Why can't we have more smaller high schools all over the MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Frederick
French, German, and Spanish
The classical languages of Latin and Ancient Greek
American Sign Language

MCPS
ASL
French
Spanish
Japanese
Russian
Chinese
German
Italian
Arabic
Latin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because mcps gets more bang for its buck with a larger school. They don't have to staff two schools, two sets of principals two sets of Building Services two sets of teachers, versus one larger staff. It's much cheaper.

Larger schools also give GS students a larger set of offerings. A department of 6 FL teachers can’t offer as much as a department of 10. A small staff pretty much ensures limited levels of core classes and few electives, including AP courses.

Dear 1200 kid HS parent, do you find posting the course catalog so we can compare for ourselves?

A 1200 kid school could work just fine academically if the students' abilities are more uniform. Look at the privates, which are much smaller than this. When you add in students who are not academically interested, those who are learning English, and those with severe learning impairments, all of whom also deserve a great education, 1200 become too small a number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Frederick
French, German, and Spanish
The classical languages of Latin and Ancient Greek
American Sign Language

MCPS
ASL
French
Spanish
Japanese
Russian
Chinese
German
Italian
Arabic
Latin

Not all these languages are offered at all HSs in MCPS. My DC's HS, about 2500 students, has French, Spanish, Chinese, and Latin.

[Anonymous]

Falls Church City (VA) schools are small, the high school has around 800 students. Works great for them. They do have plenty of money, it's not a poor district which would have inherent problems not happening in FCC. However, some people don't like the idea of a small school like that. They are the ones who don't live there. If you like the idea you might want to look into it.

In MCPS if they were to agree and adopt this idea tomorrow it would probably become a reality about ten or fifteen years from now. Government works very slowly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frederick
French, German, and Spanish
The classical languages of Latin and Ancient Greek
American Sign Language

MCPS
ASL
French
Spanish
Japanese
Russian
Chinese
German
Italian
Arabic
Latin

Not all these languages are offered at all HSs in MCPS. My DC's HS, about 2500 students, has French, Spanish, Chinese, and Latin.

Of course, not. But there’s many departments offering 6+ World Languages at multiple levels and multiple years of instruction. Frederick has some schools offering only 3 languages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because mcps gets more bang for its buck with a larger school. They don't have to staff two schools, two sets of principals two sets of Building Services two sets of teachers, versus one larger staff. It's much cheaper.

Larger schools also give GS students a larger set of offerings. A department of 6 FL teachers can’t offer as much as a department of 10. A small staff pretty much ensures limited levels of core classes and few electives, including AP courses.

Dear 1200 kid HS parent, do you find posting the course catalog so we can compare for ourselves?

A 1200 kid school could work just fine academically if the students' abilities are more uniform. Look at the privates, which are much smaller than this. When you add in students who are not academically interested, those who are learning English, and those with severe learning impairments, all of whom also deserve a great education, 1200 become too small a number.

The things that no one HAS to go to a specific private school. But if your local public school has only 800 kids and decides to not offer a high level math because of a uniform low math achievement or interest, you are screwed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a small high school elsewhere in MD. For my most advanced classes, I was usually in a mixed grade class with older kids in order to have enough kids to run the class. By the time that my best friend’s younger brother came along, they had given up trying to make it work and he was bussed to a larger high school nearby for GT level classes.

I was a three sport varsity athlete because we barely had enough kids to field varsity. We lost game after game. We did have fun though

+1 it's the economies of scale, critical mass. We moved out of a small school system because there were not enough opportunities for advanced students. Some AP classes, and that was it. MCPS, for all its issues, has several magnet programs, and IB/AP classes littered throughout the county.

A friend of mine lives in a tiny school district. Her DC in MS had to go to the nearby HS with a few other kids to take Algebra. This is a wealthy-ish school district out west. Similar for another person I know who came from a small town in CT. Those kids in ES had to walk to the nearby MS to take the advanced math class. We have enough advanced kids in our MCPS school (not W cluster) to have two full advanced classes in MS.

There are pros/cons to each type of district. I like the bigger one that allows for the justification of advanced classes in the home school and gifted programs throughout the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Falls Church City (VA) schools are small, the high school has around 800 students. Works great for them. They do have plenty of money, it's not a poor district which would have inherent problems not happening in FCC. However, some people don't like the idea of a small school like that. They are the ones who don't live there. If you like the idea you might want to look into it.

In MCPS if they were to agree and adopt this idea tomorrow it would probably become a reality about ten or fifteen years from now. Government works very slowly.

Isn't FCHS consistently ranked lower than nearby FCPS schools these days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Falls Church City (VA) schools are small, the high school has around 800 students. Works great for them. They do have plenty of money, it's not a poor district which would have inherent problems not happening in FCC. However, some people don't like the idea of a small school like that. They are the ones who don't live there. If you like the idea you might want to look into it.

