It saddens me that Whitman PTA leaders support increasing class sizes for the youngest and lowest income students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whitman is funding a huge portion on MCPS while they suffer with some of the highest student to teacher ratios in the county. Of course they're going to advocate for smaller class sizes. It would be insane if them not to.

Quantify huge. Or, is this just a talking point in your neighborhood? Whitman Cluster, paying for meeting the rest of the county's needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you expect?

I expect educated wealthy people to at least try to look like they care about young kids from families with low incomes. I guess in the MAGA era there is no need to even pretend to care.

The rich in Montgomery County have never had any shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whitman is funding a huge portion on MCPS while they suffer with some of the highest student to teacher ratios in the county. Of course they're going to advocate for smaller class sizes. It would be insane if them not to.

Whitman is not funding a huge portion of MCPS. We all are funding Whitman and every other MCPS school with our property taxes. Even those without kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whitman is funding a huge portion on MCPS while they suffer with some of the highest student to teacher ratios in the county. Of course they're going to advocate for smaller class sizes. It would be insane if them not to.

The issue isn't them advocating for smaller class sizes for themselves. It's them endorsing the Superintendent's proposal to increase class sizes for poor schools in order to fund the smaller class sizes for Whitman cluster and others.

[Anonymous]

It's each cluster's job to advocate for their kids at their school. A couple years back all classrooms were increased by one, and now they will be lowered by one, and they are agreeing with that. I am not in the Whitman Cluster, but I don't think agreeing with the recommendation that lowers their classrooms size means they are for the part that increases the class size at other schools.

Were you wanting them to say we want you to decrease our class size and decrease other school's class size? That is not the Cluster Coordinators role

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whitman is funding a huge portion on MCPS while they suffer with some of the highest student to teacher ratios in the county. Of course they're going to advocate for smaller class sizes. It would be insane if them not to.

The issue isn't them advocating for smaller class sizes for themselves. It's them endorsing the Superintendent's proposal to increase class sizes for poor schools in order to fund the smaller class sizes for Whitman cluster and others.

The $ has to come from somewhere. It's insane that east county schools get millions more per year than the schools attended by kids whose families pay most of the taxes.

So the high density areas of the county pay less than the McMansions, each on multiple acres. Got it.

If you have multiple acres, you pay based off that and a Mansion. If they divided up the lots and smaller houses it would be equal. If you can put 4 houses on an Acre vs. one, yes the one should pay the same amount as those four families. However, many people without kids, kids not school aged and people whose kids graduated HS all also pay taxes. You act like you are the only one paying. You really think you should pay the same for a 6000-100000 square foot house as someone with 1000-2000 on a 1/4 acre?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's each cluster's job to advocate for their kids at their school. A couple years back all classrooms were increased by one, and now they will be lowered by one, and they are agreeing with that. I am not in the Whitman Cluster, but I don't think agreeing with the recommendation that lowers their classrooms size means they are for the part that increases the class size at other schools.

Were you wanting them to say we want you to decrease our class size and decrease other school's class size? That is not the Cluster Coordinators role

Nope, the rich schools will be much better off than they were a couple years ago, and the poorer schools will be much worse off (staffing ratios rising by as much as 5 kids per classroom from 2024 levels.).

It is not that hard to just say "We support decreasing class sizes" or "We support lower class sizes at our cluster's schools" rather than "We support the Superintendent's recommendations on class size." If you really want to be neutral you say one of the first two. If you want to say you are happy to screw over the poor schools, you say the latter.

[Anonymous]

It is the cluster coordinators’ job to advocate for their cluster. Their letter makes perfect sense. -From a parent not in a W cluster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is the cluster coordinators’ job to advocate for their cluster. Their letter makes perfect sense. -From a parent not in a W cluster

It's like a corporate executive that creates crappy products while mistreating staff in the name of "shareholder value." Yes, it makes sense. It also makes them a terrible human being.

But we already knew the W clusters were filled with them, so there shouldn't be any surprise here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the cluster coordinators’ job to advocate for their cluster. Their letter makes perfect sense. -From a parent not in a W cluster

It's like a corporate executive that creates crappy products while mistreating staff in the name of "shareholder value." Yes, it makes sense. It also makes them a terrible human being.

But we already knew the W clusters were filled with them, so there shouldn't be any surprise here.

No it doesn’t. These are real parents you are calling out here. They are charged with advocating for their cluster, and they are doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the cluster coordinators’ job to advocate for their cluster. Their letter makes perfect sense. -From a parent not in a W cluster

It's like a corporate executive that creates crappy products while mistreating staff in the name of "shareholder value." Yes, it makes sense. It also makes them a terrible human being.

But we already knew the W clusters were filled with them, so there shouldn't be any surprise here.

No it doesn’t. These are real parents you are calling out here. They are charged with advocating for their cluster, and they are doing that.

They are parents in one of the wealthiest zip codes, not just in the county but in the country. When a proposal is made to decrease class sizes for them at the cost of increasing class sizes for the poorest kids, yes it is cold and selfish to just say "we support this". Notice the Einstein cluster parents are capable of expressing empathy for other clusters.

[Anonymous]

The resentment about extra resource being given to poor kids is palpable.

[Anonymous]

Tough. Giving it to the endless demands from those at schools like Einstein shouldn't come at the expense of ever-increasing class sizes at Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tough. Giving it to the endless demands from those at schools like Einstein shouldn't come at the expense of ever-increasing class sizes at Whitman.

Thanks for sharing how you feel about Einstein, Dr. Taylor.

Btw this proposal has nothing to do with class sizes at Whitman. It has to do with class sizes for elementary schools. Einstein cluster parents specifically said they support decreasing class sizes across the board. Whitman cluster parents only care about their schools and are putting their considerable weight behind a proposal that reduces their class sizes but increases class sizes for the youngest kids. Also note that nowhere in the MCPS budget do they document how they allocate the millions of dollars they get from the state based on the number of FARMS kids. Past analyses have clearly shown they aren't spending all this money on programs for FARMS kids, and this proposal will make this even worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The resentment about extra resource being given to poor kids is palpable.

Oh yeah, wondering who is doing the landscaping and housekeeping in the Whitman cluster...