walkor receive busservice and the distanceand time bused students travel: For Polygon 3176, the distance traveled will TRIPLE. Complicated bus routes will dramatically increase the time it takes our children to reach their school. Ourchildren will increase travel time to a 45 minute commute eachway by bus on Route 108. III. E. Equitable, III.K.Inclusive, IV. B. l. e Locationof Regional Programs:The students ofPolygon 3176 will not benefit from current programs and teacher staffing offered at the school proposed to be redistricted under Dr. Martirano's plan. In fact, our students will be WASTING ESSENTIAL RESOURCES offered at certain schools for students who currently use them and would continue to benefit. These specialized offerings include: Alternative Education teachers, teachers for HispanicAchievement and Black Achievement, teen parenting leaders and daycare providers, Jumpstart discrepancies, not to mention significant differences in numbers of Special Education teachers. IV.2 Community Stability:The increasein distanceand travel time underthe Superintendent's proposal discourages families from engaging in both before and after school activities and meetings. This does not create a contiguous community or community stability. IV. B. S. e Number ofstudents moved and length oftime outcomes are achieved: The Superintendent's proposal causes a SIGNIFICANTDISRUPTION of 7, 396 children and their families, county wide. The redistricting process will occuragain with the opening ofHigh School 13 in 2023. Inexactly two years we will once again facethe upheaval of redistricting across the county. A two-year windowand a movement of almost 7400children are non-compliant with Howard County policy as stated above. Wemust reject anyand all redistricting proposalsthat do not provideequity and stability for ALL children countywide. This redistricting plan is intended to achieve parity across schools in the number of students receiving free-or-reduced meals (FARM). Only vague rationale is provided to explain how achieving thisparity will result in better student outcomes. The superintendent's redistricting plan isan ill-conceived experiment to test a speculative theory on non-consenting children. Rigorous evidence must be provided before allowing an experiment on this unprecedented scale. Objectives should be unequivocal and quantitative. Contingencyplans must be preparedto identifyand address complications. Criteria must beestablished to reverse the changes ifthe experiment fails.Anything less is undemocratic and risky. 12. The following statement can befound on SabinaTaj's campaign website and includes direct quotes from Ms. Taj: 'Themost effective, leastdisruptive, wayto addressovercrowding isto buildmore schools. Nowthat a s/te hasbeen chosen for highschool ltl3, let'sexpedite the selection ofa site in Elkridgefor highschool #14and get serious about building both schools assoon as possible. Marriott's Ridge was built in 18 months sowe know what's possible ifthe will exists. I'dwant to blend the building of newschools with strategic redistricting that addresses current overcrowding while anticipating future growth. Anyredistricting shouldbe done inthe mosttargeted and limited way possible to minimizedisruption to students. I'dstart withdrawing the linesfor HS#13, andthen focus the more immediate redlstricting on areasnot slated to bemoved to the newschool, to ensurethat the same neighborhoodsare notmoved twice. I would also have the redlstricting apply beginning with the rising 9th graders, whowill already be at a naturaltransition point, ratherthan disrupting kidsalready settled Intheir highschools The ideasabove noted, wedo not haveenough datato makean informed decision aboutan appropriate plan ofaction. Community inputis critical butit must besupplemented withdata to backup any decisions we make. Lastly, I'dencourage the Boardto learn aboutefforts that haveworked inother parts ofthe country to addressovercrowding, asthis problem is not uniqueto HowardCounty. Forexample, wemight consider developing specialized academies in schools with excesscapacity-e. g., around STEM, the arts, or coding-to draw interested students from overcrowded schools." It's both extremely concerningand questionable thatthe ideasMs. Taj championed whileworking to acquire hervoting baseare nowin direct conflict withthe proposed redistricting plan. Asconstituents, wefeel blindsided byher shift in attitude andstance on issuesas were clearly voiced, andwhich played a large role in herelection win. We hope you will consider that we, along with many other voters, believed her platform and that she would stand for them once elected. In general: 1. Wequestion the legitimacyof the selection ofthe AACand its fair representation ofthe entire community. 2. Wequestion the role ofCalvin Ball andsome members ofthe County Council inthat they are over reaching in their posittons/responsibilities asthey relate to school redistricting. 3. We further question the relationships amongst Calvin Ball, Michael Martirano, the AAC, and some members ofthe County Council and Board of Education as related to the redistricting process and its lack of transparency. 4. It wasjust announcedthat HCPSSis in direfinancial straits. It makesno sense to spend millionsof dollarsin additional transportation coststo buschildren from an under capacity school. Currentbudget issues include, but are not limited to, cuts in staffcounty-wide, cuts to classroom resources. discontinued programs, unfulfilled plansto improve andadd to schoolfacilities (Talbot Springsand Hammond High), presence of Legionella bacteria in multiple schoolsthat need remediation, a health fund deficit of 39. 