Summary of change to Focus/Title I school designations?

[Anonymous]

I've read about how some schools are losing Title 1 funding (and some are gaining it) due to the new way MCPS is calculating poverty metrics. However, I can't find if the same is true for some Focus schools? A neighbor claims our ES, which is currently a Focus school, will not be next year. My DC starts kindergarten next year so we are not at the school yet. How can I verify this? TIA.

[Anonymous]

I have heard the Focus category is going away with the new emphasis on community schools from the Blueprint. But I don't know if that's true or not as nobody from MCPS will answer simple questions about the Title I situations.

[Anonymous]

I work at a Focus school and the reduced class sizes in K - 2 helps tremendously. I cannot imagine having 25 kindergarteners in my class at our current FARMS rate.

[Anonymous]

Ask at K registration. We lost Title I but will maintain the smaller class sizes. I haven't heard that Focus is going away. The change in metrics is that the county is going by families that have applied for and receive government benefits to count poverty, vs having families fill out income verification forms. If families don't get assistance, they're not counted as FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Our focus school became title 1 and I was quite surprised, but apparently the recorded farms rate jumped by quite a lot.

[Anonymous]

Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

The Oak View/NHE PTA folks did a really good presentation on this, but I don't have the link from the PTA meeting. Going from memory, federal law says that schools above a certain threshold (75% maybe) receive Title I funding. After that, districts have some discretion on how to use federal/state/local funds for schools that fall below that threshold but are still high needs, or have high needs populations within a higher-income school.

What happened this cycle is that several of the highest-needs schools stopped collecting FARMS forms because they were so far above the threshold that it made sense to just give everyone free breakfast/lunch than to use resources running down FARMS forms.

So, in the absence of FARMS forms, MCPS used a new formula that relies much more heavily on benefits that require interaction with the state and/or federal government. Moreover, they are using metrics that in a Trump Administration could lead people to be denied asylum status.

This requirement that families be registered with the federal government in ways that could impact their immigration proceedings disproportionately impacted schools with large Hispanic populations. So, schools that lost their status like Oak View and Viers Mill are majority Hispanic, and schools that gained Title I status are primarily Black/African immigrants.

For what it is worth, I would not expect those new categories to "hold" for next year. MCPS will change the formula again, which is going to be disruptive on all sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

I don't remember the cutoffs ever being specified. They may change from year to year. MCPS does publish a list of the Focus and Title I schools in chapter 3 of each CIP. Here is the current year's list (see page 3-3):

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP25_Chapter3.pdf

The new CIP will come out in October, so we will probably not know next year's list until then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

I don't remember the cutoffs ever being specified. They may change from year to year. MCPS does publish a list of the Focus and Title I schools in chapter 3 of each CIP. Here is the current year's list (see page 3-3):

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP25_Chapter3.pdf

The new CIP will come out in October, so we will probably not know next year's list until then.

When does the schools at a glance/school profiles data come out? Could try to triangulate based on farms rates and this year's list. Obviously won't work for the ones that give the free meals to all students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work at a Focus school and the reduced class sizes in K - 2 helps tremendously. I cannot imagine having 25 kindergarteners in my class at our current FARMS rate.

What size are Focus school classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work at a Focus school and the reduced class sizes in K - 2 helps tremendously. I cannot imagine having 25 kindergarteners in my class at our current FARMS rate.

What size are Focus school classes?

Focus and Title I have the same guidelines, per the operating budget:

Classroom teacher positions for Grades K–5
are allocated based on enrollment projections
to Kindergarten using a class size guideline of
24, to Grades 1–2 using a class size guideline of
25, to Grade 3 using a class size guideline of 26,
and to Grades 4-5 using a class size guideline of
28. Additional classroom teacher positions are
provided to focus and Title I schools to Grades
K–2 using a class size guideline of 18, to Grade 3
using a class size guideline of 24, and to Grades
4-5 using a class size guideline of 26.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work at a Focus school and the reduced class sizes in K - 2 helps tremendously. I cannot imagine having 25 kindergarteners in my class at our current FARMS rate.

What size are Focus school classes?

< than 20

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

I don't remember the cutoffs ever being specified. They may change from year to year. MCPS does publish a list of the Focus and Title I schools in chapter 3 of each CIP. Here is the current year's list (see page 3-3):

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP25_Chapter3.pdf

The new CIP will come out in October, so we will probably not know next year's list until then.

When does the schools at a glance/school profiles data come out? Could try to triangulate based on farms rates and this year's list. Obviously won't work for the ones that give the free meals to all students.

The profiles are currently displaying 22-23 and 21-22 data, depending on which field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

I don't remember the cutoffs ever being specified. They may change from year to year. MCPS does publish a list of the Focus and Title I schools in chapter 3 of each CIP. Here is the current year's list (see page 3-3):

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP25_Chapter3.pdf

The new CIP will come out in October, so we will probably not know next year's list until then.

When does the schools at a glance/school profiles data come out? Could try to triangulate based on farms rates and this year's list. Obviously won't work for the ones that give the free meals to all students.

The profiles are currently displaying 22-23 and 21-22 data, depending on which field.

Thanks. Do you know when the 23-24 data will come out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.

I don't remember the cutoffs ever being specified. They may change from year to year. MCPS does publish a list of the Focus and Title I schools in chapter 3 of each CIP. Here is the current year's list (see page 3-3):

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP25_Chapter3.pdf

The new CIP will come out in October, so we will probably not know next year's list until then.

When does the schools at a glance/school profiles data come out? Could try to triangulate based on farms rates and this year's list. Obviously won't work for the ones that give the free meals to all students.

The profiles are currently displaying 22-23 and 21-22 data, depending on which field.

Thanks. Do you know when the 23-24 data will come out?

It was supposed to come out "in early 2024," according to this announcement:

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=13357