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Hundreds of public commenters press MCPS to keep countywide magnets and demand data transparency in boundary and program reviews
Summary
At a full public-comment session on June 24, parents, students and town officials urged MCPS to preserve countywide IB and magnet pathways, questioned data quality and NDAs used in advisory groups, and asked the board for clearer transportation, enrollment and implementation data for proposed regional program changes.
A packed public-comment period at the Montgomery County Board of Education's June 24 meeting focused on proposed boundary changes and a sweeping secondary program analysis that would shift some countywide magnets to a regional model.
Students and parents told trustees that countywide magnets such as Richard Montgomery's IB program create cohort communities and academic pathways that would be harmed by a patchwork regional approach. "Blair brings together a critical mass of like-minded, motivated students...Fragmenting the student population across multiple regional sites makes these courses less feasible to offer," said Daniel Lee, a rising junior at Montgomery Blair High School.
Other speakers raised process concerns. Bridget Howe and others said community project teams required non-disclosure agreements, which discouraged open sharing and left volunteers feeling unable to represent their communities. One speaker representing data scientists cited multiple projection discrepancies and asked Flow Analytics (the study contractor) to validate SIP/CIP inputs. "We urge Flow Analytics to fulfill its contractual obligation...to validate data thoroughly before releasing future plans," the commenter said.
Municipal leaders and cluster representatives urged the board to keep neighborhoods intact. John Stroud, Garrett Park acting mayor, asked the board to prioritize cohesive boundaries for Garrett Park and nearby clusters and to include transportation studies for any option that would alter assignments.
Parents of students in College Gardens and other clusters warned that moving students would disrupt countywide IB pathways, which they said provide belonging and sustained rigor: Karen Seligman, president of the RM IB Foundation, told the board RM's program has produced above-global rates of IB diploma success. Several parents and Wootton-cluster advocates urged that Crown High's opening not be used to break up stable clusters.
Board members thanked speakers and repeatedly requested more and clearer data: transportation analyses, financial impacts, staff-resource mapping, and demographic breakdowns for survey respondents. Trustees asked staff to provide the specific data requests in writing to community project teams and to pursue targeted outreach to underrepresented groups before the July 15 survey deadline.
What happens next: MCPS staff said the initial boundary and program-option survey remains open through July 15; staff will synthesize feedback, continue office hours and targeted outreach (in several languages) and return with refined options in September. The board emphasized that no decisions were being made that night and asked for school-level and cluster-specific data to inform future votes.
