What could be up? Elementary School Changes for next year?

[Anonymous]

From the board meeting, the four schools which are falling below the new Title I cutoff are Brookhaven, Oak View, Strathmore, and Viers Mill. There was nothing mentioned about those schools not being able to be focus schools, and there was discussion about working with the schools to figure out other ways to continue the programs and staffing they currently have. Most (all?) of the board members seemed very alarmed about this change, and asked for there to be a dedicated meeting on this topic at a date TBD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community eligibility is actually a really important program for addressing hunger and ensuring that more kids in need get free meals.

“Not only does community eligibility increase participation in the school meal programs, it also reduces labor costs for schools, increases efficiency, reduces stigma, and increases federal revenues.”

https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/federal-nutrition-programs/community-eligibility-provision-cep/

Who are you responding to?

This post:

This feels wrong. CEP uses SNAP eligibility to determine which schools participate, but MCPS did not need to use the CEP formula to determine how they distribute Title I funds. That was a choice, and a bad one in the specific case of MCPS given the very high number of recent immigrants (not yet signed up) and the decision to place "magnet" programs in high needs schools.

[Anonymous]

The problem is that in CEP schools, they don’t put an effort into collecting FARMs data because it’s not necessary to get kids fed.

So then when it comes time to do a systemwide poverty ranking comparison, (which is what they do to determine who gets what services), you are ranking schools by apples and oranges. So it’s possible that Strathmore, had they stuck with collecting FARMS forms, would still qualify. But because the CEP qualification uses SNAP (which undocumented families do not get), large swaths of students in these schools are not being counted.

What did surprise/disappoint me was that there are board members who didn’t know what the community eligibility provision is. That is a fairly important change to education policy that has had a real game-changing impact on how we have increased the safety net for families. Why don't they know what it is?

Now unfortunately, it looks like the use of community eligibility has had unintended consequences. I’d like to understand if this could have been predicted and if there were things that could have been done along the way to mitigate these consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community eligibility is actually a really important program for addressing hunger and ensuring that more kids in need get free meals.

“Not only does community eligibility increase participation in the school meal programs, it also reduces labor costs for schools, increases efficiency, reduces stigma, and increases federal revenues.”

https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/federal-nutrition-programs/community-eligibility-provision-cep/

Who are you responding to?

This post:

This feels wrong. CEP uses SNAP eligibility to determine which schools participate, but MCPS did not need to use the CEP formula to determine how they distribute Title I funds. That was a choice, and a bad one in the specific case of MCPS given the very high number of recent immigrants (not yet signed up) and the decision to place "magnet" programs in high needs schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is that in CEP schools, they don’t put an effort into collecting FARMs data because it’s not necessary to get kids fed.

So then when it comes time to do a systemwide poverty ranking comparison, (which is what they do to determine who gets what services), you are ranking schools by apples and oranges. So it’s possible that Strathmore, had they stuck with collecting FARMS forms, would still qualify. But because the CEP qualification uses SNAP (which undocumented families do not get), large swaths of students in these schools are not being counted.

What did surprise/disappoint me was that there are board members who didn’t know what the community eligibility provision is. That is a fairly important change to education policy that has had a real game-changing impact on how we have increased the safety net for families. Why don't they know what it is?

Now unfortunately, it looks like the use of community eligibility has had unintended consequences. I’d like to understand if this could have been predicted and if there were things that could have been done along the way to mitigate these consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community eligibility is actually a really important program for addressing hunger and ensuring that more kids in need get free meals.

“Not only does community eligibility increase participation in the school meal programs, it also reduces labor costs for schools, increases efficiency, reduces stigma, and increases federal revenues.”

https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/federal-nutrition-programs/community-eligibility-provision-cep/

Who are you responding to?

This post:

This feels wrong. CEP uses SNAP eligibility to determine which schools participate, but MCPS did not need to use the CEP formula to determine how they distribute Title I funds. That was a choice, and a bad one in the specific case of MCPS given the very high number of recent immigrants (not yet signed up) and the decision to place "magnet" programs in high needs schools.

