WAPO article on Prince George's County Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:23:15, that's exactly how I have felt from the outside for the last decade. It seems like they wanted to focus on the kids with more "need" with the limited resources, but now I think they have found there's a big consequence to that. Don't they get more federal money per enrolled child? So they get something with every extra child. The local school also gets more from the county for each child, as well as extra staff if the head count goes up enough.

They have tried to take away specialty programs entirely more than once, maybe as elitist? But what else is keeping the motivated families within the system?

I think they've also tried redistricting. I guess the thinking is that they need to break up the high-performing schools. And then they get surprised when the parents of the high-performing kids then pull their kids out and send them to private.

My impression is that high-performing schools and programs get punished. Instead of trying to replicate and add more of those programs, they break them up.

They need to stop messing with the few programs/schools that work. And instead try to establish more of them.

It seems INSANE to me that TAG students have to go through a lottery. No, if you score high enough for TAG, you shouldn't have to go through a lottery on top of that. It's ridiculous. Those students who are TAG identified but don't win the lottery end up being put in private school. This has to be evident to the school board and administrators (unless they're incompetent, which could be the case given so few of them even have a strong educational background).

It kind infuriates me in the article where the county official acts like it's a mystery why middle class families with high performing students are pulling their kids from private school. Their TAG process alone answers that question.

But what the county doesn't realize is that it isn't just parents putting their kids in private school; it's parents MOVING entirely out of the county. So the tax base will shrink if they continue. Sadly, many people really don't want to move. But they read article after article about the great schools in bordering counties and then they confront roadblocks to trying to work with the PG public school system, and they end up leaving.
I really don't want this to continue to happen. I want the schools to turn around.

I am not a PG county resident, but I read your threads for insight just in case DH convinces me. My DH has been trying to get me to move into the county for four years. His argumen tis that we could get a really beautiful house and room for his own personal man-cave for a lot less money. However, my counter argument to him is what I bolded in your statement. Any money saved on a beautiful home would be spent on private education. Too much hassle. So, we stay in our little house in the city and send our kid to a great charter school and pay DC taxes on our 240k HHI. It's not as high as many people on DCUM, but it isn't chomp change either.

Your property taxes would likely be quite higher in PG than DC (albeit for more house), so overall it'd probably be even in terms of tax burden

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing that the article didn't mention and no one seems to point out is that if classes in PG schools are overcrowded, maybe they don't want the middle class students to attend.

I mean, if they are over crowded as it is, how would they even accommodate any more students? It's not like they're going to get more funding (the county already gets tax money from the middle class families).

Perhaps there is a disincentive to lure back the middle class families. I mean, after all, I get the impression that middle school families demand more out of the schools. Maybe the school administrators would rather not have the hassle.

I mean all of this honestly. It's not like they face consequences for having low scores or being dysfunctional. They don't have funding taken away. I haven't seen or heard of anyone being fired, ever.

If they've got over 30 kids per classroom and don't see much more funding in the pipeline, maybe they really don't want the middle class families back.

Just a thought. As it seems to me there are actually a lot of things they could do to engage middle class families (the open house thing has been mentioned a lot here).

This becomes a chicken and egg scenario. Many PGCPS classrooms are overcrowded due to the SBB funding format the county uses which allocates a set number of dollars per pupil. When pupil counts decline, schools lose money and are forced to cut back staff. This has resulted in very overcrowded classrooms and combined grade classes in many schools. Overcrowded classrooms are unappealing to middle class parents who then decline to enroll setting up a vicious circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With the cost of privates going up each year, it is not cost effective to live in the county and pay private school tuition, especially for more than one kid.

I did a little research on Holy Trinity and the tuition alone is 1200 a month for one child.

Seriously, this topic has been debated before.

Sure, you have all chosen to not live in PG. Good for you.

I'm on this thread, on this topic, in the PG COUNTY SCHOOLS FORUM, because I LIKE living in PG and I WANT the schools to improve.

So a bunch of us are discussing what is wrong with the schools, what needs to improve.

Do you all really have to come on here to go on and on about why you don't live in PG??????????

[Anonymous]

I am not a PG county resident, but I read your threads for insight just in case DH convinces me. My DH has been trying to get me to move into the county for four years. His argumen tis that we could get a really beautiful house and room for his own personal man-cave for a lot less money. However, my counter argument to him is what I bolded in your statement. Any money saved on a beautiful home would be spent on private education. Too much hassle. So, we stay in our little house in the city and send our kid to a great charter school and pay DC taxes on our 240k HHI. It's not as high as many people on DCUM, but it isn't chomp change either.