2 million dollars. Insummary, Polygon3176 unequivocally opposes Dr. Martirano's redistricting planand supports alternative options includingthe FeasibilityStudy and/or other proposals thatwould keepPolygon 3176 at its currently zoned schools for all of the reasons listed above. Belowis a listof names from Polygon3176 in support ofthe abovetestimony. Sincerely, Phil Lazzari Ryan Jee Zyan Parikh Missy Lazzari Lauren Jee LuisZuniga Nick Lazzari Evie Callahan Monica Zuniga Tony Lazzari Brian Callahan Christine Wang Olivia Lazzari Elise Callahan HongCheng Cecilia Lazzari Ava Callahan Ramesh Mamillapalli Kim Bakhtiar SridharAtluri Vivek Mamillapalli Darius Bakhtiar Kalpana Atluri Manasa Mamillapalli Nick Bakhtiar PallaviAtluri Kalpana Prakasa Leah Bakhtiar Prathik Atluri Sampeth Seshadri Neha Oza Justin Balciunas Girija Sriraghavananda Manish Oza Jeannette Balciunas Nimisha Seshadri Ishan Oza Jack Balcuinas Shamitha Raaga Seshadri Aryan Oza Blake Balcuinas Rui Shao Zahan Oza Benjamin Balcuinas FangJia Elizabeth Colvin HuanleYang Jason Jia JeffColvin Xiudi Fan Annie Jia Kate Colvin Xi Yang Will Yu Charlie Colvin IsabelleCui Monica Yu Rick Bonewitz Lei Zhong Spencer Yu Julie Bonewitz Nathan Zhong Thomas Yu SejalJani Sherry He Sophia Yu Naraj Jani Fen Han Ran Wang SachinJani Wenlu Chen Veronica An NeilJani Alice Chen Victoria An Angela Paliotta Isabella Chen Aryya Gangopahyay Mark Paliotta YunLu Semanti Gangopahyay Isabella Paliotta Feng Liu Zhjwen Yang Thomas Paliotta Alexander Liu Syed Hamid Husain Matthew Paliotta Emma Lu Sarah Husain Melissa Covell Jian-LingWang Syed Sajid Husain Darre 11 Cove11 Pauline Hsu TahirHusain Caleigh Covell Sarangi Parikh Nusaybah Husain Robbie Covell Ameet Parikh Laura Long PamJee Dylan Parikh Ryan Long TomJee Devon Parikh Greg Long Min Minchael He Danny Liang Finn Tofigh Daniel He Daniel Liang Elizabeth Reyes Siena Liang Randy Reyes NoelleTofigh Lana Goldberg Omid Tofigh Matthew Goldberg Parisa Tofigh Joshua Goldberg Elika Tofigh Stefanie Liang Penelope Tofigh Kathleen V. Hanks From: Rochelle Hanson Dr. Wu & Jen Mallo, Pleasekeep our community together forthe heart and sakeof these children. Thevalleymede is one neighborhoodand the proposed plans would be taking our children outside of what & whothey know. Please drive through our neighborhood just to geta realistic view ofwho we are, andnot just seeus asnumbers on paper. ., ave4boy^3(J("l'. 4thgrade' Nathan-2nd grade, withan iep, andEthan in Kindergarten) in elementary schoolat SJELSand Joshua who will be in pre-k next year. The3 boysare also in scoutswho participate in community events such as the Mt. Hebron homecoming parade. We are very connected in our community and don't wish to be disconnected. For our family andour neighbors, this redistrict is not about howgood or badthe school downthe street is. It's aboutkeeping us together and connected, issue.Please listen to ourproposal of moving Polygons 161 and 1161 to Waverly which would unite that neighborhood, keep ours together, and disrupt the least amount ofkids Sincerely, Rochelle Hanson Kathleen V. Hanks From: cohenfamily88@yahoo. com Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 4:03 PM To: Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Redistricting ofpolygons 180, 181, 1181 Dear Board of Education members, Myfam"y. lives irl. P°ly90n 18°- Wehave lived herefor 20 years and have seen manyredistricting's ?.v,ert, ?. y^,ar?' VYeunderstand thatsometimes this is a necessity such as newschools opening (Marriotts Ridge^HighSchool) and over crowding. Sometimesthe redistricting happensto make a more even flow for students such as when we moved from Mt. View Middle toFoliy Quarter Middle. This made more sense since our elementary school had just been moved from Manor Woods to Triadelphia Ridge. Currently our community attends River Hill High School. Under the o','g'nalplsln, ourne'clhborho°!::l (P°ly90ns 180, 181, and 1181)will be split between Glenelg (polygon 180)and Wilde Lake High School (polygons 181, 1181). UnderMs. Mallo's plan our neighborhood Yy'.'i.?,0^ yvi.lcle ^^.Hi^.?ch. 001-This plElrl wi"create a smaNfeed which violates your"own policy (HCPSS Policy 6010). While it is not ideal to have a community split and going to two different schools I feel the original plan follows more in line with wherewe will all wind up eventually .a.r!yway'_, lfyo"can movethe whole "eighborhoodto Glenelg HighSchool with this redistr'ictingthat wou, d. help, al!evi.atethe needto move usagain in 4 or moreyears with another redistricting. lfyouare unable to do that, moving part of us the way the original plan was laid out would be the next best thing. Inthe originalplan polygons 181 and 1181 areslated to goto Wilde Lake. Theywouldbe better served by keeping them at River Hill High School since again it would cause a small feed problem. Thenyou could alwaysmove those polygonsto Glenelg HighSchool to join upwith the rest ofour community withthe^next redistricting that needs to be donewhen the newhigh schoolopens or at some other time in the future. