MCPS wants $180 million more but is cutting teachers and counselors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll are amazing. The Operating Budget plan has been available for review for 2 months including community comment. MCCPTA can barely get anyone to sit on the committee to review the budget. The BOR has had (3)Operating Budget hearings and (4) Work sessions to review every part of the operating budget, all of which are recorded so can still be reviewed. But, today after one article is published, one that seems barely researched, ya’ll have concern and complaint, and all without having reviewed said budget yourselves???

And folks wonder why America has problems.

Are you staying that the article is incorrect? That they are not adding 7 central staff positions? Nobody is reading an over 400 page budget. Of course we are going to rely on synopsis. But if the article is incorrect, please share your insight. I would truly appreciate it.

They are not arguing that the report is incorrect. Instead they engaging in an ad hominem attack. They are also engaging in an attack on journalism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am going to make fifty more threads about greedy teachers and their unions.

Xo, Tucker Carlson's new intern Edmund "Bunny" McKay.

This has nothing to do with teachers and has to do with the BOE and MCPS leadership.

[Anonymous]

The budget shows the priorities of MCPS. Expand Central Office, give government money away to connections via contracts, and cut services to students.

We need MORE teachers and counselors. There’s still learning loss from online learning and we barely made a dent this year.

[Anonymous]

Per MCPS - “… a $179.6 million increase in spending - about 6.5 percent - that the district needs to provide critical direct academic, safety and social-emotional supports to students …”

https://news.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/quicknotes/board-tentatively-adopts-2-96-billion-operating-budget/

Students need staff in schools. How is cutting teachers and counselors consistent with the above statement by MCPS?

Then there’s the statement that throws the BOE under the bus as the ones who approved a larger budget than Dr. McKnight asked for.

[Anonymous]

We’ll all have to attend the public hearings in April. I’ll publicly dissent because this budget is ludicrous.

[Anonymous]

I work at Another elementary school that lost its reading support/intervention teacher, who was one of 4 people in the building trained in specific interventions. Special education student numbers increased dramatically this year but no increase in special education teachers. No idea how we are going to properly support the students who need intervention.

[Anonymous]

Well, what do people expect when they have things like "anti-racist audits" and hiring for communications PR. Those things aren't done by teaching staff. They are done by admin types from Central Office.

[Anonymous]

Is MCPS becoming complacent with running operating schools with staffing stretched so thin that student needs are not being met?

The budget is a slap in the face to every staff member in schools and is a disservice to students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll are amazing. The Operating Budget plan has been available for review for 2 months including community comment. MCCPTA can barely get anyone to sit on the committee to review the budget. The BOR has had (3)Operating Budget hearings and (4) Work sessions to review every part of the operating budget, all of which are recorded so can still be reviewed. But, today after one article is published, one that seems barely researched, ya’ll have concern and complaint, and all without having reviewed said budget yourselves???

And folks wonder why America has problems.

Are you staying that the article is incorrect? That they are not adding 7 central staff positions? Nobody is reading an over 400 page budget. Of course we are going to rely on synopsis. But if the article is incorrect, please share your insight. I would truly appreciate it.

They are not arguing that the report is incorrect. Instead they engaging in an ad hominem attack. They are also engaging in an attack on journalism.

I’m suggesting people actually read through the budget themselves and ask questions or at the least watch the Operating budget work session where the entire thing is discussed. The journalism in this article is poor as it provides no detail, answers no questions about why, and relies on one table in a budget that you all note is 431 pages. And yet, this board has taken the news article as Gospel and started complaining. Why? If you won’t even take the time to review the budget why are you complaining? Why are you attacking MCPS about not being transparent or doing what’s right when apparently you have no interest in engaging in the actual process. Some of ya’ll would say Fox news watchers are low information persons who don’t use logic, but how are ya’ll displaying yourselves to be any different than them in this case?

If you care about the budget and want to know what it represents, go watch the Operating Budget Work sessions and hearings. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to give you all the details, especially not on this forum. You have the tools and opportunity, whether you use them is on you. If you won’t that fine, but at least admit you don’t actually care and just like complaining.

[Anonymous]

The County schools need oversight. It’s upsetting to me that they’re cutting Teacher and counselor positions so that central office can become even more bloated and top-heavy. The real losers in this are the kids.

[Anonymous]

Not sayin' that there isn't waste, fraud or abuse in the system that drains the budget, but...INFLATION. We're in for a rough ride after a decades-long period of bread & circus policies that have masked price pressures, relied on unsustainable ever-better conditions and sold our financial futures to the already-wealthy & foreign interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll are amazing. The Operating Budget plan has been available for review for 2 months including community comment. MCCPTA can barely get anyone to sit on the committee to review the budget. The BOR has had (3)Operating Budget hearings and (4) Work sessions to review every part of the operating budget, all of which are recorded so can still be reviewed. But, today after one article is published, one that seems barely researched, ya’ll have concern and complaint, and all without having reviewed said budget yourselves???

