Upcoming in-person boundary study & regional model "engagement session": how to engage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

Folks have to go to the press. The Banner has a new Montgomery County section.

Does anyone have contacts at major news outlet? Might be a good idea to expose Taylor and MCPS leadership on their ridiculous regional model and fake community engagement

Talia Richman seems to be the education reporter for MoCo at the Baltimore Banner. Not sure if it is appropriate to post her email here but I found it easily via Google.

Ashlyn Campbell does education for Bethesda Today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

Laura Stewart will see that and will be a degree of affirmation of her concerns, but not persuaded that she is strong enough to run counter to the BOE culture and vote No when the time comes.

Karla Silvestre will see that and then plan to smash it in time for the next meeting. Just ammo for the next round against the community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

Folks have to go to the press. The Banner has a new Montgomery County section.

Does anyone have contacts at major news outlet? Might be a good idea to expose Taylor and MCPS leadership on their ridiculous regional model and fake community engagement

Talia Richman seems to be the education reporter for MoCo at the Baltimore Banner. Not sure if it is appropriate to post her email here but I found it easily via Google.

Ashlyn Campbell does education for Bethesda Today.

Adding that perhaps folks could let them know how things went at Kennedy and encourage them to attend the session at Blair on November 10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

Laura Stewart will see that and will be a degree of affirmation of her concerns, but not persuaded that she is strong enough to run counter to the BOE culture and vote No when the time comes.

Karla Silvestre will see that and then plan to smash it in time for the next meeting. Just ammo for the next round against the community.

I agree with you on both assessments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

There were a good number of people from Kennedy, Einstein, Wheaton and Northwood. Basically the DCC community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

Glad to hear it. They have done everything humanly possible to suppress community input and feedback, but there's only so much you can do when you have people there physically in person. It's good people insisted on being heard.

Any notable statements on the substance from anyone at MCPS? Did anyone ask about transportation, criteria, staffing?

What were some of the main questions/issues raised and how did MCPS respond?

[Anonymous]

I sense there is a campaign to dismiss DCC parents on the basis that we are being greedy wanting to keep the DCC, which is obviously absurd. The DCC was created to keep White middle class families in the public schools so they will say it is racist to keep demanding school choice.

I think the message needs to emphasize that the DCC is not perfect but the regional program model will take away opportunities from a broad range of DCC kids and reproduce the inequities of the DCC on a larger scale, that they have done no racial equity analysis and have made no efforts to engage BIPOC communities. Throwing around the word equity when they have shown zero equity work is disgraceful and offensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

Glad to hear it. They have done everything humanly possible to suppress community input and feedback, but there's only so much you can do when you have people there physically in person. It's good people insisted on being heard.

Any notable statements on the substance from anyone at MCPS? Did anyone ask about transportation, criteria, staffing?

What were some of the main questions/issues raised and how did MCPS respond?

MCPS TV was there so I think it will be broadcast on its YouTube channel, but off the top of my head:

1. Can MCPS guarantee that the resources needed to stand up these programs will hold for the longterm as kids don't get a chance to remake decisions about which high school they're going to.

2. How are middle school program decisions being altered and why were MSMC open houses cancelled if things aren't changing drastically at the middle school level?

3. More of a comment than a question: A statement from someone who was on the Program Design Team who made it clear that the proposal did not incorporate input that the Program Design Team gave to MCPS and was in fact developed in spite of their input and feedback

4. A comment that while MCPS states the regional program proposal is designed to address inequities, how they see it exacerbating inequities in seriously concerning ways

And that's all I can recall.

[Anonymous]

One thing to demand and to emphasize to reporters to ask MCPS is they keep saying it will be more equitable, but where is their equity analysis and how is it consistent with best practices in racial equity analysis defined by GARE? Point out the distinction between equality and equity. Were the equity consultants involved in the analysis and if so what did they contribute? How have BIPOC communities been engaged in the analysis throughout the process?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any notable statements on the substance from anyone at MCPS? Did anyone ask about transportation, criteria, staffing?

I did talk to someone from MCPS involved in the STEM program design and they said there would be no changes to selection criteria, staffing or program size for Blair SMCS. Not sure I fully believe them.

Didn't get any answers about transportation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

There were a good number of people from Kennedy, Einstein, Wheaton and Northwood. Basically the DCC community.

I wonder why Blair isn't present in these discussions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

There were a good number of people from Kennedy, Einstein, Wheaton and Northwood. Basically the DCC community.

I wonder why Blair isn't present in these discussions.

Blair has what it needs and done string arts programs. It impacts them far less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing to demand and to emphasize to reporters to ask MCPS is they keep saying it will be more equitable, but where is their equity analysis and how is it consistent with best practices in racial equity analysis defined by GARE? Point out the distinction between equality and equity. Were the equity consultants involved in the analysis and if so what did they contribute? How have BIPOC communities been engaged in the analysis throughout the process?

They have been engaged but many feel it’s pointless. We feel that way. This will create a huge divide. We are looking at privates for our youngest as the lack of stem for our oldest has been a huge issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing to demand and to emphasize to reporters to ask MCPS is they keep saying it will be more equitable, but where is their equity analysis and how is it consistent with best practices in racial equity analysis defined by GARE? Point out the distinction between equality and equity. Were the equity consultants involved in the analysis and if so what did they contribute? How have BIPOC communities been engaged in the analysis throughout the process?

They have been engaged but many feel it’s pointless. We feel that way. This will create a huge divide. We are looking at privates for our youngest as the lack of stem for our oldest has been a huge issue.

If they are "engaging" BIPOC communities but not listening to them, that is just wasting their time and worse than not talking to them at all.