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. Regards, Nicole Cohen Kathleen V. Hanks From: Robyn Guerrasio Dear Board of Education members, First off, thankyou forthe significanttime you areputting into thisprocess. It is fhistratingto watchyou attempt this taskwith incomplete data, andI've no doubt it frustrates you aswell. Thank you for your extraordinary efforts. That said,I'd like to weighin onthe two newproposals from lastnight's work session (10/28). Ms. Mallo's proposal is evenmore dismptive that Dr. Martirano's, moving more students out oftheir schools andcausing many small feed problems, particularly from Folly Quarter MS to River Hill HS and Wilde Lake HS. I ask the boardto please, stop trying to move kids out ofunder capacity schoolstoward the overcrowded east. Kids should be moving from east to west in places where moves are necessary. Doing otherwise does not make sense. We cannot use money to to-ansport such a massive amount of kids farther from their current schools when we have such financial difficulties. The money this plan would cost in transportation would be so much better utilized almost anywhere else. We cannot fix current problems (utilization problems in eastern areas ofthe county leading to longer bus rides) by spreading those problems around andmaking them bigger - no successful organization would ever operate that way. And finally, my biggest issue is how many students will have to get out of their homes earlier to be on buses longer to get to their proposed schools on time. Early school starttimes andsleep affectkids mental healthAND their performance in school - the science is very clear. To ignoreit in favor ofeither Ms. Mallo's or Dr. Martirano's proposals is to deliberately put kids all over the county at higher risk. wu'splan is a betterPlace to start>because it reducesthe number ofdismpted students by halfand focuses primarily on overcrowding. I am certain the community is providing feedback on potential tweaks to the proposal and hopefully the board will hear those, particularly given the short amount of turnaround time. Finally, please allow the public time to provide feedback onproposals asyou go. I realize time is tight, which is absolutely NOT the way this should be done, but that is not a reason to push incomplete, ineffective, or harmful plans through. Thank you, Robyn Guerrasio (Polygon 3176) Polygon 181 Woodmaika community divided Dear Board of Education Members. It is with great frustration I submit written testimony concerning Ur Martirano's Attendance Area Adjustment Plan and the plan proposed by Board Member Mallo. While I understand and appreciate the importance of rediatricting to remedy capacity issues and ensure adequate resources, these recommendations are a sledgehammer: and will cause irreparable harm on multiple fronts to achieve a level of data uniformity that appaUingly masks weak performances and detracts from the need for substantive changes to improve all schools. They demonstrate a lack of con&rmance to Policy 6010 with regards to community stability, Howard County growth, financial responsibility, and concern for ALL students, families and communities. I am a resident ofPolygon 181 and a member of the Woodmark Community Association. As part of the superintendent's recommendation my community is divided between 2 separate high schools. Polygon 181 is proposed to go to Wilde Lake High School whereas other Woodmark polygons (180 and 1180) are proposed to move to Glenelg High School. As members of our Woodmark community, our kids play basketball together, play soccer together, have participated in robotics leagues together, hosted popsicle nights, had picnics, been Girl Scouts, been Boy Scouts, carpool, and gone to school together. Not only does this conflict with PoUcy 6010 regarding Community Stability in that it divides our neighborhood, it shows very little concern for kids and the kids of my community. Although Board Member Mallo's proposal keeps most ofWoodmark together, it joins the superintendent's plan in illogical movement of kids far from their closer community schools; therefore, creating a small feed for Woodmark. We would be part of a very small feed somewhere in the order of 14% or less to Wilde Lake High School. As the daughter of a military parent, I attended 4 high schools. I wanted my kids to have a sense of community and belonging that I did not have. Most importantly I wanted to give my kids a better sense of stability. Keeping that in mind when we looked for a place to live, a huge consideration for us was proximity to schools that were not overcapacity. Reasonably, under-capacity schools should equate to limited likelihood of redistricting. This led us to houses in the western part of the county. Well water and septic tanks guarantee a certain amount of space per house and limited growth. As the county grew, kids have been sent westward as logic prevails. We are fuUy aware location does not afford anyone a specific school in Howard County; so, we have always prepared our kids that they were not locked into a certain high school and that logical western sprawl would most likely cause them to attend any of the three closest high schools: Glenelg, River HiU, or Marriotts Ridge. Our area and the neighboring communities have historically been slated to those three high schools, any of those three is the logical choice. We have taken our kids to games, shows and other events at these three closer high schools so that Polygon 181 Woodmarta community divided they woiddfeel a part oftheir future school. Our residence is closest to Glenelg, River Hill, and Marriotts Ridge; however, per Dr Martirano's Attendance Area Adjustment Plan andMrs. Mallo's plan our part ofWoodmark would face a longer commute eastward that is beyond those three closer schools. It is ludicrous to move kids to a school that is further away when there are three closer ones that are all underpopulated. Not only do these plans increase commute time, they are unreasoned. The Board of Education will need to move us west as the county continues to grow in the east. The superintendent and Mrs. Mallo's plans disrupt our kids based on illogical assumptions that the BOB will need to correct later. The Board of Education has a responsibility to the people of Howard County. You are entrusted with our kids' education and our money. You should be looking within the school system to understand the socioeconomic divide. In doing so you will discover it is