I don't see why they couldn't have predicted it. It's not a new program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is that in CEP schools, they don’t put an effort into collecting FARMs data because it’s not necessary to get kids fed.

So then when it comes time to do a systemwide poverty ranking comparison, (which is what they do to determine who gets what services), you are ranking schools by apples and oranges. So it’s possible that Strathmore, had they stuck with collecting FARMS forms, would still qualify. But because the CEP qualification uses SNAP (which undocumented families do not get), large swaths of students in these schools are not being counted.

What did surprise/disappoint me was that there are board members who didn’t know what the community eligibility provision is. That is a fairly important change to education policy that has had a real game-changing impact on how we have increased the safety net for families. Why don't they know what it is?

Now unfortunately, it looks like the use of community eligibility has had unintended consequences. I’d like to understand if this could have been predicted and if there were things that could have been done along the way to mitigate these consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community eligibility is actually a really important program for addressing hunger and ensuring that more kids in need get free meals.

“Not only does community eligibility increase participation in the school meal programs, it also reduces labor costs for schools, increases efficiency, reduces stigma, and increases federal revenues.”

https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/federal-nutrition-programs/community-eligibility-provision-cep/

Who are you responding to?

This post:

This feels wrong. CEP uses SNAP eligibility to determine which schools participate, but MCPS did not need to use the CEP formula to determine how they distribute Title I funds. That was a choice, and a bad one in the specific case of MCPS given the very high number of recent immigrants (not yet signed up) and the decision to place "magnet" programs in high needs schools.

Which BOE members didn’t know? Any who are up for re-election? Because that level of ignorance disturbs me, TBH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is that in CEP schools, they don’t put an effort into collecting FARMs data because it’s not necessary to get kids fed.

So then when it comes time to do a systemwide poverty ranking comparison, (which is what they do to determine who gets what services), you are ranking schools by apples and oranges. So it’s possible that Strathmore, had they stuck with collecting FARMS forms, would still qualify. But because the CEP qualification uses SNAP (which undocumented families do not get), large swaths of students in these schools are not being counted.

What did surprise/disappoint me was that there are board members who didn’t know what the community eligibility provision is. That is a fairly important change to education policy that has had a real game-changing impact on how we have increased the safety net for families. Why don't they know what it is?

Now unfortunately, it looks like the use of community eligibility has had unintended consequences. I’d like to understand if this could have been predicted and if there were things that could have been done along the way to mitigate these consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community eligibility is actually a really important program for addressing hunger and ensuring that more kids in need get free meals.

“Not only does community eligibility increase participation in the school meal programs, it also reduces labor costs for schools, increases efficiency, reduces stigma, and increases federal revenues.”

https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/federal-nutrition-programs/community-eligibility-provision-cep/

Who are you responding to?

This post:

This feels wrong. CEP uses SNAP eligibility to determine which schools participate, but MCPS did not need to use the CEP formula to determine how they distribute Title I funds. That was a choice, and a bad one in the specific case of MCPS given the very high number of recent immigrants (not yet signed up) and the decision to place "magnet" programs in high needs schools.

Which BOE members didn’t know? Any who are up for re-election? Because that level of ignorance disturbs me, TBH.

Who cares just blame them just because it's fun to push these unfounded allegations!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the board meeting, the four schools which are falling below the new Title I cutoff are Brookhaven, Oak View, Strathmore, and Viers Mill. There was nothing mentioned about those schools not being able to be focus schools, and there was discussion about working with the schools to figure out other ways to continue the programs and staffing they currently have. Most (all?) of the board members seemed very alarmed about this change, and asked for there to be a dedicated meeting on this topic at a date TBD.

This is SHOCKING. Viers Mill just became a community school with universal free lunch, and now suddenly they're too rich for Title I? Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the board meeting, the four schools which are falling below the new Title I cutoff are Brookhaven, Oak View, Strathmore, and Viers Mill. There was nothing mentioned about those schools not being able to be focus schools, and there was discussion about working with the schools to figure out other ways to continue the programs and staffing they currently have. Most (all?) of the board members seemed very alarmed about this change, and asked for there to be a dedicated meeting on this topic at a date TBD.

