Does the MCPS proposal for zero additional teachers at programs hold water?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read my lips. No new teachers. Trust me on that one.

So we happen to have a bunch of NIH post docs already at MCPS to create four new programs along the lines of Blair SMCS? Because if the teachers are not all at the same high level, then the proposed plan will not equitably executed. There’s a difference between teachers at MIT and teachers at the local community college.

You could get an elementary teacher who decided to go to high school. You just never know. Often they force teachers to learn new subjects that are out of their depth. How do I know? Happened to me! Took me a couple of years to get out of that pigeonhole (I was forced to teach coding and robotics AND source my own robots because the school’s were too old. HATED it). You can teach out of your curriculum area for one year. They take advantage of that.

This sounds like it will be a huge problem with this new regional programming. Taylor may think he can make large decisions on a quick turn, but he is introducing a large amount of chaos into a large school system. The students will suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the Blair teachers will probably be re-allocated to the other 4 STEM programs. Blair's overall enrollment will decline with the new boundaries, and the size of the Blair magnet will probably also go down.

But still, these teachers would have to be willing to be re-assigned, and there are nowhere near enough for 4 new quality programs. I don't understand why this regional program concept wasn't attempted with 3 or 4 regions instead.

Not all the boundary options has Blair enrollment declining though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have first-hand knowledge to address your questions, OP, but common sense would lead me to say "absolutely not" to the question in the post title.

I do find it flabbergasting that none of these questions came up once from a Board member during a 5 hour meeting yesterday.

Seems like the board has been pummeled into public submission. Hope they are asking questions behind the scenes.

They don't care. Some are bailing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the Blair teachers will probably be re-allocated to the other 4 STEM programs. Blair's overall enrollment will decline with the new boundaries, and the size of the Blair magnet will probably also go down.

But still, these teachers would have to be willing to be re-assigned, and there are nowhere near enough for 4 new quality programs. I don't understand why this regional program concept wasn't attempted with 3 or 4 regions instead.

Not all the boundary options has Blair enrollment declining though.

Compared to current enrollment (3,200), they do. Options are for 2,600-2,900 residents students. I assume they’ll net some via transfers, but not 300+. That’s a good thing though, with Blair being very over-capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not very familiar with how high school staffing works or with the details of the qualifications needed to teach in the various programs MCPS is proposing, so although it doesn't seem right to me, I would love to hear from folks who understand this better.

MCPS is saying there will not be any extra staffing for any of these programs (except for one program coordinator per school covering all programs at that school), and that the teachers will just come out of the regular staffing allocations at each high school. They have also said that the new programs will phase in so that teachers would only be teaching the program classes to 9th graders the first year, 9th and 10th the second, etc.

Does that seem like it will work? Do schools already have the staff needed to teach most or all of these classes, and will they have enough space in their schedules to add the new program classes without decreasing access to classes for non-program students? Will this still be true at schools that lose a lot of their staff due to drops in enrollment after the boundary changes? (I believe high schools lose about 4 teachers for every 100 students they lose?)

Or are any of the classes for the programs specialized enough that some schools may not already have the staff needed to teach them, and if so, how would they find the space in the staffing budget to add new teachers? Are there non-program classes they could cut to make this work? Would these specialized teachers be able to take over other standard classes for non-program students to make a full schedule, or would they need to hire these teachers at a 0.2 or 0.4 the first year and slowly build up (and would teachers be OK with that)?

The proposed classes for the various programs are here (pages 37-86), for reference: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DMJHXR4AA9BD/$file/Boundary%20Studies%20Program%20Analysis%20Update%20251016%20PPT%20REV.pdf

No new staffing means the total number of teachers in the school (and in the district) isn’t going to increase. It doesn’t mean there won’t be any shifting around of teachers.

There are already more highly qualified teachers to teach advanced courses in each school than there are sections of advanced courses. The majority of classes in the program shifts can be covered. Some specialty classes may need teachers to also move, especially if the entire program moves. For example, when they shifted the upcounty MS humanities magnet from Clemente to MLK, they rolled it up by grade level and the existing teachers in the program were given the option to transfer with the program. Some did, some didn’t.

[Anonymous]

Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

The bolded parts do not present in the STEM program. For transportation, the 9th period is eliminated. Math starts at algebra 2, so grade 10 will be precalc. As function covers both, it will be gone. Organic chemistry, if there’s one in the future, will likely be moved to the biomedical science program. Don’t think about math physics. Right now it can only collect enough enrollment every other year.

The top students will compete more on ECs with their own resources as they cannot differentiate through choosing more challenged classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

The bolded parts do not present in the STEM program. For transportation, the 9th period is eliminated. Math starts at algebra 2, so grade 10 will be precalc. As function covers both, it will be gone. Organic chemistry, if there’s one in the future, will likely be moved to the biomedical science program. Don’t think about math physics. Right now it can only collect enough enrollment every other year.

The top students will compete more on ECs with their own resources as they cannot differentiate through choosing more challenged classes.