partly a creation ofyour making. There are many socioeconomic issues that should be addressed in HCPSS that would yield actual meaningful results: . The root causes of underperforming schools /students: Moving kids based on socioeconomic reasons only shuffles them. It does not fix the problem. Adding resources to underperforming schools or offering programs to help parents and kids see the future benefits of their kids' education will give those kids a better chance than merely shuffling them. . Facility Utilization & Education Budget Shortfalls: The cost of forcing the Superintendent's Plan on the Howard County Public School System shows how out of touch you are with the cost of education and the most urgent needs for our kids' education. o Hammond desperately needs improvements. o HS13 needs to be built. o HCPSS cannot afford textbooks for all students. . HCPSS unrealistic financial expectations for families. Due to the lack of textbooks, kids must utilize online textbooks in order to complete homework and study. This requires a computer and internet service. Furthermore, according to the school supply lists, "students are best served to purchase" their own TI-84 Plus Silver Edition calculator. Why is it acceptable to throw money away to shuffle kids for socioeconomic reasons when you have made it necessary or "best served" for kids to need resources that cannot be provided in all Howard County homes? There is a mindset that needs to be changed by the BOB and HCPSS. You need to understand the people you are supposed to represent and ask yourselves if those expectations are what got us here in this position. Polygon 181 Woodmari a community divided The redistricting plans proposed by Mr. Martirano and Mrs. Mallo will have seismic negative effects on students, families, and communities that cannot be underestimated. * Rip apart the community fabric: Howard County is an area of amazing multi- cultural communities. Your insinuation otherwise is insulting. o After school activities such as sports rely on team relationships built over time starting from summer Booster Camps in the early years, to game attendance, to tryouts and then participation in high school. o Teachers and students build relationships that may matriculate into college recommendations. o Many families prefer to live close enough to walk to school so that their children can participate in afterschool activities. o Friendships are developed over time and provide a security to the kids. o Parents rely on trust networks for carpools. Demonstrate blatant disregard for the deliberate choices made by families: In many cases, these sweeping changes will have an intensely negative impact on a segment of the population. It is incumbent to demonstrate concrete proof that an overall positive outcome would be achieved in order to justify this drastic reorganization. Injustice to families' desires: Families are passionate about being in a particular district or area of Howard County, it is each family's right to have that choice honored be it for proximity to school, friendships, urban/rural lifestyle, etc. Face it, families are not one size fits all. It should be their prerogative to live and go to school locally. Detrimental effects on students and parents: Many progressive school systems nationwide recognize the importance of students' well-being (physical, psychological, and social) and have implemented changes accordingly by modifying school start and end times to minimize sleep deprivation. Currently my high schooler gets on the bus at 6:30AM and does not return home from his school's soccer team until ahnost 5:00pm. When given the opportunity to rectify this start time injustice the BOE met behind closed doors and chose not to fix the problem. By sending kids further away from their community to go to school, kids will need to get up even earlier and not arrive home until even later. High school is a period of transition fraught with anxiety, high stress and sleep deprivation. The effects ofthese changes (longer commutes, weakened social support) and the correlation with increased depression and anxiety are unacceptable for our kids. Polygon 181 Woodinar^ a comm unity divided . Environmental Pollution: This will worsen with increased commute times and lengthen bus routes. (Let walkers remain walkers!) Additional mileage will mean more gas consumption, more cars on the road, and more pollution. . Expense to HCPSS and families: The HCPSS budget is stretched already. The Superintendent's plan has far reaching negative economic effects on transportation and resources. He admitted in his presentation that it may double or triple the transportation costs. Furthermore, it will significantly hurt individual families as they would have to travel further for rides, PTSA meetings, parent teacher meetings, concerts, drama performances, dance recitals, afterschool activities, games, dances, and other school events. There were some solutions proposed by BOB members that offer sound logic and true promise. These plans are considerate of all Howard County students, parents, and communities: . Board Member Wu's plan is a step in the right direction in that it keeps our communities going to their community school/s. It is the least disruptive to our children and communities; and is financially more responsible. Although I would prefer for Woodmark to remain at the same school which I believe is logically Glenelg High School, it does offer the next best option. It keeps our kids from being transported to schools beyond their closer community schools and thus maintains stability. Furthermore, it respects parents' right to choose their community inclusive of their community school. . Board Member Delmont-Small made