This is SHOCKING. Viers Mill just became a community school with universal free lunch, and now suddenly they're too rich for Title I? Ridiculous.

According to what they said at the meeting, the four schools will still be community schools and still have universal free lunch, because those are separate determinations from Title I.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is that in CEP schools, they don’t put an effort into collecting FARMs data because it’s not necessary to get kids fed.

So then when it comes time to do a systemwide poverty ranking comparison, (which is what they do to determine who gets what services), you are ranking schools by apples and oranges. So it’s possible that Strathmore, had they stuck with collecting FARMS forms, would still qualify. But because the CEP qualification uses SNAP (which undocumented families do not get), large swaths of students in these schools are not being counted.

What did surprise/disappoint me was that there are board members who didn’t know what the community eligibility provision is. That is a fairly important change to education policy that has had a real game-changing impact on how we have increased the safety net for families. Why don't they know what it is?

Now unfortunately, it looks like the use of community eligibility has had unintended consequences. I’d like to understand if this could have been predicted and if there were things that could have been done along the way to mitigate these consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community eligibility is actually a really important program for addressing hunger and ensuring that more kids in need get free meals.

“Not only does community eligibility increase participation in the school meal programs, it also reduces labor costs for schools, increases efficiency, reduces stigma, and increases federal revenues.”

https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/federal-nutrition-programs/community-eligibility-provision-cep/

Who are you responding to?

This post:

This feels wrong. CEP uses SNAP eligibility to determine which schools participate, but MCPS did not need to use the CEP formula to determine how they distribute Title I funds. That was a choice, and a bad one in the specific case of MCPS given the very high number of recent immigrants (not yet signed up) and the decision to place "magnet" programs in high needs schools.

Which BOE members didn’t know? Any who are up for re-election? Because that level of ignorance disturbs me, TBH.

It seemed to me like they did know about the change in general, just not about specifically how MCPS had managed their internal process to create the ranked list of schools to determine Title I eligibility.

[Anonymous]

You can watch the discussion for yourself here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/HWeOK0UfQ78?si=u4flSkcOtMO78owy&t=3990

[Anonymous]

Honestly the MCPS staff sound incompetent. They are claiming that they need to rank schools by CEP and FARMS and "that's new". It's not clear what ranking "by CEP" means. From what I have read, there is no new federal restriction on collecting income data from families and using that to rank schools for Title 1. MCPS just didn't do it. They also claim they could not have predicted this happening and that is just stunning? Why couldn't you predict this??? It seems completely obvious. Lots of hemming and hawing about how this happens every year and how they don't want to take money from other schools and the principals decided. WTF. I feel bad for the BOE to to have to deal with these morons.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like McKnight's payout could fund Title 1 funding for at least one of these schools.

[Anonymous]

And this is not the first year CEP exists! They know this from previous years. The change is that MCPS CHOSE not to collect income information from families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And this is not the first year CEP exists! They know this from previous years. The change is that MCPS CHOSE not to collect income information from families.

It's more like it was left up to the schools to collect the FARMS forms, as an option. Some families submitted forms, some didn't, and the schools didn't push hard to get everyone's forms in because they knew they already had breakfast and lunch for the whole school covered due to CEP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And this is not the first year CEP exists! They know this from previous years. The change is that MCPS CHOSE not to collect income information from families.

It's more like it was left up to the schools to collect the FARMS forms, as an option. Some families submitted forms, some didn't, and the schools didn't push hard to get everyone's forms in because they knew they already had breakfast and lunch for the whole school covered due to CEP.

If that's indeed what happened (which doesn't sound consistent with what was said at the meeting - sounded more like a MCPS-wide decision not to collect it), then that is still a massive management failure on the part of MCPS central staff to anticipate and communicate to schools the importance of collecting the FARMS forms.