Why do you care if your kid has to learn in a portable??
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Anonymous
How much has your enrollment increased? Have class sizes gone up? There are ratios that are followed to the extent that they can be (and ESOL teachers are often stretched beyond that ratio--and the ones in your school may very be two more part-timers). That is why you see a school like Darnestown with 400 kids, part-time specialists and no assistant principal. If the enrollment jumped to 600, the specialist and admin allocation would go up. |
Anonymous
Most people aren't complaining about the portables per se, but what they represent. If we're talking about a couple of portables while the county does studies to determining feasibility of an expansion, that's one thing. But when you've got schools that are running 145% overcapacity and using 7 portables with class sizes running to 28+ per ES class, with six lunch shifts (first one starting at 10:45 and the last one starting at 1:15) -- and the long-awaited addition will still leave the school overcapacity and there are large new developments in the works within the school's catchment that the county will ignore until potentially hundreds of new families have already moved in and are enrolling their children...that's all evidence of poor planning. |
Anonymous
| Whoops, just checked--Darnestown only has 300 students! |
Anonymous
Bingo. This is exactly what the problem is at our ES. The Principal accepts what MCPS provides and doesn't ask or demand better or more. Its a disaster for the students. One teacher told me flat out that our kids are being lost in the shuffle of oversized classrooms, not enough instructors and certainly not enough space. Its not the portables I mind, its the poor planning, lack of a short term solution like more teacher resources that is the real issue. |
Anonymous
Well this is total BS. First off, the classrooms can't fit 40 kids and it is fire safety issue. Second off, the class sizes are NOT small. There are 30 kids in every portable at our school. They look like they could fit 20 max. And last I checked, 30 kids to one teacher SUCKS! |
Anonymous
We have gone from 89% capacity to 137% with no changes in staff whatsoever. We don't have offices for extra staff. The ESOL teachers share one 10x10 room. The reading and math specialist share an even smaller room. The music teacher is "portable" meaning she has no room because it is now a classroom. The county doesn't have the funds to allocate more room/teachers for us. The kids can't play in the gym on rainy/cold days because the PE teachers has classes all day but 40min to cover all the extra kids. It is not fun. Overcrowding in all of these schools is not right. They did not plan. |
Anonymous
Because in many cases in this county, it's a Band-Aid covering up the severe overcrowding, severe K-12 population growth/immigration, and severe budget problems in MoCo. The "wait list" for renovations of old schools is even longer than the "wait list" for new construction. Politicians hope everyone looks the other way and believes they can manage these problems. But they're already failing. So the trailer rooms are a daily reminder of how MoCo and MSPS is choosing to use your tax dollars. Ask yourself if your child is getting any of those tax dollars or is the focus on something or somebody else entirely. And good luck in the super long and super harsh winter this season! |
Anonymous
You can't plan for 2-3 families with 3-4 kids each all suddenly pulling families into one house or apartment unit. That's a larger issue with the country, state and country. |
Anonymous
What did the county not plan for? Are you at 137% capacity because of new development, or from increased enrollment from existing residences? |
Anonymous
Yeah, this PP is completely incorrect...but is probably also confusing administrative staffing (which is fixed, regardless of school size), and professional and supporting services staff (which is based on enrollment). All ESs have one principal and almost all also have an assistant principal (the very smallest do not have an AP). The three largest ESs have an assistant school administrator, which is like an AP that works 11 months instead of 12. All ESs, regardless of size, have a full time administrative secretary and a full time attendance secretary, and a full time health tech. The staffing for classroom teachers, arts teachers, paraeducators/lunch recess aides, is all based on enrollment numbers, so the PP is completely wrong that if a school's population increases by 50% there won't be additional arts teachers. There are staffing ratios used by human resources and principals are given their staffing allocations every spring. |
Anonymous
I can guarantee you're wrong. There is no way the enrollment has increased that much without additional staffing - teachers as well as arts teachers. Have you seen a copy of the staffing allocations? I'm guessing not. |
Anonymous
Dufief has two portables. |
Anonymous
They do not. They aren't even 80% capacity |
Anonymous
Grade teachers have obviously increased to keep numbers between 25-30. 2 Para educators increased from .5 to .75 and we now have 2 ESOL teachers, one is .5 and another 1.0. Specials and administration have not changed at all. One reading specialist, one math specialist, two front office secretaries, one tech, one principal, one assistant principal. And yes, I am very involved but thanks for assuming otherwise. |
Anonymous
Yes they do. You can see them in Google maps satellite. |