BOE reconsidering the Virtual Academy, Leader in Me, and Innovative School Year Calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The resident virtual school lover must be losing her mind over the prospect of letting her kids leave her sight.

There's always homeschool!

Oh my... you simply don't get it. Must be nice to be self-absorbed and only care about your needs vs. the needs of others.

My kid also has some needs that public schools can't seem to fill, so we pay for a private school. Maybe you need to find a virtual school platform and pay for it yourself. Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for your conveniences.

Virtual public school options existed way before the pandemic, especially in large districts. In a district as large as MCPS, it should definitely continue to be an option. It could potentially grow to help more students for half day schedules, unique electives and night classes. Plenty of other fat to cut from the budget, especially at Hungerford/Gude.

Which ones? Most of the virtual programs I know about are administered at the state level. FL has many large school districts similar to the size of MCPS, but they don't have their own virtual programs. Same with Virginia. Every time someone asks for examples of large district level virtual programs, no one can provide it.

Let it go. The state is not going to run it. Why do you keep pushing that?

Why are you so resistant to the idea? It's looking more and more like MCPS won't run it after the funding runs out either, so you'll be on your own. Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The resident virtual school lover must be losing her mind over the prospect of letting her kids leave her sight.

There's always homeschool!

Oh my... you simply don't get it. Must be nice to be self-absorbed and only care about your needs vs. the needs of others.

My kid also has some needs that public schools can't seem to fill, so we pay for a private school. Maybe you need to find a virtual school platform and pay for it yourself. Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for your conveniences.

Virtual public school options existed way before the pandemic, especially in large districts. In a district as large as MCPS, it should definitely continue to be an option. It could potentially grow to help more students for half day schedules, unique electives and night classes. Plenty of other fat to cut from the budget, especially at Hungerford/Gude.

Which ones? Most of the virtual programs I know about are administered at the state level. FL has many large school districts similar to the size of MCPS, but they don't have their own virtual programs. Same with Virginia. Every time someone asks for examples of large district level virtual programs, no one can provide it.

Let it go. The state is not going to run it. Why do you keep pushing that?

Why can't any of you produce examples of large districts with robust, stand alone virtual programs? It's sounding more like an urban legend to me. But since that's what you want, maybe you should move to one of them. MCPS was never invested in VA long term and I'm sorry some of you were convinced otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks really should click through the report on MVA because it doesn't look good, assuming one wants to take an evidence-based approach. At the very least, the VA needs to be revamped to address the issues detailed in the report.

The report is easy to read, and clearly laid out, even if it does seem it took MCPS quite a while to make it public. The biggest takeaway is that MVA is not working at the ES level in particular. Attendance is worse for MVA than in-person school, and testing outcomes are significantly worse.

At the MS and HS levels, chronic absenteeism is about the same as the in-school population, but that itself is alarming given the dismal state of attendance in general.

At best, the data would suggest that MVA is not an appropriate model for K-5.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/Virtual%20Academy%20FINAL.pdf

Some of t that data is not accurate as many families opted out if testing.

This doesn't make any sense, though. The report says that for MAP-M only about 11% of kids opted out of the test. So, of the 89% of MVA kids who did take the tests, there were statistically significant (in some cases very significant) differences for K-5 kids in particular.

So, unless the missing 11% is for some reason also the highest scoring 11%, the numbers still show that MVA isn't working for K-5, at least in terms of attendance and mastery of core academic subjects. There's no reason to believe that the 89% who did take the test is not statistically representative of the broader group and in fact much more reason to believe that the 11% who didn't test are more likely to be lower scorers than higher scorers.

[Anonymous]

It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This is a good and level-headed idea, and hopefully where MCPS will end up if they follow the data. In a way, the MVA and the IS calendar have a lot in common. Neither are particularly bad ideas, but both showed minimal to negative gains for the students involved. Assuming we want the Central Office to take action based on data, and in the best interest of MCPS kids, it seems both need to go in the next school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This is a good and level-headed idea, and hopefully where MCPS will end up if they follow the data. In a way, the MVA and the IS calendar have a lot in common. Neither are particularly bad ideas, but both showed minimal to negative gains for the students involved. Assuming we want the Central Office to take action based on data, and in the best interest of MCPS kids, it seems both need to go in the next school year.