some excellent points regarding consideration of a true feeder system or zone system. These options would be less disruptive to students and communities, they prioritize family-choice for what is best for their family, they offer clear visibility and accountability regarding development, and minimize the necessity for the BOE to redistrict year after year. Like Mr. Wu's plan, these also respect parents' right to choose their community inclusive of their community school. The Howard County School System must be held accountable for the proposed changes and the potential aftermath which directly affect our quality of life in Howard County. The plans proposed by Mr. Martirano and Mrs. Mallo directly conflict with Policy 6010; they divide communities, they do not account for county growth, they do not show financial responsibility, and they show that not ALL students, families, andcommunities matter. Therefore, I adamantly urge you to reject both Dr. Martirano's Attendance Area Adjustment Plan and Board Member Mallo's plan. Sincerely, Rebecca Kasbeer-Betty Kathleen V. Hanks From: Caruso, Jennifer In addition to my other comments below, I believe moving 20, 1020 out of Bollman Bridge would be moving some of the lesser FARMSpolygons awayfrom BBES,which is a high FARMSschool and benefits from resources provided bythose polygons. This feed would also have a great detrimental affect to the PTA at BBESby moving almost all of the executive board away. My son will be in 5*1'grade and is among only a handful of kids in that grade who will be moved (I can think of only 4 from his grade slated to move), with no benefit of adjusting future feeds. This shifting around between 2 Title 1 schools does not make any sense at this time. As I said, there seems to be no forward thinking about the extent of movement right now in this part of the county when HS 13 will affect this region in another couple of years. Thank you, Jennifer Caruso From: Caruso, Jennifer Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 12:19 PM To: redistricting@hcpss. org Subject: Test Plan Proposed by Jen Mallo I am writing to comment on the test plan floated by Jen Mallo yesterday. My understanding is that it provides no FARMS data (and she has indicated that she is not planning to provide any due to privacy concerns), no feed percentages, and as far as I can see, no numbers indicating how many students are affected by each move. I have read that it moves over 7000students total. How is the community supposedto provide meaningful input without those numbers, at this late date, on such a comprehensive proposal? In addition, I raise specific concerns reagarding the moves for 20, 1020, 26, 27, 1026, and 1027. This seems to be a swap of students at Bollman Bridge and Guilford with both schools sending and receiving from the other. Neither of these schools are overcrowded, and it seems like unnecessary movement. It splits the Huntington community in half when there is not overcrowding there and there is not the same area available for further develop as in other parts of the county. Thus, I question why these moves need to be made. It also may be disproportionately affecting FARMS students and does not seem equitable, but as I said, it is difficult to tell without data. In addition, it is affecting polygons adjacent to Mission Road that will surely be under consideration to move in a couple of years when adjustment is done for the new HS. This would possibly necessitate multiple moves for the same students within a short period of time. Please do not adopt this proposal, especially at this late date. Thank you, Jennifer Caruso Kathleen V. Hanks From: Zatkowski, Jennifer Board of Education Members I am writing to request that Polygon 1200 remain at River Hill High School. Underthe plans separately proposed by Dr. Wu and Ms. Mallow, Polygon 1200 would be redistricted from RHHS to GHS.As you can seefrom the map below, ripping Polygon 1200from oursister neighborhoods to attend GHSwould only create unnecessary lengthybus ridesand undue stress on the children of Polygon 1200. PLEASE KEEP POLYGON 1200 AT RHHS. Thank you. Jennifer Zatkowski, Esq. ^ UC3 200 \ f Jennifer Zatkowski, Esq. Commercial Counsel Chicago Title Insurance Company Fidelity National Title Insurance Company Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company 9891 Broken Land Parkway Suite 300 Columbia, Maryland 21046 Direct Dial: 410-381-6681 Email: JENNIFER.ZATKOWSKKalFNF. COM This invormajon is givan fo.- the purpose of issuingtitle ir.s.irancs sr, d is not lagal adviceror sn" purf-os.;. NOTICE;T. ie information coniained in ihis r.iesss. 32 :s proprieta. 'y and/or confidential and ma" I: 2. privileged. if you ere not die intended recipient of this communicaiion, you E:'e hereby notified to: (i) delete the massage and all copies; (ii) do no,: tlisclose, disiributeor uset;i3 messagein anymannsr; ard (iii) notty/ ihesender Irr. mediatel". Kathleen V. Hanks From: Lean Liang Dear BOE members, First of all, thank you all forthe hardwork you all put in. It has been a hecticfew weeks foryou for sure. As the process evolves, we have seen and heard the community inputs which you probably will agree that they overwhelmingly opposed the superintendent's plan. It simply doesn't benefit or help any' students or families by shuffling them around. We are glad that you guys are listening to the community inputs and incorporated some of them into your proposals to which you put numerous hours and great thoughts. Among all the proposals so far, we like the plan from Dr Chao Wu in particular. Simply put, it moves the least number of students while balancing out other considerations. We definitely heard positives comments about it. While moving some