Putting Students First Community Engagement Events

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Sounds like she is close to families and is putting students first. Why are you so threatened by her?

Because I don’t like her. I didn’t like her predecessors either. I feel MCPS spends way too much money marketing themselves, creating ridiculous equity programs or socio-emotional support initiatives, changing curriculum every few years and paying boatloads to lawyers to fend off complaints from families of children with special needs. That money could be used to far greater effect on actual, rigorous instruction, for example, teaching phonetic-based reading, which has been shown to be very successful method for all reader types, particularly dyslexic children.

No amount of glad-handing and photo ops will compensate for misuse of funds.

I am grateful and happy with some of the teachers and programs in MCPS. But I feel they exist in despite of, not thanks to, top leadership.

So you hate the idea of equity and especially can't stand a minority running MCPS.

Funny how all you can do is scream race when someone does not share your thinking and raises valid points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Before you complain, have you ever been to one of these meetings? It’s structured information gathering, not information flow down. If you don’t like what’s happening in MCPS, go and give your input, rather than complain on an anonymous board.

I’ve been to meetings in the past at the community level and special topics that impact my children. However, they mostly are BS without anything constructive being accomplished or followed up with.

Dr. McKnight has been in charge this entire school year. Her initial slogan was to put students first during her first 100 days as interim superintendent. That slogan did nothing for students at the school level, especially for students with special needs.

I totally disagree. She kept schools open despite the bullying from teachers, county exec and the covidians. That is putting students first, especially those with special needs. This along makes her my hero at least in the short term.

Many schools were shuttered after winter break. That’s not keeping schools open for those families impacted by the closures. Many schools who had equally high percentage of cases remained open so yes, equity in MCPS is a problem.

As far as students with special needs, my child is due compensatory services that MCPS promised to provide at an IEP meeting. We have been waiting for months for MCPS to initiate the services that would help my child regain skills he lost during online learning. Dr. McKnight has done absolutely nothing to help students with disabilities during her interim position. In fact, key vacancies and core practices to provide roadblocks for students with disabilities crates systemic discrimination within MCPS that she is not addressing.

by many you mean like 2-3 that had 5%+ infection rates?

+1. She didn't allow the irrational bullies to shut down the whole county for "two weeks" to "flatten the curve". I guarantee you if that had happened we would have been fighting to get the MCPS BOE to open them well into March. Instead we removed masks, which in an of itself is putting students first.
And while I understand that services for SPED are still woeful, the 90% of non-sped students are finally getting the education they had taken from them in 2020/2021.

So Dr. McKnight is a great leader if she underserves the needs of students with disabilities? You do realize meeting the needs of non-disabled students while not meeting the needs of students with disabilities is the very definition of discrimination on the basis of a disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. McKnight is holding three in person community engagement forums following Spring Break. I’m surprised that there’s not an online option but I guess meeting with a few hundred parents will check off a box for community engagement.

I am not understanding how this implies MCPS is putting students first. Wasn’t that part of her 100 days slogan? How were students put first for this school year?

https://mcpsweb.wufoo.com/forms/all-together-now-putting-our-students-first/

I love that she does this! We're so lucky to have such a great leader!

I think it's a great idea, hopefully she'll follow up with the people who raise concerns. Two issues though: there's no online option for parents who are working? Also, doing the meetings on Wednesdays at 7pm won't be the best way to maximize the amount of people who participate. All of them should've been on Friday/Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Yep. This is like a Trump rally. Good opportunity for the rally holder. That's about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. McKnight is holding three in person community engagement forums following Spring Break. I’m surprised that there’s not an online option but I guess meeting with a few hundred parents will check off a box for community engagement.

I am not understanding how this implies MCPS is putting students first. Wasn’t that part of her 100 days slogan? How were students put first for this school year?

https://mcpsweb.wufoo.com/forms/all-together-now-putting-our-students-first/

I love that she does this! We're so lucky to have such a great leader!

We all know it's you Monifa. LoL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Yep. This is like a Trump rally. Good opportunity for the rally holder. That's about it.

Not if parents are allowed to speak. Frankly, I am tired of MCPS propaganda and wasteful spending. If the focus is on the students then there would be smaller number of students per class. More highly trained special educators. More support staff like school counselors, school psychologists, LCSW, occupational therapists, and speech therapists.