Good for you.

But this thread is about those of us who do live in PG and want the schools to improve and are trying to improve them.

It seems that even with starting a new forum for PG County Schools, we have other people coming on here to tell us why they don't live in PG. Great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:23:15, that's exactly how I have felt from the outside for the last decade. It seems like they wanted to focus on the kids with more "need" with the limited resources, but now I think they have found there's a big consequence to that. Don't they get more federal money per enrolled child? So they get something with every extra child. The local school also gets more from the county for each child, as well as extra staff if the head count goes up enough.

They have tried to take away specialty programs entirely more than once, maybe as elitist? But what else is keeping the motivated families within the system?

Well, I don't think they get more federal funds for more children alone. I think they actually get more federal funds for more kids with needs. I could be wrong about this. I don't know the details. But schools are funded on the county and state level. Federal funds are tied to certain things (farms, esol, poverty). That's always been my impression.

Perhaps someone with more direct knowledge of how school funding works could chime in.

PGCPS devotes all of its Title I funds to a relatively few number of very high FARMS schools. I believe a school has to be at about 80% FARMS to receive Title I. However, the average Title I count for a PGCPS school is something like 60% percent. This means that the county does not allocate federal funds to many schools with extremely high FARMS populations.

PGCPS uses a funding mechanism called student-based budgeting. In terms of funding, a school receives a fixed dollar value of $3,100 per pupil. Smaller amounts of additional funding is provided to students who are double advanced in MSA or double basic in MSA, FARMs students and ESOL students. These weights are used to compensate schools for "more expensive" students. Out of this pot, the school has to fund teachers, counselors, vice principals and secretaries. I believe special education staff, principals, some janitors and plant maintenance expenses are borne by the central administration, not the school.

[Anonymous]

I'm somewhat encouraged by a lot of the commentary here. Not because it's a good situation, but because a lot of smart people seem to recognize what the problems are. I just wish some of these pps were on the school board instead of the jokers we have now!

[Anonymous]

I agree 14:52 that this is an encouraging discussion, but I have a strong sense that no meaningful change will come out of the completely dysfunctional school board. Anyone have any suggestions on ways to get involved outside of the school board. PTA/PTO obviously, but that's at the school level. What about at the county level?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[
It seems INSANE to me that TAG students have to go through a lottery. No, if you score high enough for TAG, you shouldn't have to go through a lottery on top of that. It's ridiculous. Those students who are TAG identified but don't win the lottery end up being put in private school. This has to be evident to the school board and administrators (unless they're incompetent, which could be the case given so few of them even have a strong educational background).

I hear you, but I don't think this is *entirely* the case. TAG-ID'd kids get services. In some schools it is a pull-out program, in some schools it is incorporated into the classroom work. And then there's the magnet lottery. Now I won't argue that the pull-out is equal to the magnet, nor will I argue that the TAG services are universally terrific in every school, but the services were there and the TAG teacher at our neighborhood school was terrific. We would have stayed if we had not gotten a magnet spot and would not have done private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[
It seems INSANE to me that TAG students have to go through a lottery. No, if you score high enough for TAG, you shouldn't have to go through a lottery on top of that. It's ridiculous. Those students who are TAG identified but don't win the lottery end up being put in private school. This has to be evident to the school board and administrators (unless they're incompetent, which could be the case given so few of them even have a strong educational background).

I hear you, but I don't think this is *entirely* the case. TAG-ID'd kids get services. In some schools it is a pull-out program, in some schools it is incorporated into the classroom work. And then there's the magnet lottery. Now I won't argue that the pull-out is equal to the magnet, nor will I argue that the TAG services are universally terrific in every school, but the services were there and the TAG teacher at our neighborhood school was terrific. We would have stayed if we had not gotten a magnet spot and would not have done private.

The problem (as another poster pointed out) is that in some schools, it's only a few kids that are TAG identified. So the pull-out program actually only socially isolates them and doesn't help because they don't have enough peers in the program.

Perhaps there could be some kind of system where if the TAG numbers in a school are lower than a certain threshold, those kids then get to join the TAG program at another school (not necessarily a TAG magnet). But it isn't really a genuine TAG "program" if it's like 3 kids being pulled out of class an hour here or an hour there.

Once they set the parameters for what makes a kid TAG, they should ensure that all of the TAG identified kids actually get to be part of a full TAG program.

