5/12 County Council Meeting -- Gutting MCPS Budget Request to the Tune of $180M

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed with several prior posters. I'm a teacher in MCPS, so is my wife. MCPS has the money to fund the teachers contract, but they just cannot muster up the courage to cut a lot of the waste in the budget.

There are still a great many teacher-level positions across schools that don't have teaching responsibilities. And central office still has WAY too many people. This can be done.

MCPS teacher and parent here and I agree. When I saw some of the rows on the proposed cuts I said - good!! Not all of them, but a good amount. Lots of people at my school who aren’t in the classroom. Not sure what they do all day or how impactful they are.

Also, what happened to Cross Functional Teams? Do we see anyone from these teams in our building? Ours used to come maybe once or twice a month in the beginning of the year, but I don’t think I’ve seen her since January or so.

Another place to reevaluate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed with several prior posters. I'm a teacher in MCPS, so is my wife. MCPS has the money to fund the teachers contract, but they just cannot muster up the courage to cut a lot of the waste in the budget.

There are still a great many teacher-level positions across schools that don't have teaching responsibilities. And central office still has WAY too many people. This can be done.

MCPS teacher and parent here and I agree. When I saw some of the rows on the proposed cuts I said - good!! Not all of them, but a good amount. Lots of people at my school who aren’t in the classroom. Not sure what they do all day or how impactful they are.

Also, what happened to Cross Functional Teams? Do we see anyone from these teams in our building? Ours used to come maybe once or twice a month in the beginning of the year, but I don’t think I’ve seen her since January or so.

Another place to reevaluate.

That is a great idea…the CFTs have been for the most part a waste of time for schools. Having these “teacher specialists” working with directors and schools came out of Jack Smith’s administration and has not made much difference in student outcomes. Eliminate underperforming initiatives.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is a bigger district with higher enrollment spends $2,000 per student less per year with similar graduation and college admissions rates.

[Anonymous]

I am old enough to remember April of 2026 when we all spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out out to change our August travel plans because TT had supposedly decided to move up the school year start date with 4 months notice.

His email to staff is more of the same theatrics. Yes, not getting the full funding will be hard for MCPS. Hopefully they can fund most of it. But with enrollment dropping, they really should cut positions. That TT is describing cutting staff while enrollment is declining as some kind of educational apocalypse is really telling that he sees our tax dollars as supporting staff rather than students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am old enough to remember April of 2026 when we all spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out out to change our August travel plans because TT had supposedly decided to move up the school year start date with 4 months notice.

His email to staff is more of the same theatrics. Yes, not getting the full funding will be hard for MCPS. Hopefully they can fund most of it. But with enrollment dropping, they really should cut positions. That TT is describing cutting staff while enrollment is declining as some kind of educational apocalypse is really telling that he sees our tax dollars as supporting staff rather than students

The cuts due to declining enrollment have all already happened. These additional cuts are on top of them and get rid of whole categories of staff doing important work in schools.

[Anonymous]

If enrollment is declining, why can't we get some smaller class sizes?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mcps balloon has popped.

Sadly this will be the downfall of public education in this area. County council failing to recognize that if you don’t pay teachers their COLA or steps, while raising insurance premiums with worse coverage, teachers will leave. It won’t be the teachers within 5 or 7 years of retiring, but those that are only five or seven years into teaching, the brightest and most capable ones won’t see the value in staying. You can’t take home less money each year and still pay the bills when inflation is skyrocketing.

This has been happening to federal employees since 2009. We gave up COLAs for several years and received tiny ones while our health care increases by double digits each year.

This is why teachers union and the school system gets a bad rap. It's not just federal employees but private sector workers that have felt the pinch these past years of cost of living, taxes, and insurance increases while facing salary stagnation. For the superintendent and teacher's union to act like an increase in budget (but not the amount of increase they want) is catastrophic to education and everyone should write the county council to increase revenue (which reads as increase taxes) is tone deaf. There's other ways to decrease spending that need to be looked at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mcps balloon has popped.

Sadly this will be the downfall of public education in this area. County council failing to recognize that if you don’t pay teachers their COLA or steps, while raising insurance premiums with worse coverage, teachers will leave. It won’t be the teachers within 5 or 7 years of retiring, but those that are only five or seven years into teaching, the brightest and most capable ones won’t see the value in staying. You can’t take home less money each year and still pay the bills when inflation is skyrocketing.

This has been happening to federal employees since 2009. We gave up COLAs for several years and received tiny ones while our health care increases by double digits each year.

This is why teachers union and the school system gets a bad rap. It's not just federal employees but private sector workers that have felt the pinch these past years of cost of living, taxes, and insurance increases while facing salary stagnation. For the superintendent and teacher's union to act like an increase in budget (but not the amount of increase they want) is catastrophic to education and everyone should write the county council to increase revenue (which reads as increase taxes) is tone deaf. There's other ways to decrease spending that need to be looked at.