Dr. McKnight’s budget speaks volumes that students do not come first in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Having a large group in person after spring break unmasked is irresponsible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Sounds like she is close to families and is putting students first. Why are you so threatened by her?

DP. I'm not the person you're asking this to, but I do think she's a terrible administrator and needs to be removed. I think she doesn't care about MCPS or kids, just her own career.

1. I read she doesn't live in the county or send her kids to MCPS. During the school shooting, the police had to escort her through traffic for a press conference while anxious parents and busses waited to let kids out of the school.
2. January's covid response was a total disaster. Instead of preparing, she made YouTube videos about what her favorite subject in school was or cafeteria lunch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZjpank-s0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_yWDfS2p9g). The 31 schools shut down in January weren't even the ones with the most serious covid infections. MCPS replaced metrics so that in just 15 instructional days in January, 2100+ staff and 9%+ of the student body were infected. There was a data suppression rule that was never explained, and the metrics were changed again (daily reporting stopped on March 1st) to obfuscate any covid issues using a 10-day-window metric instead of daily totals (ex. the 40'ish infected at Whitman HS).
3. January covid bus driver losses were so bad they called the National Guard to try to bus kids in.
https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-co-200-national-guard-troops-school-bus-driver-shortage-marc-elrich-montgomery-county-public-schools-larry-hogan
4. She's had two no confidence votes by the MCEA while interim Superintendent and she was STILL confirmed by the MC BOE.
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/montgomery-co-public-schools-teachers-union-votes-no-confidence-council-holding-emergency-session
5. This summer MCPS was a top-20 in open DoE OCR discrimination cases, so anything she's doing now is because she didn't look at her inbox.
6. How did MCPS spend $780K on bocci ball, $4M on diversity training, $2M on Kid Museum, when it was supposed to be covid money?
7. Hear anything about the $160M electric bus fiasco lately? https://www.schoolbusfleet.com/10156263/investigation-prompts-leave-for-two-maryland-transportation-directors I would think that deserved some attention.

Since the MC BOE confirmed her knowing all of this tells you how deep this runs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. McKnight is holding three in person community engagement forums following Spring Break. I’m surprised that there’s not an online option but I guess meeting with a few hundred parents will check off a box for community engagement.

I am not understanding how this implies MCPS is putting students first. Wasn’t that part of her 100 days slogan? How were students put first for this school year?

https://mcpsweb.wufoo.com/forms/all-together-now-putting-our-students-first/

I love that she does this! We're so lucky to have such a great leader!

I think it's a great idea, hopefully she'll follow up with the people who raise concerns. Two issues though: there's no online option for parents who are working? Also, doing the meetings on Wednesdays at 7pm won't be the best way to maximize the amount of people who participate. All of them should've been on Friday/Saturday.

No. Really? (I think you're starting to get the picture.. :roll

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Sounds like she is close to families and is putting students first. Why are you so threatened by her?

DP. I'm not the person you're asking this to, but I do think she's a terrible administrator and needs to be removed. I think she doesn't care about MCPS or kids, just her own career.

1. I read she doesn't live in the county or send her kids to MCPS. During the school shooting, the police had to escort her through traffic for a press conference while anxious parents and busses waited to let kids out of the school.
2. January's covid response was a total disaster. Instead of preparing, she made YouTube videos about what her favorite subject in school was or cafeteria lunch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZjpank-s0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_yWDfS2p9g). The 31 schools shut down in January weren't even the ones with the most serious covid infections. MCPS replaced metrics so that in just 15 instructional days in January, 2100+ staff and 9%+ of the student body were infected. There was a data suppression rule that was never explained, and the metrics were changed again (daily reporting stopped on March 1st) to obfuscate any covid issues using a 10-day-window metric instead of daily totals (ex. the 40'ish infected at Whitman HS).
3. January covid bus driver losses were so bad they called the National Guard to try to bus kids in.
https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-co-200-national-guard-troops-school-bus-driver-shortage-marc-elrich-montgomery-county-public-schools-larry-hogan
4. She's had two no confidence votes by the MCEA while interim Superintendent and she was STILL confirmed by the MC BOE.
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/montgomery-co-public-schools-teachers-union-votes-no-confidence-council-holding-emergency-session
5. This summer MCPS was a top-20 in open DoE OCR discrimination cases, so anything she's doing now is because she didn't look at her inbox.
6. How did MCPS spend $780K on bocci ball, $4M on diversity training, $2M on Kid Museum, when it was supposed to be covid money?
7. Hear anything about the $160M electric bus fiasco lately? https://www.schoolbusfleet.com/10156263/investigation-prompts-leave-for-two-maryland-transportation-directors I would think that deserved some attention.

