When is the plan for new HS programs coming out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does BOE actually care about public sentiment? Bc it seems from DCUM that they vociferously oppose public and want to do the exact opposit

I’m sure it’s tricky. I remember seeing a slide about responses to the boundary study, and I noted that a much larger share of responses had come from W clusters. The DCC was much less represented. While I am sure the BOE is interested in feedback, I’m sure they note that not all perspectives are equally represented.

Not all perspectives are equally represented because MCPS continually fails to understand engagement with the community. Just talking to you determined partners with no real plan or time for said partners to share out information and details is unhelpful. The communities are not the same. Several communities are very diverse. Which means understanding they did not all attend MCPS public schools as kids. They might not have attend public school at all and potentially not attend K-12 in the U.S. so their understanding of expectation of how all this develops in a learning process. And we’ve already discussed how MCPS has muddled discussion of the Program Study with the Boundary Study.

But also some schools are impacted negatively and so those schools are going to respond more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does BOE actually care about public sentiment? Bc it seems from DCUM that they vociferously oppose public and want to do the exact opposit

I’m sure it’s tricky. I remember seeing a slide about responses to the boundary study, and I noted that a much larger share of responses had come from W clusters. The DCC was much less represented. While I am sure the BOE is interested in feedback, I’m sure they note that not all perspectives are equally represented.

As a DCC family, I know they don’t care about us so why bother. They will make their decisions and we will make our decisions accordingly. Worst case for us is we do a private virtual school or go private which we may anyway as we have no choice as one of my kids is struggling to get all the graduation requirements in due to lack of offerings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does BOE actually care about public sentiment? Bc it seems from DCUM that they vociferously oppose public and want to do the exact opposit

I’m sure it’s tricky. I remember seeing a slide about responses to the boundary study, and I noted that a much larger share of responses had come from W clusters. The DCC was much less represented. While I am sure the BOE is interested in feedback, I’m sure they note that not all perspectives are equally represented.

Not all perspectives are equally represented because MCPS continually fails to understand engagement with the community. Just talking to you determined partners with no real plan or time for said partners to share out information and details is unhelpful. The communities are not the same. Several communities are very diverse. Which means understanding they did not all attend MCPS public schools as kids. They might not have attend public school at all and potentially not attend K-12 in the U.S. so their understanding of expectation of how all this develops in a learning process. And we’ve already discussed how MCPS has muddled discussion of the Program Study with the Boundary Study.

But also some schools are impacted negatively and so those schools are going to respond more.

No one can say at this point what schools are impacted negatively or positively because there is not enough information. People assume their school is impacted negatively because of fear mongering and some people being afraid of change. This isn’t helped when MCPS does not provide clear communication and transparency of what’s going on.

At this point MCPS should clearly recognize that they need to EARN trust from the community. Does that mean they will have more work? YES. Are people still going to complain? YES. But at least you will be working towards community support and engagement. The Boundary study team seems to get this. Kechia Addison seems to get this when she comes to the Board prepared with data and a notebook to take notes on the feedback and then implement it. Heck, Taylor even seemed to get it when presenting the proposed budget? Why are others in CO not similarly on the same page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

Yup. At some point, you have to believe MCPS's actions and not their words. They will always say things that sound nice, but they'll never do the genuine work and effort it takes to make things better. Their intent is to pacify you with their words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

Yup. At some point, you have to believe MCPS's actions and not their words. They will always say things that sound nice, but they'll never do the genuine work and effort it takes to make things better. Their intent is to pacify you with their words.

+1!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

Yup. At some point, you have to believe MCPS's actions and not their words. They will always say things that sound nice, but they'll never do the genuine work and effort it takes to make things better. Their intent is to pacify you with their words.

+1!!!!!

+2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

Yup. At some point, you have to believe MCPS's actions and not their words. They will always say things that sound nice, but they'll never do the genuine work and effort it takes to make things better. Their intent is to pacify you with their words.

I think the is US Education generally. Instead of making bold new changes they keep tweaking at the corners. I know things take time, but something needs to change. I will credit Taylor with admitting that the current budget doesn’t have any innovation within it, but I don’t know how their going to achieve a goal of all McPS schools achieve a 4-star rating without innovation and change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

Yup. At some point, you have to believe MCPS's actions and not their words. They will always say things that sound nice, but they'll never do the genuine work and effort it takes to make things better. Their intent is to pacify you with their words.

I think the is US Education generally. Instead of making bold new changes they keep tweaking at the corners. I know things take time, but something needs to change. I will credit Taylor with admitting that the current budget doesn’t have any innovation within it, but I don’t know how their going to achieve a goal of all McPS schools achieve a 4-star rating without innovation and change.

And I’ll even further state that potentially what needed to happen first was stability and shoring things up before innovation. But, if that’s the case he should really give an update on his thinking and planning. I assume that’s the details that are to be worked out this summer that align with the strategic plan????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will it be finalized soon or just proposed and open for comment?

Today's meeting is the proposal and discussion. No vote.

[Anonymous]

And it's a disaster, and since MCPS has been secretive about the entire process (what happened to transparency?), people are going to be horrified. Not only with the 6 zones, but how much change this will mean for our communities.