And folks wonder why America has problems.

Are you staying that the article is incorrect? That they are not adding 7 central staff positions? Nobody is reading an over 400 page budget. Of course we are going to rely on synopsis. But if the article is incorrect, please share your insight. I would truly appreciate it.

They are not arguing that the report is incorrect. Instead they engaging in an ad hominem attack. They are also engaging in an attack on journalism.

I’m suggesting people actually read through the budget themselves and ask questions or at the least watch the Operating budget work session where the entire thing is discussed. The journalism in this article is poor as it provides no detail, answers no questions about why, and relies on one table in a budget that you all note is 431 pages. And yet, this board has taken the news article as Gospel and started complaining. Why? If you won’t even take the time to review the budget why are you complaining? Why are you attacking MCPS about not being transparent or doing what’s right when apparently you have no interest in engaging in the actual process. Some of ya’ll would say Fox news watchers are low information persons who don’t use logic, but how are ya’ll displaying yourselves to be any different than them in this case?

If you care about the budget and want to know what it represents, go watch the Operating Budget Work sessions and hearings. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to give you all the details, especially not on this forum. You have the tools and opportunity, whether you use them is on you. If you won’t that fine, but at least admit you don’t actually care and just like complaining.

LOL Don’t read an actual budget that plainly states a fact! Go listen to hours and hours of MCPS staff lying to Board members and covering up the details!
Staff will NEVER discuss the details in public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll are amazing. The Operating Budget plan has been available for review for 2 months including community comment. MCCPTA can barely get anyone to sit on the committee to review the budget. The BOR has had (3)Operating Budget hearings and (4) Work sessions to review every part of the operating budget, all of which are recorded so can still be reviewed. But, today after one article is published, one that seems barely researched, ya’ll have concern and complaint, and all without having reviewed said budget yourselves???

And folks wonder why America has problems.

Are you staying that the article is incorrect? That they are not adding 7 central staff positions? Nobody is reading an over 400 page budget. Of course we are going to rely on synopsis. But if the article is incorrect, please share your insight. I would truly appreciate it.

They are not arguing that the report is incorrect. Instead they engaging in an ad hominem attack. They are also engaging in an attack on journalism.

I’m suggesting people actually read through the budget themselves and ask questions or at the least watch the Operating budget work session where the entire thing is discussed. The journalism in this article is poor as it provides no detail, answers no questions about why, and relies on one table in a budget that you all note is 431 pages. And yet, this board has taken the news article as Gospel and started complaining. Why? If you won’t even take the time to review the budget why are you complaining? Why are you attacking MCPS about not being transparent or doing what’s right when apparently you have no interest in engaging in the actual process. Some of ya’ll would say Fox news watchers are low information persons who don’t use logic, but how are ya’ll displaying yourselves to be any different than them in this case?

If you care about the budget and want to know what it represents, go watch the Operating Budget Work sessions and hearings. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to give you all the details, especially not on this forum. You have the tools and opportunity, whether you use them is on you. If you won’t that fine, but at least admit you don’t actually care and just like complaining.

LOL Don’t read an actual budget that plainly states a fact! Go listen to hours and hours of MCPS staff lying to Board members and covering up the details!
Staff will NEVER discuss the details in public.

+1 The BOE apparently approved and praised a budget that cuts the very staff members schools need more of - teachers and counselors. Did they read the entire budget before approving it

[Anonymous]

That's $180 mil worth of CRT cloaked in SEL. Thankfully my kid is almost out of MCPS. If I had a kid under 8 right now I'd be looking for a private school or to move away from MoCo. The wokeness in MCPS is going to increase massively over the next decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sayin' that there isn't waste, fraud or abuse in the system that drains the budget, but...INFLATION. We're in for a rough ride after a decades-long period of bread & circus policies that have masked price pressures, relied on unsustainable ever-better conditions and sold our financial futures to the already-wealthy & foreign interests.

OK, inflation is around 7% and the budget has increased about 7%. Salaries make up about 90% of the budget. MCPS teachers and staff will receive a 3.35% COLA not in July when the new fiscal year starts, but in December. Therefore the COLA is really only 1.5%. They're cutting 37 teachers. Where the actual F is the rest of the money going?

This is outrageous! And we're stuck with Dr. McKnight for another 4 plus years.