Since the MC BOE confirmed her knowing all of this tells you how deep this runs.

Go ahead. Tell us what you really think!

[Anonymous]

These meetings are a joke. If she was serious in any way, then at the very least she’d go to each high school cluster for a meeting and try to figure out what those students need. Each cluster is so different. If that’s too much then it’s a clear sign that our county is too large.

My biggest issue with her is that schools are not safe. From elementary through high school, there are kids fighting and no no effective discipline. I am tired of hearing about equity surveys (I’m guessing 60 or so communications about it?) when we should be putting that effort into making sure that all students and staff, regardless of color, feel safe at school. A child who does not feel safe, will not and cannot learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a large group in person after spring break unmasked is irresponsible

+1 Not a good time to have large in person gatherings. There’s not even an online option so people can safely participate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Sounds like she is close to families and is putting students first. Why are you so threatened by her?

Because I don’t like her. I didn’t like her predecessors either. I feel MCPS spends way too much money marketing themselves, creating ridiculous equity programs or socio-emotional support initiatives, changing curriculum every few years and paying boatloads to lawyers to fend off complaints from families of children with special needs. That money could be used to far greater effect on actual, rigorous instruction, for example, teaching phonetic-based reading, which has been shown to be very successful method for all reader types, particularly dyslexic children.

No amount of glad-handing and photo ops will compensate for misuse of funds.

I am grateful and happy with some of the teachers and programs in MCPS. But I feel they exist in despite of, not thanks to, top leadership.

So you hate the idea of equity and especially can't stand a minority running MCPS.

Funny how all you can do is scream race when someone does not share your thinking and raises valid points.

And all you can do is spread hate and complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These meetings are a joke. If she was serious in any way, then at the very least she’d go to each high school cluster for a meeting and try to figure out what those students need. Each cluster is so different. If that’s too much then it’s a clear sign that our county is too large.

My biggest issue with her is that schools are not safe. From elementary through high school, there are kids fighting and no no effective discipline. I am tired of hearing about equity surveys (I’m guessing 60 or so communications about it?) when we should be putting that effort into making sure that all students and staff, regardless of color, feel safe at school. A child who does not feel safe, will not and cannot learn.

Are you the poster that keeps hyping all these things in the hope of bringing back the prison guards?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s just building her image, OP. She wants to be seen as close to the families she serves. A photo of her talking to families, a little buzz and press coverage, and she’s in clover.
Unless the meetings turn contentious, and the media stories are about how communities are unhappy with her…

Sounds like she is close to families and is putting students first. Why are you so threatened by her?

Because I don’t like her. I didn’t like her predecessors either. I feel MCPS spends way too much money marketing themselves, creating ridiculous equity programs or socio-emotional support initiatives, changing curriculum every few years and paying boatloads to lawyers to fend off complaints from families of children with special needs. That money could be used to far greater effect on actual, rigorous instruction, for example, teaching phonetic-based reading, which has been shown to be very successful method for all reader types, particularly dyslexic children.

No amount of glad-handing and photo ops will compensate for misuse of funds.

I am grateful and happy with some of the teachers and programs in MCPS. But I feel they exist in despite of, not thanks to, top leadership.

So you hate the idea of equity and especially can't stand a minority running MCPS.

Funny how all you can do is scream race when someone does not share your thinking and raises valid points.

And all you can do is spread hate and complain.

If she was competent and did a good job, do you really think I would complain? Do you think the stacks of CFPs and DOE OCR open case files are because she's awesome? How about the qualified teacher, staff, bus driver gap?

Sorry but if you want a cheerleader, go join the NFL. Her job is to EDUCATE, not travel around the country trying to find teachers because she screwed up.

I hope her replacement reaches out to teachers that left and hears their concerns. Maybe some of them will come back then, and we won't have this revolving door anymore.