Montgomery County, while one of the most affluent and diverse counties in the nation, may not be as integrated as it seems. Many refer to it as a “de facto segregated” school system; while there is no law racially segregating students, the county is still racially divided.
In the last ten years, the number of students enrolled in Montgomery County Public Schools has increased by more than 20,000. However, there has not been an official study of the school boundaries in over twenty years.
“We have some cluster boundaries that might have made sense at one time historically, but don’t anymore,” Lynne Harris, the President of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA) and parent of an MCPS student, said.
Recently, there has been a strong push for a reassessment of these MCPS boundaries, especially by MCPS students. “We [students] have the firsthand experience of the disparities in schools,” Senior Zoe Tishaev, the Community Relations Director of Montgomery County Regional SGA (MCR-SGA), said.
Since this study was first proposed, there have been many misconceptions about the entire affair.
“It is not creating a specific policy, it is not attempting to take away good schools, and it is not busing,” said Uma Fox, a student activist at Richard Montgomery High School. Rather, as Harris said, the study is looking at the boundaries and identifying “gaps in opportunity.” The Board has not set any actions to take place after the analysis.
In July, the Board decided on an outside consultant to review MCPS facilities, demographics, transportation, school assignments and special program locations. There have not yet been any updates on the analysis, but currently the consultant’s report is set to finish in June 2020.
The biggest unknown is not actually what the study will say about the county. Harris, Tishaev and Fox all expect the report to “tell us what we already know.” But what happens after the analysis is still unclear. This study will not necessarily occur with any policy or system changes, but some expect the analysis to result in a complete reassessment of all school boundaries. Proponents say this will limit de facto segregation, address overcrowding and capacity issues and shrink the opportunity gap. However, opponents of redrawing the boundaries argue that many other things, like property value, may be affected as a result.
Advocacy, especially from MCPS students, has been vital to this analysis. “Our students of Montgomery County Public Schools are basically writing a book on Effective Advocacy 101,” Harris said.
According to Fox, it is important that students stay on top of it. “They [students] are the ones that attend these schools, they are the ones who are harmed by these educational disparities, they are the ones whose futures are at risk, as they are with most issues. So it’s imperative that students do fight for their voice and fight for the diverse community that has raised them and benefitted them, and they fight for greater equity within the society we are trying to create.”
Article by Victoria Koretsky of Richard Montgomery High School
Graphic by Claire Yang of Winston Churchill High School