MCPS Should Be Ashamed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:they spend too much or not enough... wtf are you saying

DP. They spend on the wrong things. This could not be more clear from the post. Why are you so confused by it?

So... you want nicer buildings?

We want clean buildings. We want classrooms that aren’t disgusting, desks for the kids that aren’t falling apart, rooms where everything is filthy, shelves that won’t fall on a student, shelves that aren’t from 1979 and falling apart. Love how you think you’re edgy though. So cute.

Don’t forget functioning lights and AC!

[Anonymous]

Is there a list of schools with particularly bad facilities problems?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a list of schools with particularly bad facilities problems?

This is the list of key facilities indicators at each school building:

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/kfi/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a list of schools with particularly bad facilities problems?

This is the list of key facilities indicators at each school building:

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/kfi/

Thanks. This is from 2018 — how often do they update it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We already knew this but wow. I just saw my new classroom and central office has no business being that bloated, with a 3 BILLION dollar budget, yet classrooms are in decrepit conditions. Everything in here is so old, dirty, and disgusting, I'm about to walk out. The STUDENTS deserve better, not McKnight and her useless cronies who get paid to basically do nothing all day with nice salaries. I'm just so grossed out.

How does central office look?

[Anonymous]

I think it's great that we're identifying so many deficits. Clearly, there's a will to increase taxes/allocations to address them, since the 25-year underfunding of the system is what has made it so, as much as, if not more than, any mismanagement. Run the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with OP that some things in MCPS are horrifying, sexual assault cases in particular!

But I don't see the disgusting classrooms anywhere. Which school are you working in, OP? My kids have been in elementary, middle and high schools (different ones because they were in different programs), and apart from that one episode where the sprinkler system sprayed dirty water everywhere, the building are usually pretty clean. Then during the school year, the bathrooms get progressively more unkempt, and there might be rodents, but... nothing spectacular.

There are HVAC issues in multiple schools, where some classrooms are way to hot or way to cold. There are leaks, occasionally. Are you talking about that? Sadly, know that the list of repairs and maintenance is LOOONG, and that schools have to wait their turn. I'm sorry if you're in one of those problematic rooms. I agree that it's not a good look for Central Office to spend all this money on itself, while some teachers and students suffer in a 90F art room, like my friend's child at Woodlin ES years ago (hopefully they've fixed it).

You haven't stepped in Poolesville or Wootton High school, have you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with OP that some things in MCPS are horrifying, sexual assault cases in particular!

But I don't see the disgusting classrooms anywhere. Which school are you working in, OP? My kids have been in elementary, middle and high schools (different ones because they were in different programs), and apart from that one episode where the sprinkler system sprayed dirty water everywhere, the building are usually pretty clean. Then during the school year, the bathrooms get progressively more unkempt, and there might be rodents, but... nothing spectacular.

There are HVAC issues in multiple schools, where some classrooms are way to hot or way to cold. There are leaks, occasionally. Are you talking about that? Sadly, know that the list of repairs and maintenance is LOOONG, and that schools have to wait their turn. I'm sorry if you're in one of those problematic rooms. I agree that it's not a good look for Central Office to spend all this money on itself, while some teachers and students suffer in a 90F art room, like my friend's child at Woodlin ES years ago (hopefully they've fixed it).

You haven't stepped in Poolesville or Wootton High school, have you?

There are plenty of MCPS facilities with similar need. Poolesville & Wooton just have the loudest parent voices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great that we're identifying so many deficits. Clearly, there's a will to increase taxes/allocations to address them, since the 25-year underfunding of the system is what has made it so, as much as, if not more than, any mismanagement. Run the numbers.

Underfunding???? What are you smoking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great that we're identifying so many deficits. Clearly, there's a will to increase taxes/allocations to address them, since the 25-year underfunding of the system is what has made it so, as much as, if not more than, any mismanagement. Run the numbers.

Underfunding???? What are you smoking?

Again, run the numbers. Check the budget per student and compare that to whichever district you'd like to emulate.

Look at the budget requests for the past quarter-century, and then look at the eventual County Council appropriation, which has consistently under-funded the requests. Check into all the ever-delayed/deferred facility projects that have resulted. Imagine the extra maintenace coats for older infrastructure that come with those delayed capital projects.

Identify the impact of sweetheart-deal-to-developer exceptions to impact taxes. Research the near giveaways of county educational property to private purposes that could have supported better current capacity.

Digest a of this with a reminiscent clip of Sam Seaborn on education from 23 years ago. Still rings true. Too bad we've apparently chosen other priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great that we're identifying so many deficits. Clearly, there's a will to increase taxes/allocations to address them, since the 25-year underfunding of the system is what has made it so, as much as, if not more than, any mismanagement. Run the numbers.