In MCPS if they were to agree and adopt this idea tomorrow it would probably become a reality about ten or fifteen years from now. Government works very slowly.

You may not be aware but Falls Church is a completely independent city. It does not "have" a county. It has its own tax revenue. Virginia has several independent cities. Rockville, Gaithersburg, and Takoma Park in Montgomery County are not independent of the County. The population in Falls Church is 12,000 ish. Of course the schools are small.

[Anonymous]

While everyone is jazzed about the "opportunities" of larger schools I don't think that they serve our children well. Many are as large as small cities. Our children are anonymous as are their teachers. There is little ability for the children, the teachers and the parents to develop any kind of relationship. I truly believe that a lot of the problems children are having these days are due to the size of the schools. It is hard to near impossible to see a child who is struggling and to find the time to help him or her. My child had their college recommendation written by a counselor they never met. Teachers cannot mentor students and nurture passions or enhance understanding. I'd trade some AP offerings for a place that could be an actual community for my child during this difficult and important time in their life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Falls Church City (VA) schools are small, the high school has around 800 students. Works great for them. They do have plenty of money, it's not a poor district which would have inherent problems not happening in FCC. However, some people don't like the idea of a small school like that. They are the ones who don't live there. If you like the idea you might want to look into it.

In MCPS if they were to agree and adopt this idea tomorrow it would probably become a reality about ten or fifteen years from now. Government works very slowly.

FCC is IB, with very few AP options, and Asians (the highest achieving cohort of students) tend to avoid FCCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they were smaller they would be easier to maintain and adjust to the
needs of the public. Why they have to be such a gigantic factories?

Because voters support the Apple Ballot and the Apple Ballot teachers' union put Board of Education members into office who threw out the Policy in 2005 that set reasonable school sizes.

You voted for this.
You got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they were smaller they would be easier to maintain and adjust to the
needs of the public. Why they have to be such a gigantic factories?

Because voters support the Apple Ballot and the Apple Ballot teachers' union put Board of Education members into office who threw out the Policy in 2005 that set reasonable school sizes.

You voted for this.
You got it.

Which policy was this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These wacky fantasy posts about things like Potomac splintering off and becoming their own county and now this.

These ideas are half-baked and will never happen.

OP seems to be the same poster who's going nuts over potential redistricting and its "effect" on SATs. Same broken English and crazy rants.

OP, wherever you're from, do you have a version of 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'? You're now in Montgomery County, MD, and no one cares if they run their public schools in Shenzhen, Seoul or Tomsk (which, I'm sure, they do!) so just drop it already. It's getting old fast.

Not OP, but clearly whatever is going on in Montgomery County, MD is not working. When MCPS has a $2.8 billion budget and they still have run down schools with achievement issues, there is something wrong. Maybe it is time to look at Shenzhen, Seoul or Tomsk for different solutions. Maybe even within our borders, there might be effective solutions elsewhere that could be applied here.

No, we don't need to look to Asia. We ran our own successful schools fine before we gave up tracking, textbooks, skills-based teaching and discipline. We even assimilated many kids who didn't speak English. It is only when we started expecting schools to mainstream every type of disability, send everyone to college regardless of innate ability, calmly soothe every emotionally disabled and violent kid, and provide a full range of social services that they started to break down. We already know what works (and it worked better than the schools in Asia).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These wacky fantasy posts about things like Potomac splintering off and becoming their own county and now this.

These ideas are half-baked and will never happen.

OP seems to be the same poster who's going nuts over potential redistricting and its "effect" on SATs. Same broken English and crazy rants.

OP, wherever you're from, do you have a version of 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'? You're now in Montgomery County, MD, and no one cares if they run their public schools in Shenzhen, Seoul or Tomsk (which, I'm sure, they do!) so just drop it already. It's getting old fast.

Not OP, but clearly whatever is going on in Montgomery County, MD is not working. When MCPS has a $2.8 billion budget and they still have run down schools with achievement issues, there is something wrong. Maybe it is time to look at Shenzhen, Seoul or Tomsk for different solutions. Maybe even within our borders, there might be effective solutions elsewhere that could be applied here.

No, we don't need to look to Asia. We ran our own successful schools fine before we gave up tracking, textbooks, skills-based teaching and discipline. We even assimilated many kids who didn't speak English. It is only when we started expecting schools to mainstream every type of disability, send everyone to college regardless of innate ability, calmly soothe every emotionally disabled and violent kid, and provide a full range of social services that they started to break down. We already know what works (and it worked better than the schools in Asia).

Agreed. There were good reasons that people moved heaven and earth for decades to get themselves and their family here. Educationally it may be breaking down but it's not like we never knew and don't know how to do anything lol.