Board of Education meeting Aug 21 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

Who is Porter? Isn't Niki Hazel Chief Academic Officer?

She's Niki Porter now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

Porter is in over her head, but I wonder if Taylor is getting the message that the BOE may not be on board with this chaos and MCPS' junk surveys.

Who is Porter? Isn't Niki Hazel Chief Academic Officer?

She's Niki Porter now.

Ahhh gotcha - I thought maybe Taylor had replaced her!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

It’s gonna be too late to reverse the track after the re-election, isn’t it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

It’s gonna be too late to reverse the track after the re-election, isn’t it?

Yup

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

It’s gonna be too late to reverse the track after the re-election, isn’t it?

Yup

It’s time to vote for charter schools then. I’m a life-long democrat and I’m done with the incompetence and corruption on display here. Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

I'm curious, do folks have a sense of if it's her or Taylor driving the bus on the program analysis? Clearly they are both on board but I wonder who is really driving it.

Taylor is definitely driving the bus. In fact, he seems to be sitting quite comfortably on his throne.

I mean, he's the superintendent.

Right, but it is theoretically possible that it is her pet project that she convinced him of and he supports and has gotten behind. Or is it his pet project that she is supporting and leading for him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm concerned about Taylor. Laura Stewart is asking for a slower transition, and Taylor turned that down flat. Key information about transportation costs are now unknowable, per Taylor's comments. The chief academic officer is sure we have all the expertise we need among current educators to duplicate programs regionally. Educators and the community think that isn't the case. Professional education has not been addressed at all; The Chief Academic Officer admitted she wasn't sure what teachers had which expertise and she didn't know which schools they were located in. I wish Taylor could exhibit more flexibility.

The Chief Academic Officer embarrassingly had her butt kicked by Julie Yang on the issue of the contract they declined to approve for surveying students on AP/IB testing. I don't think she's ready for the role she took on.

I'm curious, do folks have a sense of if it's her or Taylor driving the bus on the program analysis? Clearly they are both on board but I wonder who is really driving it.

Taylor is definitely driving the bus. In fact, he seems to be sitting quite comfortably on his throne.

I mean, he's the superintendent.

Maybe it's time that we had state law rewritten so that the superintendent has a few checks on his power. There is something wrong with a system that only gives power to a BOE to hire and fire a superintendent, with all other "power" being advisory. How do you contain the power of a superintendent without having to put the system into chaos again by firing the superintendent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

I would say that Stewart and Yang are the best informed of the group. Wolf and Silvestre are burned out. The rest are lost in the woods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

I would say that Stewart and Yang are the best informed of the group. Wolf and Silvestre are burned out. The rest are lost in the woods.

They all ask valid questions yesterday from their perspectives. Some of the questions are right on spot, but how do they make sure their questions are follow-up with concrete data analysis? They didn't realize how low-ball the current estimates are, and they didn't ask how to engage community to help shaping the multi-year transition process. So far everything is top-down and I can imagine the engagement will be just notifications, Q&A and some fake surveys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering: how could BOE stops this non-stopping bus from crushing into reality? Or how could they hold Taylor or anyone accountable when everything crushes 3-4 years later when he is done with his term?

The estimated costs are absurdly underestimated. For one, the number of additional bus route for each region only accounts between HS to HS within a region, while right now magnet and IB bus stops at every ES, MS, HS and public library. The equivalent added bus route once they consider equivalent scenario can easily blow-up the ceiling. Secondly, the cost for teacher training, oh I'm LMO when I see those numbers. $2160 per year for training two computer science teachers to manage computer simulation, game programing, AI? Are they sure this is not one solid full-year load of CS undergraduate course? Again, their budget has ZERO dollar toward hiring new hyper-specialized teachers. Thirdly, research internship for every student in the program? Do they have any mere understanding of the current job market?

Seriously, the teachers union needs to push back on this insanity.

Union President Dave Stein pushed back 2 BOE meetings ago about how Taylor's changes are going to crash Blair's magnet, where he teaches. Meanwhile, the teacher's union is also busy suing the school district just to get summer school staff paid. And don't forget that security clearances still are not completed.

Taylor can't get the routine processes completed successfully. Does anyone think this regional programming/boundary changes is going to be successful the way Taylor is pushing this through quickly? Are we seriously leaving our economic status up to someone whose previous experience was to oversee a school district with 32,000 students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

It’s gonna be too late to reverse the track after the re-election, isn’t it?

I don't think Silvestre will run for reelection. I don't think anyone who participated in the hiring of McKnight will run for BOE again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

You are on to something

There is that. But I think that Silvestre is just trying to come up with some way to reintroduce rigor that the superintendent is removing from the system.

I don't believe that MC has the capacity to take on so many students at once. And, it's depressing to hear people suggest remote learning as a solution.

Silvestre is blissfully continuing to support the have/have-not dichotomy of in-person classes vs. MC classes (or remote), with all the burden those bring. It helps keep her MC job more relevant, and most are too oblivious to identify the discriminatory disparity in the cheerfully promoted "opportunity to take college courses" messaging.

Yup. Which was precisely why my antenna went off when she had the nerve to literally evangelize it on the board, knowing full well she is an employee of Montgomery College, which has been using the public K-12 funds to plug holes in enrollment.

It would be the equivalent of a board member who worked for the College Board boasting and promoting AP over IB or Dual Enrollment during a board meeting. It definitely seems like a conflict of interest and if we had a functional board that operated under a code of ethics, Karla would get her hand slapped for this.

The conflict of interest here with MC is sickening. I work in higher education and you’re correct that MC is not equipped to take on high school students. As PP said, those classes are designed for a specific population of students. I agree this entire situation reeks of corruption. Someone is giving Taylor the runway for this project.

I’m going to be voting any incumbents off that board that I can, they need to develop a backbone. Seriously, what is going on people?

It’s gonna be too late to reverse the track after the re-election, isn’t it?

I don't think Silvestre will run for reelection. I don't think anyone who participated in the hiring of McKnight will run for BOE again.

So literally no one will take the consequences. The only result we will end up with is expecting a double digit increase in property tax in 2027 or 2028, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't it be a conflict of interest for Karla Silvestre to be evangelizing and pushing dual enrollment during board meetings as she did during the program analysis Q&A, given her role with Montgomery College?

Absolutely! She asks about it at every BOE meeting.

I thought MCPS didn’t provide transportation for classes at MC. So how is that even an option if the whole point of the program study is equity and increased access

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering: how could BOE stops this non-stopping bus from crushing into reality? Or how could they hold Taylor or anyone accountable when everything crushes 3-4 years later when he is done with his term?

The estimated costs are absurdly underestimated. For one, the number of additional bus route for each region only accounts between HS to HS within a region, while right now magnet and IB bus stops at every ES, MS, HS and public library. The equivalent added bus route once they consider equivalent scenario can easily blow-up the ceiling. Secondly, the cost for teacher training, oh I'm LMO when I see those numbers. $2160 per year for training two computer science teachers to manage computer simulation, game programing, AI? Are they sure this is not one solid full-year load of CS undergraduate course? Again, their budget has ZERO dollar toward hiring new hyper-specialized teachers. Thirdly, research internship for every student in the program? Do they have any mere understanding of the current job market?

Colleges can’t even place all of their students in necessary internships in STEM fields in this current economy.