Underfunding???? What are you smoking?

Again, run the numbers. Check the budget per student and compare that to whichever district you'd like to emulate.

Look at the budget requests for the past quarter-century, and then look at the eventual County Council appropriation, which has consistently under-funded the requests. Check into all the ever-delayed/deferred facility projects that have resulted. Imagine the extra maintenace coats for older infrastructure that come with those delayed capital projects.

Identify the impact of sweetheart-deal-to-developer exceptions to impact taxes. Research the near giveaways of county educational property to private purposes that could have supported better current capacity.

Digest a of this with a reminiscent clip of Sam Seaborn on education from 23 years ago. Still rings true. Too bad we've apparently chosen other priorities.

DP.
Perhaps everything that specifically impacts the classroom is underfunded, but MCPS definitely has plenty of money. I’d be more sympathetic if central office salaries and initiatives didn’t suck up so much of the funding. I suspect we could get rid of 3/4 of central office and the schools wouldn’t even notice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great that we're identifying so many deficits. Clearly, there's a will to increase taxes/allocations to address them, since the 25-year underfunding of the system is what has made it so, as much as, if not more than, any mismanagement. Run the numbers.

Underfunding???? What are you smoking?

Again, run the numbers. Check the budget per student and compare that to whichever district you'd like to emulate.

Look at the budget requests for the past quarter-century, and then look at the eventual County Council appropriation, which has consistently under-funded the requests. Check into all the ever-delayed/deferred facility projects that have resulted. Imagine the extra maintenace coats for older infrastructure that come with those delayed capital projects.

Identify the impact of sweetheart-deal-to-developer exceptions to impact taxes. Research the near giveaways of county educational property to private purposes that could have supported better current capacity.

Digest a of this with a reminiscent clip of Sam Seaborn on education from 23 years ago. Still rings true. Too bad we've apparently chosen other priorities.

DP.
Perhaps everything that specifically impacts the classroom is underfunded, but MCPS definitely has plenty of money. I’d be more sympathetic if central office salaries and initiatives didn’t suck up so much of the funding. I suspect we could get rid of 3/4 of central office and the schools wouldn’t even notice.

I mean, sure, fine. Go after central. Go after potential mismanagement. I'm not saying there couldn't be any of that.

How does that get done? Oversight. Which costs $. The BOE for this enormous enterprise gets part-time stipends for what should be a more-than-full-time job. And they'd need an independent staff to make it work.

And the costs, there, along with any potential savings from resulting proper management/identification & claw-back of graft (but not from contractors, of course -- their contracts tend to protect them) are small in comparison to the budget, whereas the underfunding is, and has been, large

Or you could throw up your hands in a self-serving way, claim the mismanagement based on not much more than the top-line budget number ("Look! A number with a 'B'! They have a show about that, and those people are mean and certainly don't deserve their vast wealth!") not bothering to check to see if the per-student amount is reasonable in comparison to whichever A+ district you cherry-pick, say, "See! Government waste of our tax dollars!," campaign for de-funding of public schools and for private school vouchers that decimate public economies of scale and overwhelmingly serve those of means in the first place, and loudly complain in later years about how society is full of undereducated ne'er-do-wells, so we need to spend money on law enforcement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a list of schools with particularly bad facilities problems?

This is the list of key facilities indicators at each school building:

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/kfi/

There’s no way this is accurate. My school has many classrooms without functioning lights or AC and we often have air quality issues due to sewage issues yet we are all green on this website:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a list of schools with particularly bad facilities problems?

This is the list of key facilities indicators at each school building:

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/kfi/

There’s no way this is accurate. My school has many classrooms without functioning lights or AC and we often have air quality issues due to sewage issues yet we are all green on this website:

Yeah...I have a suspicion that the group asked to do the KFI assessments didn't spend so much time in the facilities, themselves, monitoring/testing/etc., but relied a good deal on principals to let them know what was of concern as the basis/starting point for their examinations.

Some principals, seeing how this would work (knowing differential funding would flow to lower-rated facilities), could have delivered a laundry list expressed with deep concern to elicit a red or yellow where a yellow or green might really be the case. Others, wanting to toe an MCPS financial line or to avoid drawing difficult-to-handle community concern, could have downplayed their building's issues, mentioning only that which was obvious and eliciting a yellow or green where a red or yellow mught really be the case.

All we really can tell is that the KFIs aren't always properly representative of true conditions, and that there are many facilities needing better maintenance, repairs, upgrades, expansion or wholesale replacement.

[Anonymous]

I just moved here from California and I have no idea about the inside conditions of any school, but every time I drive by an MCPS school, I’m always surprised at how dated they look. Straight out of the 70s and falling apart. Ever heard of upgrading?