But federal employees generally make more money than teachers. I have a friend who is essentially an Admin Assistant at the FDA. She makes more than most Principals.

[Anonymous]

This all smells like politics. The budget is being cut by $180M, but Taylor is allowing those cuts to fall on teachers to prevent the budget from being cut at all (and to make the case to raise taxes for even more money to go to MCPS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mcps balloon has popped.

Sadly this will be the downfall of public education in this area. County council failing to recognize that if you don’t pay teachers their COLA or steps, while raising insurance premiums with worse coverage, teachers will leave. It won’t be the teachers within 5 or 7 years of retiring, but those that are only five or seven years into teaching, the brightest and most capable ones won’t see the value in staying. You can’t take home less money each year and still pay the bills when inflation is skyrocketing.

This has been happening to federal employees since 2009. We gave up COLAs for several years and received tiny ones while our health care increases by double digits each year.

This is why teachers union and the school system gets a bad rap. It's not just federal employees but private sector workers that have felt the pinch these past years of cost of living, taxes, and insurance increases while facing salary stagnation. For the superintendent and teacher's union to act like an increase in budget (but not the amount of increase they want) is catastrophic to education and everyone should write the county council to increase revenue (which reads as increase taxes) is tone deaf. There's other ways to decrease spending that need to be looked at.

But federal employees generally make more money than teachers. I have a friend who is essentially an Admin Assistant at the FDA. She makes more than most Principals.

She is lying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mcps balloon has popped.

Sadly this will be the downfall of public education in this area. County council failing to recognize that if you don’t pay teachers their COLA or steps, while raising insurance premiums with worse coverage, teachers will leave. It won’t be the teachers within 5 or 7 years of retiring, but those that are only five or seven years into teaching, the brightest and most capable ones won’t see the value in staying. You can’t take home less money each year and still pay the bills when inflation is skyrocketing.

Most MCPS teachers don't live in MoCo to begin with. Gas is ridiculous and doesn’t look like it will go back down anytime soon. Every schooo system is facing budget issues thanks to Moore pushing out Blueprint funding to localities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed with several prior posters. I'm a teacher in MCPS, so is my wife. MCPS has the money to fund the teachers contract, but they just cannot muster up the courage to cut a lot of the waste in the budget.

There are still a great many teacher-level positions across schools that don't have teaching responsibilities. And central office still has WAY too many people. This can be done.

MCPS teacher and parent here and I agree. When I saw some of the rows on the proposed cuts I said - good!! Not all of them, but a good amount. Lots of people at my school who aren’t in the classroom. Not sure what they do all day or how impactful they are.

Also, what happened to Cross Functional Teams? Do we see anyone from these teams in our building? Ours used to come maybe once or twice a month in the beginning of the year, but I don’t think I’ve seen her since January or so.

Another place to reevaluate.

Interesting- are you at an MS or HS? I know what every staff member at our ES does. Based on the list sent the first on the chopping block would be our media assistant, who does way more than check out and shelve books. Better than losing a teacher I guess but would still really suck. I wish MCPS would make more effort to trim CO staff but they know that wouldn't generate as much outrage.

[Anonymous]

What about the budget for consultants- is that being cut at all? Largely wasted money because MCPS usually doesn't even use the information collected for a lot of the "studies."

[Anonymous]

How about the gutting of our special ed programs, putting children with behavioral challenges in learning centers, and paying for Ivymount and the like for so many? Get rid of the Homeschool Model (which doesn't help those in need and makes the classroom environment challenging for teachers and neurotypical students), bring back the amazing special ed programs we had 15 years ago, and you'll dramatically improve things for all and free up money at the same time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed with several prior posters. I'm a teacher in MCPS, so is my wife. MCPS has the money to fund the teachers contract, but they just cannot muster up the courage to cut a lot of the waste in the budget.

There are still a great many teacher-level positions across schools that don't have teaching responsibilities. And central office still has WAY too many people. This can be done.

MCPS teacher and parent here and I agree. When I saw some of the rows on the proposed cuts I said - good!! Not all of them, but a good amount. Lots of people at my school who aren’t in the classroom. Not sure what they do all day or how impactful they are.

Also, what happened to Cross Functional Teams? Do we see anyone from these teams in our building? Ours used to come maybe once or twice a month in the beginning of the year, but I don’t think I’ve seen her since January or so.

Another place to reevaluate.

That is a great idea…the CFTs have been for the most part a waste of time for schools. Having these “teacher specialists” working with directors and schools came out of Jack Smith’s administration and has not made much difference in student outcomes. Eliminate underperforming initiatives.

CFTs are SO pointless. The latest was their new observation method, so they came in to observe observers to tell them how to observe. If you heard how stupid the "new" observation method is, you'd realize they are just scrambling for reasons to have their job exist. You haven't been in a classroom in years- go away.