Act Now: KP Voices Needed for Boundary Survey by July 15

[Elaine Liao Avin]

Dear KP Families,

MCPS is currently seeking community input on the Woodward High School Boundary Study, which will directly impact future school assignments for Kensington Parkwood (KP) students.

The survey is now open and closes on Tuesday, July 15 and we need you to act now! This is a crucial opportunity for every KP family–and our broader community–to speak up. Without strong participation from KP, our voices may be underrepresented in the decisions that will shape our students’ futures and the future of our community. 

ACT NOW TO TAKE THE SURVEY! 

Why Your Feedback Matters

This survey is your only chance to weigh in before MCPS refines the current four proposed options. Each of these options changes our established school pathway of Kensington Parkwood Elementary School→North Bethesda Middle School→Walter Johnson High School. 

Here’s what’s at stake: 

• All proposed options disrupt this pathway, in some cases splitting KP students among up to three different middle and high schools (Newport, Tilden, and Silver Creek Middle Schools; Einstein, Woodward, and Walter Johnson High Schools).
  
  

• KP is disproportionately impacted compared to other schools in the Walter Johnson cluster, most of which retain their current assignments.
  
  

• Three of the four options include split articulation, separating KP students across different schools–causing unnecessary disruption, stress, and fragmentation. 

These changes would not only affect academic planning and logistics–they would diminish the cohesion of our school and community, which has long been one of our greatest strengths.

What You Can Do

1. Take the survey. You can use the suggested responses at the end of this email, personalize them, or share your own views.
   
   

2. Submit your feedback by Tuesday, July 15 to ensure your voice is counted.
   
   

3. Spread the word. Encourage neighbors, friends, and community members to complete the survey as well.  

What the KPPTA Is Doing?

The KP PTA is actively advocating for our school community. In recent weeks, we have: 

• Gathered extensive feedback to shape a formal PTA position, approved at our last meeting. The position urges MCPS to keep all KP students at North Bethesda Middle School and Walter Johnson High School.
  
  

• Submitted a letter to MCPS stakeholders clearly stating our position (Spanish version) and posted the latest information on our PTA website
  

• Formed a dedicated KP PTA Advocacy Committee, focused on boundary-related issues. 

Let’s make sure MCPS hears from KP loud and clear. Each completed survey strengthens our collective voice. 

Thank you for supporting our school community!

SUGGESTED SURVEY RESPONSES

The survey asks what you like and dislike about each of the four options. Here are some suggested responses. 

Option 1 (Priority - Stability): Keeps all KP together and goes to Silver Creek Middle School  (currently in the BCC Cluster) and Walter Johnson High School

• Likes 

• Maintains Walter Johnson as our high school

• Keeps all of Kensington Parkwood students together 

• Walkability for a portion of our community to SC middle school

• Overall Benefits to Highlight:  Maintains stability of our school assignment; keeps our community together.  Our community has been together for 20+ years, allowing our kids to create long-lasting supportive friendships, and allowing parents to create cooperative parenting communities.

• Dislikes

• Changes our middle school from North Bethesda to Silver Creek.  We would like to maintain straight articulation to North Bethesda Middle School

• What is the rationale for removing KP from North Bethesda? The facility utilization is only 101% and there have not been any feelings or complaints for overcrowding.

• Why this matters: Highlight experiences that your children or older children have experienced at North Bethesda, highlight the programs that enrich their lives and build community (music department, NB ski club, etc.).

Option 2 (Priority - Facility Utilization): Splits part of KP (Tuckerman) to go to Tilden Middle School  and Woodward High School and the rest of KP goes to Silver Creek Middle School with North Chevy Chase Elementary School. Silver Creek Middle School then splits to go to Walter Johnson High School (KP and Garrett Park Elementary School) and BCC (North Chevy Chase Elementary School)

• Likes

• Keeps all current WJ students attending WJ or Woodward for high school which the WJ cluster has advocated since initially supporting the reopening of Woodward High School in 2014

• Dislikes: 

• Split articulation from ES to MS with KP splitting off the Tuckerman areas of our community into Tilden and Woodward. This community is small but mighty and work hard to stay connected to other KP families. Splitting them off at a critical time impacts the social and emotional well-being of students.

• Split articulation from MS to HS with the majority being put in Silver Creek only for Silver Creek to split into two different high schools.  This option further disrupts making meaningful connections and a cohesive community and does not significantly swing projected high school facility utilization percentages.  

• What is the rationale for  removing KP from North Bethesda? The facility utilization is only 101% and there have not been any complaints of overcrowding.

• More Information Is Needed!  We need to understand the estimated number of kids being split in each proposed split and specifically for 5th grade and 8th grade to illustrate the magnitude of change for the students relative to what it does overall to achieve enhanced utilization goals.   