students is necessary because of over capacity issue, we urge you to take the least disruptive ones, especially with HS 13 insight which will change the map soon.' Speaking of disruption of normal life, I am sure you know it first hand how bad it had been for the last couple of weeks. Time you would rather spend with your family, friends was dragged into the process. Would you rather this had not happened? We certainly do. Thank you Julie, Lean, Nicole, David and Natalie Kathleen V. Hanks From: Alberta Diaz October 29, 2019 Howard County Board of Education By email: redistrictinB@hcoss. ore Re: Polygon 185 Dear Board members, As a resident of polygon 185, and to add useful detail to the redistricting conversations had by the Board in last night's Board meeting, please consider the realities of our polygon as you consider not moving it to Harper's Choice Middle. While the reasons why the community should remain at Clarksville Elementary and River Hill high are obvious, the details below highlight also clear reasons why our middle schoolers should remain at Clarksville Middle School. First, our community of 49 homes has very low student density and extremely low turnover. For example, by fall 2020, we will have 7 middle schoolers (of which 3 will be last year students). As a starting point, please consider grandfatheringthese children to avoid considerable disruption to their daysover the next couple ofyears. With regard to turnover, roughly eight homes have been sold over the last ten years (again extremely low), why the community will continue to increasingly be a very low contributor of students per home. Second, given our 14 - 24%FARM rate (we have 2 FARM kids now, although that could change, maybe increase, by next fall), the neighborhood doesn't help Harper's Choice FARM rate change to the downside as much as it disproportionately helps increase Clarksville Middle's(if the students staythere), consistent with stated BoEobjectives. Third, transportation times by bus are five times (5x) longer to Harper's Choicevs. Clarksville Middle from polygon 185, mainly due to buses moving and stopping with rush hour traffic on route 108 and through Columbia proper during same peak hours. This generates most of the concerns already voiced by physicians and safety experts heard from in the recent publictestimony portion of this redistricting process. Drivingto Clarksville Middle is straightforward (15 minutes by bus) as necessary back roads are low traffic, even in the mentioned "peak" hours. Transportation costs of plansthat move so many students are an important considerationgiven the budgetary constraints the Howard County Board of Education is facing. For example, our calculations, which are automated and take Google Maps APIs based on road distance and resulting driving times from polygon centers to the assigned schools, showthat Mrs. Mallo's plan (for example) results on transportation coststhat are only $100klower than Dr. Martirano's, or $2.5M peryear ($25M overthe nextten years). This is an important considerationthat needsto be seriously addressed and balanced when system financial solvency is a priority of same or higher consideration vs. perfect balancingof socioeconomics. Ifthe schools aren't solvent, closed schools cannot educate our students, our future. As an important aside, by deliberately bringingALL high schools below 110%capacity, the BoEwould enable additional development (based on CountyCouncil policy) in areasof the county that really don't need it or have the infrastructure to support the new additions, inclusive of schools. In effect, that capacity management tool can be very effective for the BoE at managing requirements on IT to redistrict in the future, particularly in an environment when funds are limited or at a deficit in the short term. In other words, it could make sense to keep target areas in the county slightly above llOpct to add a "lever" that BoEcan pull (and should use wisely) to alleviate requirements on IT (and designatedareas) in the next years in already-challenging areas of the county. In the meantime, for the reasons mentioned above, please keep polygon 185 at Clarksville Middle School. Alberto Diaz Kathleen V. Hanks From: Suzana Scornavacca Dear Board of Education members, My family is on the polygon 180, part of the Woodmark community. I would like to state that we are agreeable to Mr. Wue's proposal against Ms. Mallo's one. Oncewe settled in the neighborhood, it was considerable important for usthat ourkids couldto build strong andhealthy relationships withinthe local community. The school is beingtheir main place they have been developing their friendships. We came from overseas andit is been alreadyhard to move to a newcountry, andharder to build up a trusting network for us and for the kids. At least for our kids we would like to speak up and avoid such an abrupt change of high school to Wild Lake HS as per Ms. Mallo's proposal, where less than 14% of the stodents ofthis area will be attending the same school. Besides this, they will have longer commuting and no explicit advantages since the schools around us are not overcrowded. We ask you to please consider our kids social development that is one ofthe pilars for reaching the best potential on each student. With all the respect and appreciation of your work, Suzana Scomavacca Kathleen V. Hanks From: Christopher Gran Dear Members of the Board of Education, y name is christoPhsi' Gra" and I live in Polygon 1056, part of the Allview Estates neighborhood. Currently our neighborhood is assignedto Atholton Elementary, Oakland Mills Middle (OMMS)and Oakland Mills High (OMHS). ! have two children currently enrolled in HCPSS. I am writing to you regarding some of the