That this is being done along side the boundary study, but not with the boundary study, is malfeasance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And it's a disaster, and since MCPS has been secretive about the entire process (what happened to transparency?), people are going to be horrified. Not only with the 6 zones, but how much change this will mean for our communities.

That this is being done along side the boundary study, but not with the boundary study, is malfeasance.

Are you OK?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

No vote yet, but this is the BOE’s chance to provide oversight and input before further decisions are made. This is going to be a major change, and MCPS is moving it along without any meaningful input from
The public or thr BOE. Like one of the PPs said, it’s a sham process. Say what you will about the boundary process, but they are communicating about it to the public and providing many ways to learn more and get input. This programs process is further along and yet the public knows nothing about it.

Then when is the vote? And why is there not multiple voted along the way? One to accept the new model, one for the allocation of problems and implementation process?

And why for the love of project management did the slides not contained a more fleshed out scheduled from July-Nov. At the least the next 3months. All they keep saying in Implementation planning. What the heck does that actually mean? When are they holding community conversations? When is the next update to the BOE/Community expected (even if not delivered at the board table)? When is final determination of program allocation? I don’t even work in HigherEd and based on their own presentations would have put together a skeleton timeline to track this through.

Taylor did tons of community discussions earlier in the year. This is their response. He promised transparency. More secrecy. He promised more safety measures. Not happening. He promised to help the kids in virtual. They shut the program down, many left and the new program sucks. They shut down an auto trade program, an autism program and did not open more early education claiming poverty. Now they are fully funded for next year but refuse to pay for virtual, more special needs programs and beef up the trades for kids who need it. And, no mention of the early education programs. They are talking about for special education teachers but it’s basically 2-3 per school which is nice but not a fix. No extra esol help. Why not teach core classes in Spanish and have intensive English classes or an immersion program for Spanish speakers so they can get an education. If it was done differently maybe with some of those kids we’d see better behavior. Imagine going into a classroom all day where you understand nothing, presumed dumb and little support. Of course these kids are struggling, acting out and dropping out. It could change the course of their lives and save the government money when they are adults. So many things mcps could do but they’d rather waste money than really make MCPS great.

Yup. At some point, you have to believe MCPS's actions and not their words. They will always say things that sound nice, but they'll never do the genuine work and effort it takes to make things better. Their intent is to pacify you with their words.

I think the is US Education generally. Instead of making bold new changes they keep tweaking at the corners. I know things take time, but something needs to change. I will credit Taylor with admitting that the current budget doesn’t have any innovation within it, but I don’t know how their going to achieve a goal of all McPS schools achieve a 4-star rating without innovation and change.

The problem is he's not doing anything about the budget but asking for more money. They need a line by line penny by penny audit, cut the waste and they'd have plenty of money for new classes, supports for ESOL, SN and other kids, creative innovative programs, programs for the behavior problems, virtual school and repairs/replacing schools that desperately need it. He inherited a mess but he knew what he was getting into and ultimately accountable.

Right now they are just rearranging, nothing new, innovative or really going to fix things.

I forget the numbers but 50 new security guards over 200 schools is better than nothing but just a band-aid. 700 SPED teachers (many of whom aren't really knowledgeable or trained) also is nice but with 200 schools, that's again a band-aid. Its not just SPED teachers we need, we need more speech, OT, para's, different classes to meet kids needs (both on the high and lower end - and smart ESOL kids who don't speak English as they still need to learn and why not have them learn in their language - surely there are enough students to run full spanish classes at each school with intensive english lessons as well - then they'd get a good education too).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had made a copy of the slides when I looked at them on Friday. I am glad I wrote down some of the info, but now I am curious what will change and am not confident I can 100% remember what was on them, especially for the slides where I did not take notes.

This really shows you how close they are holding this info. Their lack of communication with the public about this is purposeful.

There's a public meeting tomorrow...why can't you all just wait until then instead of speculating endlessly about what they might say?

It’s a Board meeting right? Most professional boards have rules about circulating materials ahead of time so the Board can read the materials and prepare thoughtful questions. Why can’t you support good governance rather than complaining about people who want to be prepared?

+1

I do not trust MCPS at all on this. They have not held public sessions on this work, offered office hours, and been forthright about the work they are doing so constituents can weigh in with feedback. They are making decisions now so that the boundary studies can move forward, without input from students and parents. (That survey was not meaningful — no one knew what they were considering doing or what the trade offs would be.)

And when they did post materials and someone posted about it on DCUM, came out on DCUM, they immediately deleted the posted materials — god forbid the public should know what they are doing before the meeting, so they could reach out to Board members with concerns or address points in their prepared testimony. This so-called study is a sham with no meaningful transparency or input.

+2 It's a pretty crap process if the Board members are just expected to nod their heads and vote yes to materials they haven't reviewed. Might as well get rid of them all and just buy a big rubber stamp.

I thought it was just an update and they're not voting on anything until the end of the year?

Someone upthread said the changes being made will impact the class of incoming 8th graders this year. So at this point, yes, parents want to know what is going on before this class gets something half cooked imposed upon them with no chance for parental feedback. Board members should want to know the details too if they're actually doing their jobs.