The year of that report is the first year of the school. It had growing pains like any other new school. The elementary school was not well staffed and a lot of it was asynchronous which was unacceptable. That changed last year to all live teaching. They also used a small sample size when speaking to families and did not survey everyone. In some areas the students surpassed in person and there is a bigger mix of needs at the school which can account for absences, for example but they only provided limited information. How did the students do last school year or this school year? There is a lot more to this than being shown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This was the plan originally but not funded. The younger kids program changed last year to live teaching from this surveys asynchronous. So, why aren’t they showing last years data with the school changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This was the plan originally but not funded. The younger kids program changed last year to live teaching from this surveys asynchronous. So, why aren’t they showing last years data with the school changes?

The report says that only social studies and science were asynchronous, but the other subjects (including English and math) were synchronous and delivered much the same as in-person instruction. It's not GREAT that those subjects were asynchronous, but it also does not account for the lagging test scores.

As for why data from this year or last year isn't reflected, these sorts of evaluations don't take place every year. In terms of methodology, it's common to check in on initiatives every 3 years or so, allowing evaluator time to be spread across pilot projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks really should click through the report on MVA because it doesn't look good, assuming one wants to take an evidence-based approach. At the very least, the VA needs to be revamped to address the issues detailed in the report.

The report is easy to read, and clearly laid out, even if it does seem it took MCPS quite a while to make it public. The biggest takeaway is that MVA is not working at the ES level in particular. Attendance is worse for MVA than in-person school, and testing outcomes are significantly worse.

At the MS and HS levels, chronic absenteeism is about the same as the in-school population, but that itself is alarming given the dismal state of attendance in general.

At best, the data would suggest that MVA is not an appropriate model for K-5.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/Virtual%20Academy%20FINAL.pdf

Some of t that data is not accurate as many families opted out if testing.

Whoops. Hope MCPS doesn't base any decisions on it then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks really should click through the report on MVA because it doesn't look good, assuming one wants to take an evidence-based approach. At the very least, the VA needs to be revamped to address the issues detailed in the report.

The report is easy to read, and clearly laid out, even if it does seem it took MCPS quite a while to make it public. The biggest takeaway is that MVA is not working at the ES level in particular. Attendance is worse for MVA than in-person school, and testing outcomes are significantly worse.

At the MS and HS levels, chronic absenteeism is about the same as the in-school population, but that itself is alarming given the dismal state of attendance in general.

At best, the data would suggest that MVA is not an appropriate model for K-5.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/Virtual%20Academy%20FINAL.pdf

Some of t that data is not accurate as many families opted out if testing.

This doesn't make any sense, though. The report says that for MAP-M only about 11% of kids opted out of the test. So, of the 89% of MVA kids who did take the tests, there were statistically significant (in some cases very significant) differences for K-5 kids in particular.

So, unless the missing 11% is for some reason also the highest scoring 11%, the numbers still show that MVA isn't working for K-5, at least in terms of attendance and mastery of core academic subjects. There's no reason to believe that the 89% who did take the test is not statistically representative of the broader group and in fact much more reason to believe that the 11% who didn't test are more likely to be lower scorers than higher scorers.

Stop bringing up facts and data in response to the fever dream that the virtual academy is a worthwhile program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This is exactly what needs to happen. VA needs to be expanded/remodeled to include options for HS kids to take classes not at their home school, and for situations where there is need for student)s) to take a class but not enough need/interest to warrant an in house teacher for the limited number of students (contacted math example). There could still be space for some kids that can’t or won’t coming into school for whatever reason, but with the understanding that parents and students are still expected to meet attendance standards. Chronically ill students should be evaluated for whether VA is the best option or some other model. Students that are in the school fulltime should have their per pupil allocation go towards the VA (or at least a 75/80% allocation, with the other % going to home school so students can participate in activities).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This was the plan originally but not funded. The younger kids program changed last year to live teaching from this surveys asynchronous. So, why aren’t they showing last years data with the school changes?

The report says that only social studies and science were asynchronous, but the other subjects (including English and math) were synchronous and delivered much the same as in-person instruction. It's not GREAT that those subjects were asynchronous, but it also does not account for the lagging test scores.

As for why data from this year or last year isn't reflected, these sorts of evaluations don't take place every year. In terms of methodology, it's common to check in on initiatives every 3 years or so, allowing evaluator time to be spread across pilot projects.

The live teaching was not full teaching in those subjects like it is now so to use the first year as your data point when the school was not adequately given enough teachers is an unfair representation of the school. And, they don’t break down medically fragile kids, special need kids and many other factors. The board or any admin have come to meetings and talked to families on their experiences or needs and wants and is just throwing the school under the bus because they failed to manage the budget due to their poor decisions.