developments that occurred during the Attendance Area Adjustment Working Session on Monday, October 28: - Two redistricting proposals were submitted by Dr. Chao Wu and Jen Mallo during the working session. - Under Dr. Wu's redistricting proposal, our neighborhood (polygons 56, 1056, 2056 and 3056) would be moved to Wilde Lake Middle (WLMS) and Atholton High (AHS). Overall, this plan is less disruptive to the county than the superintendent's proposal, moving less than halfthe students overall. I support less overall disruption for the students of Howard County. However, I do not support moving our neighborhood kids to WLMSand AHS. WLMSis farther away than the currently assigned OMMS as well as Lake Elkhorn Middle School (LEMS), and is on the other side of Town Center. The location of WLMS is very disruptive for rush hour commutes from our neighborhood which will make it difficult to have my children participate in after-school activities. Also, OMMS benefits from having the resources of the Aljview neighborhood at its disposal, as we are a low-FARMs neighborhoodthat actively participates and supports OMMS programs. Finally, AHS is already a low-FARMs school and pulling our neighborhood away from OMHS, a high-FARMs school, takes needed volunteers and resources away from ONIHS^ -1 only support Ms. Mallo's proposal in terms of moving Allview students from OMMS to LEMS. Keeping our kids at OMMS is a preferred first option, but LEMS is a logical second option for our neighborhood. The distance between the schools is about the same, they are the closest schools, LEMS has available capacity, and both schools could use our neighborhoodvolunteers and resources given the high percentage of students receiving FARMs. I do not support the move from OMHSto AHS as noted above. Also, I do not support Ms. Mallo's plan overall as it moves almost 8, 000 students across Howard Countyto otherschools, which is even more students than the superintendent's proposal. One final thought... there were comments from some board members during the working session that were concerned about HS13 starting with over 45% of students receiving FARMS. I find this beliefto be-perplexing. If this is really what some board members believe, than none of the HCPSSschools should have FARMSover 45%, notjust HS13. Whether the school is new or old should make absolutely no difference whatsoever. Sincerely, Christopher Gran 6425 Belleview Drive Columbia, MD Polygon 1056 Kathleen V. Hanks From: J Todd Hostetler Dear Board of Education members, Under the plan that Ms. Mallo proposed on October 28, 2019, our polygon(180) 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. Todd Hostetler Woodmark Home Owner & Parent Kathleen V. Hanks From: Lisa Hostetler <5hosses@gmail. com> Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 2:43 PM To: Hcpss Redistricting Subject: [External] Woodmark Community 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, Todd and Lisa Hostetler Kathleen V. Hanks From: alihashimrao . Dear BOE member, It is very important to understand sister communities Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek locations & proximity to each other and to RHHS. There are at least 6 clauses of Policy 6010 that directly apply to these communities. . Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek communities are tight knit communities located on Sheppard lane, Clarksville. . Walnut Creek starts from within Walnut Grove and several homes have access from the Grove entrance only which is via Preakness Circle Ln. . Both Walnut Grove and Creek share a bus stop at the intersection of Preakness Circle Ln and Clay Circle Ln. Kids from both the communities gather at this location. This bus stop is only 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, disrupting contiguous communities against policy 6010. . The only feed from FQMS to RHHS would be from 3176. . The feed from FQMS to WLHS would be less than 10%. Since Walnut Grove and Creek are contiguous communities as per policy 6010, we request you to keep polygon 176 at RHHS as per Dr. Wu's proposal. Ms. Mallo's proposal moves polygon 176 from RHHS to WLHS which disrupts contiguous communities and violates policy 6010. Ms. Taj should resign from BOE if she continues to show that she does not care about education, our schools and the community. Ms. Taj does not care about community and seems to be concerned only about her own political agenda. She keeps talking about poverty and FARMS even when it is not the subject or pertinent. She does not seem to understand that poverty does not go away by just mixing numbers. Reducing poverty requires innovative solutions that address the needs of people under poverty, not by moving students around. She does not seem to care or listen and community at large does not trust her anymore. CHS is way over capacity, RHHS is under capacity. WLHS needs to gain some capacity. WLHS should get from CHS, not from RHHS. Dr. Wu's proposal 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 surveys - student travel times. Dr. Wu's 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. Regards, Dr. Rao A. Khan MD 5041 Lindera Ct. Ellicott City, MD 21042 Polygon 176 POLYGON 176 29T October 2019 Dear board members Thank you for all your hard work, effort and dedication in trying to resolve the overcapacity and concentration of poverty issues faced by some schools. It is a shame that the CC is passing the buckto the BOEand to dig out of the hole and solve the problems created by their policies. It is a daunting task to say the least and a struggle 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. Thanks to Ms. Mallo and Dr. Wu for the time and effort put in propose their own plans. As we digest the