So STEM is the normal college bound path with maybe a few extra CS electives. No need for highly trained staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

The bolded parts do not present in the STEM program. For transportation, the 9th period is eliminated. Math starts at algebra 2, so grade 10 will be precalc. As function covers both, it will be gone. Organic chemistry, if there’s one in the future, will likely be moved to the biomedical science program. Don’t think about math physics. Right now it can only collect enough enrollment every other year.

The top students will compete more on ECs with their own resources as they cannot differentiate through choosing more challenged classes.

So STEM is the normal college bound path with maybe a few extra CS electives. No need for highly trained staff.

And no need to attend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

The bolded parts do not present in the STEM program. For transportation, the 9th period is eliminated. Math starts at algebra 2, so grade 10 will be precalc. As function covers both, it will be gone. Organic chemistry, if there’s one in the future, will likely be moved to the biomedical science program. Don’t think about math physics. Right now it can only collect enough enrollment every other year.

The top students will compete more on ECs with their own resources as they cannot differentiate through choosing more challenged classes.

So STEM is the normal college bound path with maybe a few extra CS electives. No need for highly trained staff.

Yes. MCPS calls it STEM from the very beginning because they know clearly they cannot replicate 6 SMCS. They lie on repeatedly saying Blair SMCS will not be gone. But now you can see it’ll be replaced by the new mediocre STEM program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

Not sure the details of the SMCS program at Blair but you can see the regional version here on page 79-- how does it compare? https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DMJHXR4AA9BD/$file/Boundary%20Studies%20Program%20Analysis%20Update%20251016%20PPT%20REV.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

Not sure the details of the SMCS program at Blair but you can see the regional version here on page 79-- how does it compare? https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DMJHXR4AA9BD/$file/Boundary%20Studies%20Program%20Analysis%20Update%20251016%20PPT%20REV.pdf

Impossible to compare not knowing what the elective options are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the Blair teachers will probably be re-allocated to the other 4 STEM programs. Blair's overall enrollment will decline with the new boundaries, and the size of the Blair magnet will probably also go down.

But still, these teachers would have to be willing to be re-assigned, and there are nowhere near enough for 4 new quality programs. I don't understand why this regional program concept wasn't attempted with 3 or 4 regions instead.

Not all the boundary options has Blair enrollment declining though.

Compared to current enrollment (3,200), they do. Options are for 2,600-2,900 residents students. I assume they’ll net some via transfers, but not 300+. That’s a good thing though, with Blair being very over-capacity.

The question is if they lose that many students what will be cut as teachers will be transferred to other schools and not replaced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

The bolded parts do not present in the STEM program. For transportation, the 9th period is eliminated. Math starts at algebra 2, so grade 10 will be precalc. As function covers both, it will be gone. Organic chemistry, if there’s one in the future, will likely be moved to the biomedical science program. Don’t think about math physics. Right now it can only collect enough enrollment every other year.

The top students will compete more on ECs with their own resources as they cannot differentiate through choosing more challenged classes.

So STEM is the normal college bound path with maybe a few extra CS electives. No need for highly trained staff.

Yes. MCPS calls it STEM from the very beginning because they know clearly they cannot replicate 6 SMCS. They lie on repeatedly saying Blair SMCS will not be gone. But now you can see it’ll be replaced by the new mediocre STEM program.

It will be up to the principal. They are putting the stem at the schools already with strong stem so they don’t need to make any changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but MCPS is not recreating SMCS at 4 more schools. They are launching STEM programs. We have no idea how close that will be to the existing SMCS. 9 period day? Block Scheduling? Functions? Organic Chemistry? Math Phys?

The bolded parts do not present in the STEM program. For transportation, the 9th period is eliminated. Math starts at algebra 2, so grade 10 will be precalc. As function covers both, it will be gone. Organic chemistry, if there’s one in the future, will likely be moved to the biomedical science program. Don’t think about math physics. Right now it can only collect enough enrollment every other year.

The top students will compete more on ECs with their own resources as they cannot differentiate through choosing more challenged classes.

So STEM is the normal college bound path with maybe a few extra CS electives. No need for highly trained staff.

Yes. MCPS calls it STEM from the very beginning because they know clearly they cannot replicate 6 SMCS. They lie on repeatedly saying Blair SMCS will not be gone. But now you can see it’ll be replaced by the new mediocre STEM program.

It will be up to the principal. They are putting the stem at the schools already with strong stem so they don’t need to make any changes.

This is absolutely BS. Currently at SMCS the juniors and seniors can select from the following electives:
CS: Programing advanced topic (video game programing and future programing language), machine learning, modeling simulation, computer graphics, cyber security, software design
Phys: quantum phys., thermodynamics, optics, astronomy, math physics (MVC pre-requisite or concurrently), robotics
Math: MVC, linear algebra, discrete math, complex analysis, adv. geometry
Chemistry: analytical chem, organic chem, material science, bio chem
Bio: marine bio, immunology, bio chem, neuroscience, Entomology

Tell me other than Poolsville and Blair, what other host HSs have the capability to offer these courses? As an example, Wootton doesn't offer anything on advanced math other than MVC.