[Anonymous]

I was the one who mentioned the schools with no real TAG cohort once the lucky lottery winners leave for the Center. Our neighborhood school doesn't have a dedicated TAG teacher. They shifted to TAG in the regular classroom this year after being pull out because they simply don't have enough kids to warrant it now in 2-6th. TAG in the regular classroom is pretty lame if you are the only TAG identified kid in your grade. I like the idea of auto-admit into center if a school falls below a threshold of kids.

The TAG program description on the website says: "TAG Student Enrollment: In grades 2 through 6, it is recommended that at least seven (7) TAG identified students be cluster grouped within a class. For schools with fewer than seven (7) TAG students per grade level, all should be assigned to the same cluster. The pace and rigor of instruction for these gifted students should be based on student readiness, interests, and learning profile." No mention of what should happen if there are fewer than 7 TAG kids per grade, much less fewer than 7 TAG kids across grades, which is what happened to our neighbor's child.

I didn't mean to totally derail this thread with the TAG issue, but I do think it is one of several big causes of middle class abandonment of PG publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the cost of privates going up each year, it is not cost effective to live in the county and pay private school tuition, especially for more than one kid.

I did a little research on Holy Trinity and the tuition alone is 1200 a month for one child.

Seriously, this topic has been debated before.

Sure, you have all chosen to not live in PG. Good for you.

I'm on this thread, on this topic, in the PG COUNTY SCHOOLS FORUM, because I LIKE living in PG and I WANT the schools to improve.

So a bunch of us are discussing what is wrong with the schools, what needs to improve.

Do you all really have to come on here to go on and on about why you don't live in PG??????????[/quote

Hee, hee, I am laughing at you in a good way. I am the poster that petitioned Jeff to start the forum. There is no need to get so up in arms about posts pointing out the realities of living in the County and paying private school tuition. I am zoned for really bad ES, so the struggle is real for me and I have lived here for quite some time. For many of us, it is cheaper to move and increase our mortgage than settle for a subpar school. As I write this, I can also say, that have worked every day to raise awareness, do research on the school systems, and objectively explore my options.

Kiki

[Anonymous]

Kiki here again. Anyone good at setting up a survey on survey monkey. Demographers? Can anyone help construct questions? I am willing to approach my neighbors and collect their concerns/thoughts. I have talked to quite a few already. I am willing to move this to the real world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what's everyone's art like? I heard some schools art is like once a quarter (and they brag about that?) unless the PTA steps in.

At the open house I attended I was told there was an art program that was used for all the schools on a rotational basis which works out to once a quarter. We questioned whether the PTA could just fund to have art put into the school full-time and were told that PTA funds could not be used to fund salaried positions. I did not get the sense they were proud of it at all.

At at least once school the PTA recruited volunteers to teach art. I thought I had heard some were sponsoring after school programs like abrakadoodle to bring in art? neither of which is a "salaried position" but does get more art.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the cost of privates going up each year, it is not cost effective to live in the county and pay private school tuition, especially for more than one kid.

I did a little research on Holy Trinity and the tuition alone is 1200 a month for one child.

Seriously, this topic has been debated before.

Sure, you have all chosen to not live in PG. Good for you.

I'm on this thread, on this topic, in the PG COUNTY SCHOOLS FORUM, because I LIKE living in PG and I WANT the schools to improve.

So a bunch of us are discussing what is wrong with the schools, what needs to improve.

Do you all really have to come on here to go on and on about why you don't live in PG??????????[/quote

Hee, hee, I am laughing at you in a good way. I am the poster that petitioned Jeff to start the forum. There is no need to get so up in arms about posts pointing out the realities of living in the County and paying private school tuition. I am zoned for really bad ES, so the struggle is real for me and I have lived here for quite some time. For many of us, it is cheaper to move and increase our mortgage than settle for a subpar school. As I write this, I can also say, that have worked every day to raise awareness, do research on the school systems, and objectively explore my options.

Kiki

I'm not up in arms about someone like you, a current PG resident struggling with the issue. It's the people who don't live in PG and have firmly decided not to live in PG that seem to come on here just to celebrate and confirm, "I'm glad i didn't move to PG, I'm so happy where I am." It seems sort of pointless. They're not here to contribute to the conversation. they're here kind of looking for bad things about PG just to validate decisions they've already made.

the difference is you have a vested interest in PG. That poster who is just stating how glad she is to be in DC and not PG does not.

[Anonymous]

I don't like that the school board is so down on charter schools. And up to now the few charters they approved haven't really seemed much different than the regular schools.