Sone of us will leave mcps if they get rid of the program, but maybe that’s what they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks really should click through the report on MVA because it doesn't look good, assuming one wants to take an evidence-based approach. At the very least, the VA needs to be revamped to address the issues detailed in the report.

The report is easy to read, and clearly laid out, even if it does seem it took MCPS quite a while to make it public. The biggest takeaway is that MVA is not working at the ES level in particular. Attendance is worse for MVA than in-person school, and testing outcomes are significantly worse.

At the MS and HS levels, chronic absenteeism is about the same as the in-school population, but that itself is alarming given the dismal state of attendance in general.

At best, the data would suggest that MVA is not an appropriate model for K-5.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/Virtual%20Academy%20FINAL.pdf

Some of t that data is not accurate as many families opted out if testing.

This doesn't make any sense, though. The report says that for MAP-M only about 11% of kids opted out of the test. So, of the 89% of MVA kids who did take the tests, there were statistically significant (in some cases very significant) differences for K-5 kids in particular.

So, unless the missing 11% is for some reason also the highest scoring 11%, the numbers still show that MVA isn't working for K-5, at least in terms of attendance and mastery of core academic subjects. There's no reason to believe that the 89% who did take the test is not statistically representative of the broader group and in fact much more reason to believe that the 11% who didn't test are more likely to be lower scorers than higher scorers.

Stop bringing up facts and data in response to the fever dream that the virtual academy is a worthwhile program

MAP is the only test that is allowed to be taken virtually. All other standardized tests have to be taken in person. Many opted out of those because the home schools all test on different days and it was very disruptive to their academic schedule as they missed VA classes to take the test and they usually were forced to sit in an empty room all by themselves all day. I wish some of you would allow a conversation to occur instead of picking up on one tiny nuance to justify your hate of a program that benefits students. Many students LOVE being home and learning. It would help if you asked a few. Even though the VA numbers are shrinking (mainly because of limited classes at the moment and home schools refusing to keep up their end of the bargain) it's still as large as some stand-alone elementary and middle schools here in the county. Could you imagine if we were talking about your child's school or magnet program shutting down? You all would be up in arms here. Try to have some empathy folks. I know you have it in you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This was the plan originally but not funded. The younger kids program changed last year to live teaching from this surveys asynchronous. So, why aren’t they showing last years data with the school changes?

The report says that only social studies and science were asynchronous, but the other subjects (including English and math) were synchronous and delivered much the same as in-person instruction. It's not GREAT that those subjects were asynchronous, but it also does not account for the lagging test scores.

As for why data from this year or last year isn't reflected, these sorts of evaluations don't take place every year. In terms of methodology, it's common to check in on initiatives every 3 years or so, allowing evaluator time to be spread across pilot projects.

The live teaching was not full teaching in those subjects like it is now so to use the first year as your data point when the school was not adequately given enough teachers is an unfair representation of the school. And, they don’t break down medically fragile kids, special need kids and many other factors. The board or any admin have come to meetings and talked to families on their experiences or needs and wants and is just throwing the school under the bus because they failed to manage the budget due to their poor decisions.

Sone of us will leave mcps if they get rid of the program, but maybe that’s what they want.

It sounds like a different school would better fit your objectives. Maybe you can get the Turpins to teach virtually from their prison cells.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if they could use VA to supplement options at home school, like offer a broader range of languages and let kids at regular HS take a virtual class. There are ways it could be good and have more use, but probably not the way it’s being done. For younger kids, they should probably just improve the existing program for chronically ill children.

This was the plan originally but not funded. The younger kids program changed last year to live teaching from this surveys asynchronous. So, why aren’t they showing last years data with the school changes?

The report says that only social studies and science were asynchronous, but the other subjects (including English and math) were synchronous and delivered much the same as in-person instruction. It's not GREAT that those subjects were asynchronous, but it also does not account for the lagging test scores.

As for why data from this year or last year isn't reflected, these sorts of evaluations don't take place every year. In terms of methodology, it's common to check in on initiatives every 3 years or so, allowing evaluator time to be spread across pilot projects.

The live teaching was not full teaching in those subjects like it is now so to use the first year as your data point when the school was not adequately given enough teachers is an unfair representation of the school. And, they don’t break down medically fragile kids, special need kids and many other factors. The board or any admin have come to meetings and talked to families on their experiences or needs and wants and is just throwing the school under the bus because they failed to manage the budget due to their poor decisions.

Sone of us will leave mcps if they get rid of the program, but maybe that’s what they want.

It sounds like a different school would better fit your objectives. Maybe you can get the Turpins to teach virtually from their prison cells.

Do you always let the intrusive thoughts out?