intricacies of both these plans and their overall impact on our polygon as well as the school system, it is apparent that Dr Wu stood by his words when creating the plan. His plan DOES NOT move kids unless necessary, considers HS-13 boundary plans to the extent possible and minimizes double moves in future. His plan also moves over 50% less kids, which directly corelates to less transportation cost, less disruption and stress for kids and their families. Dr Wu listened to the testimonies and spent time readingthe written ones, analyzed the other options proposed bythe community as well as the feasibility study and the community survey results, keeps policy 6010 in mind and still achievesthe goal of solvingthe over capacity problems. We do not have the FARM rates impact for his plan yet, but it does seem like he would have factored that issue in his planning as well. Moving on to discussing the impact of the two plans to my polygon (#176). Please see the table below for specific comparison: Superintendent's Plan Jen Mallo's Plan Dr. Wu's Plan Moves to WLHS: 176, 181, Moves to WLHS: 176, 180, No moves from RHHS to 183, 1181, 1183, 1185, 1200, 181, 183, 1180, 1181 and WLHS 2176, 2183, 3176 2176 <17% feed From our analysis this NA would be a <10% feed from FQMS to WLHS Increase in commute time by Increase in commute time NA over an hour each way by over an hour each way In addition, it is important to understand the connection between the two sister communities- Walnut Grove and Walnut Creek. Walnut Grove falls in Polygon 3176 and Walnut Creek falls in Polygon 176 as shown in Figure A and Figure B below respectively: Figure A Walnut Grove Community- Polygon 3176 \ . I.", /'. .. .\ Figure B- Walnut Creek Community- Polygon 176 ^. ^' .. w-^-"- .^.. '"^. r ^" \ ,/ / Here is a map of both the polygons together, note the two communities circled in red as well as RHHS which is just down the road circled in red: ..--T*^, '^*Y ^. ^ .~, \ "^ ,-i ..---" < ./- \ ,; \ / '^. / / The most important thing to note here would be that the bus stop for polygon 176 is in polygon 3176 at the intersection of Preakness Circle and Clay circle lane. This is a very tight knit community and our kids have friends and families in these two communities. Splitting us and dividingour neighborhoodswill be devastating to the friendship kids have cultivated since they started TRES. It is a strong feed from TRES^FQMS->RHHS. Secondly, note that per Ms. Mallo's plan taking out polygons 3176, 1183, 1185, 1200, 2183 from the FQMS-^RHHS feed will result in a small feed from FQMS^WLHS even after adding polygon 180 and 1180. This is in clear violation of policy 6010 for both polygon 176 and 3176. I commend Dr. Wu, Ms. Delmont-Small, and Ms. Cutroneo for their attempt to keep policy 6010 and strong feeder systems, fiscal responsibilities, do not harm attitude and minimize student moves as the core guiding principles in this process. Ms. Mallo has followed these principles for some polygons, however the cause is lost when it comes to the number of students being moved, the numerous small feeds being created, and the high cost associated with her proposed changes. The problems facing the school system are enormous and need more than one tool of redistrictingto resolve the issue. It was encouraging to see the board raise and discuss other options such as magnet programs, IB schools etc. and is reassuring to know that testimonies were not a lost cause. Please ensure that costly and irreversible mistakes can be avoided now, do not be pressurized by time, so not be pressurized by the unavailability of data till last minute. These are not averagingof numbers game, but actual valuable kids and their crucial academic years that are at stake. So please do take the time needed to ensure that you DO NO HARM. In closing, 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-capacitv 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 and keep polygon 176 at oiir ciirrent high school River Hill. Thankyou for your efforts Rajneet Sawhney Polygon 176 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Chaoling Zheng Dear Ms. Mallo, Thankyou for your effort to createthis proposal. Justwant to let youknow you split two sisters polygons, 176 and3176. Welive in 176but we sharethe sameroad, same community entrance, same bus stop and SAME BUS with 3176. We 176 people's kids ride the same BUS with 3176's kids!! ! Please come to check. We live in 5106 Clay Circle Lane, Clarksville. Our polygon number is 176. Thank you. Chaoling Kathleen V. Hanks From: Yuming Qiu Dear BOB members, My name is Yuming Qiu and I live in Polygon 1186. After reviewing both plans proposed last night, I would strongly recommend starting with Dr Wu's plan that is least dismptive and more cost efficient. His plan focuses on moving students from overcrowding schools to under capacity schools, which makes more logical sense. Though we've made multi-days public hearings, it is very disappointing to see Ms Mallo's proposal, which goes exactly in the opposite direction without any concerns of current budget deficit and community feedback. Ms Mallo's plan tries to divide polygon 186 & 1186 into 2 different feeds: 186 to Clarksville Middle, and 1186 to Harpers Choice. In reality, 1 86 and 1186 have always been one cohesive community historically with 1,000 acre natural barrier of Middle Patuxent Environment Area. Her plan creates unnecessary and inconsistent feed that will lead to further redistricting issues when HS13 is built. I am strongly against Ms Mallo's plan! Thank you for your efforts ofhearing public voices and making a plan that addresses overcrowding while minimizes disruption to students' life and community integrity. Best, Yuming Qiu Polygonll86