{"id":3511,"date":"2026-02-02T21:52:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/02\/mcps-announces-new-school-boundaries-bussing-students-to-virginia-during-winter-months\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T22:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:07:12","slug":"mcps-announces-new-school-boundaries-bussing-students-to-virginia-during-winter-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/02\/mcps-announces-new-school-boundaries-bussing-students-to-virginia-during-winter-months\/","title":{"rendered":"MCPS Announces New School Boundaries Bussing Students to Virginia During Winter Months"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ROCKVILLE, MD – After more than a week of snow days caused by a single snowstorm, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) announced Tuesday that it will temporarily redraw school boundaries to send students to Northern Virginia schools during winter months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Ordinarily I\u2019d find the idea of a three-hour bus ride for students ludicrous,” said Chevy Chase parent Lauren Feldman, applying band-aids on her child’s blistered thumbs from 8 straight days of playing video games. “But if it gets these kids out of my house, I’ll gladly pay the bus driver a tip to take the long way home.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the new winter redistricting plan, “Downcounty” students will be transported to schools in Arlington and Alexandria, while “Upcounty” students will be sent to Fairfax County schools. Wootton High students will be bussed to a brand new school south of Roanoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The redistricting plan came in response to mounting anger from parents wondering when – if ever – their children would return to school after Montgomery County failed to clear snow and ice from roads and sidewalks more than a week after the storm. County officials denied any wrongdoing, insisting the closures were unavoidable and largely philosophical in nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe simply did not anticipate winter happening during winter,\u201d said MCPS spokesperson Dana Haversack, speaking from a completely plowed parking lot at MCPS headquarters. \u201cWho could have foreseen a seasonally appropriate weather event playing out exactly as it was forecast well in advance?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking on an extra 160,000 students will put a massive strain on Virginia schools, and officials and parents across the river reacted angrily to the MCPS proposal. Several Northern Virginia counties announced they would deploy their entire fleet of snow removal vehicles into Montgomery County to provide basic services – at no cost – in order to get Maryland children out of their state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

County Executive Marc Elrich praised that idea as a triumph of regional cooperation. \u201cThis is exactly what I\u2019m talking about: taking care of your neighbor without a profit motive,\u201d said Elrich in a self-congratulatory mood. \u201cPrevious county executives had cool snowstorm names like ‘Snowmageddon’ and ‘Snowpocalypse.’ Mine will forever be know as ‘Snowcialism.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROCKVILLE, MD – After more than a week of snow days caused by a single snowstorm, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) announced Tuesday that it will temporarily redraw school boundaries to send students to Northern Virginia schools during winter months. “Ordinarily I\u2019d find the idea of a three-hour bus ride for students ludicrous,” said Chevy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[114,184,1828,910,1808,2070,183,2200,2186,516,2198,95,2199,1009,1111,1101,24,77,970,1130,916,373,1825,319,2150,1826,370,140,853,489,807,371,368,979,340,141,1387,1789,617,1807,537,317,189,640,2078,129,309,135,1351,638,787,2195,130,1733,1415,339,2197,935,805,94,1832,2189,831,803,1183,542,1517,137,93,111,165,939,136,1824,2196,2191,2187,2190,4,2,719,718,716,104,1523,1840,38,967,615,313,369],"class_list":["post-3511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amazon","tag-bethesda","tag-bethesda-today","tag-bike-lane","tag-bluesky","tag-bus","tag-chevy-chase","tag-clarksburg","tag-clearing-snow","tag-cnn","tag-code-red","tag-comedy","tag-damascus","tag-dc-humor","tag-dc-metro","tag-dc-news","tag-dc-satire","tag-disney-plus","tag-dmv-news","tag-dmv-satire","tag-downtown-silver-spring","tag-ebay","tag-election","tag-elrich","tag-elrich-for-county-council","tag-email","tag-facebook","tag-fake-news","tag-forest-glen","tag-funny","tag-germantown","tag-gmail","tag-google","tag-google-news","tag-hulu","tag-humor","tag-instagram","tag-joke","tag-kensington","tag-laugh","tag-local-news","tag-marc-elrich","tag-maryland","tag-maryland-satire","tag-mcdot","tag-mcps","tag-moco","tag-moco-boe","tag-moco-news","tag-moco-satire","tag-moco-schools","tag-moco-snow","tag-montgomery-county","tag-montgomery-county-satire","tag-montgomery-county-schools","tag-netflix","tag-no-school","tag-north-bethesda","tag-olney","tag-parody","tag-pike-and-rose","tag-plow","tag-poolesville","tag-potomac","tag-r-maryland","tag-reddit","tag-ride-on-bus","tag-rockville","tag-satire","tag-satirical-news","tag-school","tag-shady-grove","tag-silver-spring","tag-snow","tag-snow-days","tag-snow-plow","tag-snow-shovel","tag-snowstorm","tag-takoma","tag-takoma-park","tag-takoma-park-news","tag-takoma-park-satire","tag-takoma-satire","tag-takoma-torch","tag-the-moco-show","tag-tiktok","tag-twitter","tag-virginia-satire","tag-washington-dc","tag-wheaton","tag-youtube","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/images2842978119078115242907.jpg?fit=552%2C362&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-UD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3512,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions\/3512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}