Board of Education meeting Aug 21 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every question the board had on the regional programs analysis Niki Porter (formerly Hazel) answered that it was a great point and that they'd look into it.

So what critical thinking and scenario planning did this woman do? Because it's alarming for her to have this many uncertainties about this stuff at this stage in the game.

Ah..."look into it" Board meetings. Who will look into it? Who will FOLLOWUP? When should stakeholders expect the follow-up?

MCPS needs to slow down this process. There will be many things they haven't thought about and even more unintended consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are we really to believe that this is just gross negligence? Because this is what corruption looks like in real time. Follow the money.

Wecome to Montgomery County!

Have you not noticed all the make-work projects, routine extensions, giveaways to private parties, etc., with the greatest burden for these typically falling on those with the least capacity, either by numbers or by resources, to organize effective opposition? Why would you think the school system, taking half the county budget, would be immune?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

[Anonymous]

Program Ananalysis slides, Aug 21

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DKRJWU4F383C/$file/10.01%20Program%20Analysis%20Boundary%20Studies%20Comm%20Engage%20Plan%20Update%20250821%20PPT%20REV.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

I wonder if Taylor is scared of the BOE. He seems to move as though he knows he can get them to do whatever he wants them to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

Niki (Hazel) Porter and Jeannine Franklin are not at all over their heads. They have been, for many years, using their leadership positions to craft solutions to a different set of problems than most of us would prioritize, somewhat deftly working the system, BOE included. I say "somewhat" because the tactics employed are not that deep, but are enough either to snow the members of the BOE or to snow most of the general public where the BOE might be complicit.

They are not alone in this, of course. Essie McGuire comes to mind, among others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

I wonder if Taylor is scared of the BOE. He seems to move as though he knows he can get them to do whatever he wants them to.

Why would he expect anything widely different from the relationship between prior BOEs and Superintendents? Apparently, it takes a scandal needing a public scapegoat to see a different paradigm in play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

I wonder if Taylor is scared of the BOE. He seems to move as though he knows he can get them to do whatever he wants them to.

He's not scared of the BOE. He is arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

I'm curious, do folks have a sense of if it's her or Taylor driving the bus on the program analysis? Clearly they are both on board but I wonder who is really driving it.

Taylor is definitely driving the bus. In fact, he seems to be sitting quite comfortably on his throne.

I mean, he's the superintendent.

[Anonymous]

Just wondering: how could BOE stops this non-stopping bus from crushing into reality? Or how could they hold Taylor or anyone accountable when everything crushes 3-4 years later when he is done with his term?

The estimated costs are absurdly underestimated. For one, the number of additional bus route for each region only accounts between HS to HS within a region, while right now magnet and IB bus stops at every ES, MS, HS and public library. The equivalent added bus route once they consider equivalent scenario can easily blow-up the ceiling. Secondly, the cost for teacher training, oh I'm LMO when I see those numbers. $2160 per year for training two computer science teachers to manage computer simulation, game programing, AI? Are they sure this is not one solid full-year load of CS undergraduate course? Again, their budget has ZERO dollar toward hiring new hyper-specialized teachers. Thirdly, research internship for every student in the program? Do they have any mere understanding of the current job market?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

I agree with this. The Chief Academic Officer is not ready for this job; she is flailing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

Who is Porter? Isn't Niki Hazel Chief Academic Officer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

Who is Porter? Isn't Niki Hazel Chief Academic Officer?

She's Niki Porter now.