Option 3 (Priority - Free and Reduced Meals Services/FARMS Diversity): Remains the same for those who live in the Tuckerman area and the rest of KP goes to Newport Middle School and Einstein High School

• Likes:

• No likes about option 3.

• Dislikes: 

• Changes both MS and HS for all KP students and splits KP at MS transition (Tilden and Newport), rather maintaining community at NBMS, with all NBMS community members articulating together to WJ.

• Newport and Einstein are not accessible for Kensington-Parkwood families, as traffic on Connecticut and University is highly problematic in the morning and even worse in the mid-afternoon (around school dismissal time).

• More Information is Needed! There should be a transportation study to understand traffic patterns and additional transportation costs to achieve this option. We have concerns about adding cost to an already strained operating budget that needs funds for more teachers and special education support.  And similar to Option 2, we would like to see the number of actual 5th graders and 8th graders that would go to Tilden to truly understand the impact to students. 

Option 4 (Priority - Walkability): Splits KP three ways, remains the same for those who live in Tuckerman area (no change from Option 2 and 3), Town of Kensington goes to Silver Creek Middle School and Walter Johnson High School, and the rest of KP (Parkwood/KECA) goes to North Bethesda Middle School and Walter Johnson High School

• Likes

• Keeps a subset of Kensington-Parkwood families articulating alongside as part of our community at North Bethesda MS and Walter Johnson HS.

• Dislikes

• Splitting our KP community three-ways. We are strong together but when split up into 3 groups, it’s small cohorts of students articulating into different directions.  

• More Information is Needed!  Concerned about the split articulation into North Bethesda and Silver Creek Middle School and would like to understand the number of 5th graders that would move into Tilden, Silver Creek, and North Bethesda. Our community as a whole is a material number; however, when split into three parts we may yield a very small number of actual 5th graders going to Middle School in any given year which impacts social and emotional well-being.   

Final Comments Section (Use all, some, or augment as you see fit):

Kensington Parkwood is a community that has remained together for over 20 years. While we understand the critical need for change in this boundary study, achieving these goals should not come at the cost of fundamentally fracturing established and high-performing elementary school communities such as Kensington Parkwood.  We are a strong community and want to maintain the stability of school assignments for our students who develop close friendships and academic partners by keeping them together with our current articulation pattern of North Bethesda and Walter Johnson. These long-term relationships help create a sense of belonging, stability, and community. We strongly believe MCPS needs to continue to focus on the social and emotional learning of its students and the impact these various boundary options will have on them.  

[Joanna Pappafotis]

I appreciate all the work the PTA is doing, but there are some of us out there who do see things we like about Option 3. I find it surprising that the PTA found nothing positive to say about restructuring the boundaries to focus on racial and economic balancing, counteracting the de facto segregation that has been so problematic for the US public school system. Changing the Town of Kensington back to Einstein would also make sense geographically. Some of the kids could walk or bike to school, instead of taking a 25 minute bus ride at 7am. I know my opinion is not shared by most community members, but I still wanted to voice it.

Joanna

KP and WJ parent

MCPS teacher

Town of Kensington resident

On Jul 7, 2025, at 12:39 PM, Elaine Liao Avin <elain...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Denise Gomez]



Hi Joanna,

The survey guidance was based on feedback from the KP specific survey. By no means do you have to utilize this when you complete the MCPS survey just a reference for suggested responses based on majority feedback. Hope this helps and appreciate your input. 

Thanks~

Denise 

On Jul 7, 2025, at 10:10 PM, Joanna Pappafotis <joannapa...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/kppta.org/d/msgid/kpeaglenet/97E7D1A6-5101-4904-97F6-014E084D3F5C%40gmail.com.

[Elaine Liao Avin]

Dear KP Families,

Final reminder that July 15th is the deadline for MCPS to hear your voice and feedback on the Woodward High School Boundary Study

Click this link to take the survey --> ACT NOW TO TAKE THE SURVEY! 

Guidance is below if you should need some starting points for your responses or reference the position (Spanish version) that we sent to the Superintendent and the BOE and is posted on our PTA website.  This guidance and position letter represents majority feedback, everyone is free to provide their individualized view which can differ from the guidance. We just want to make sure you log your feedback! 

We will be back in touch with additional updates over the summer. Thank you for leaning in and rallying behind KP and our kids!

--KP Advocacy Committee

=================

[Elaine Liao Avin]

Dear KP Families

Quick update on the survey deadline. The survey deadline for these initial set of boundary options is Monday July 21st so let MCPS hear your voice and feedback on the Woodward High School Boundary Study   

Today, July 15th, was the final day for office hours. We had a good amount of KP representation on this last office hour call so THANK YOU!