Upcoming in-person boundary study & regional model "engagement session": how to engage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

There were a good number of people from Kennedy, Einstein, Wheaton and Northwood. Basically the DCC community.

I wonder why Blair isn't present in these discussions.

Blair has what it needs and done string arts programs. It impacts them far less.

It doees? It always seemed to me that the magnet was such a separate issue than the rest of Blair, and that the majority of Blair would have other issues (e.g., test scores, supports, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

There were a good number of people from Kennedy, Einstein, Wheaton and Northwood. Basically the DCC community.

I wonder why Blair isn't present in these discussions.

Blair has what it needs and done string arts programs. It impacts them far less.

It doees? It always seemed to me that the magnet was such a separate issue than the rest of Blair, and that the majority of Blair would have other issues (e.g., test scores, supports, etc).

I'd rather guess the Blair community will mostly choose to attend the Nov. 10 meeting at Blair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was quite a scene at Kennedy tonight. At first, MCPS team tried to shut down general Q&A after their presentation by attempting to break parents to small groups. That didn’t go well… After a lot of loud complains from parents, they reluctantly allowed Q&A. I hope MCPS has the courage to keep that protest scene in their recording. The general sentiment of the Q&A was frustration, to say mildly. One community member of the design team said that the regional model was developed not thanks to their inputs but despite their inputs. What a shame to MCPS. Time to organize seriously against this madness.

I was there tonight. Parents made their voices loud and clear and they were VERY UNHAPPY with MCPS and its program analysis.

No one even talked about the boundary study. Almost all of the ire was about the program analysis. MCPS's attempts to contain and silence parents did not go over well and did not work.

Board members Laura Stewart and Karla Silvestre were in attendance. This should inform their votes on this program proposal.

was your impression that people in attendance were largely from Kennedy? I can imagine that Kennedy people were upset with losing the ability to lottery out of the school in large numbers.

There were a good number of people from Kennedy, Einstein, Wheaton and Northwood. Basically the DCC community.

I wonder why Blair isn't present in these discussions.

Blair has what it needs and done string arts programs. It impacts them far less.

It doees? It always seemed to me that the magnet was such a separate issue than the rest of Blair, and that the majority of Blair would have other issues (e.g., test scores, supports, etc).

I'd rather guess the Blair community will mostly choose to attend the Nov. 10 meeting at Blair.

good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any notable statements on the substance from anyone at MCPS? Did anyone ask about transportation, criteria, staffing?

I did talk to someone from MCPS involved in the STEM program design and they said there would be no changes to selection criteria, staffing or program size for Blair SMCS. Not sure I fully believe them.

Didn't get any answers about transportation.

Who was it who said this? Unless it was someone near the top of this, I'm skeptical. Blair SMCS gets a ton of extra resources/staffing on top of their regular allocations, and I suspect MCPS doesn't want to either give those same resources to all 6 SMCSes or to have just one of them with way more staffing than the others. Which suggests major cuts at Blair instead. But I could be wrong...

[Anonymous]

Just for the replication question: Does Blair SMCS operate on a different period/bell schedule? I recall reading something about an extra period. That would suggest it would be difficult for kids not in the magnet (or programs or whatever they will be) to take magnet classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just for the replication question: Does Blair SMCS operate on a different period/bell schedule? I recall reading something about an extra period. That would suggest it would be difficult for kids not in the magnet (or programs or whatever they will be) to take magnet classes.

I believe they have an extra class at the end of the school day (after the day ends for the regular kids) but the rest of the periods line up with the rest of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any notable statements on the substance from anyone at MCPS? Did anyone ask about transportation, criteria, staffing?

I did talk to someone from MCPS involved in the STEM program design and they said there would be no changes to selection criteria, staffing or program size for Blair SMCS. Not sure I fully believe them.

Didn't get any answers about transportation.

Who was it who said this? Unless it was someone near the top of this, I'm skeptical. Blair SMCS gets a ton of extra resources/staffing on top of their regular allocations, and I suspect MCPS doesn't want to either give those same resources to all 6 SMCSes or to have just one of them with way more staffing than the others. Which suggests major cuts at Blair instead. But I could be wrong...

It was not a high level staff member, hence my skepticism. But that is what they told me, and I talked to them for a while about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any notable statements on the substance from anyone at MCPS? Did anyone ask about transportation, criteria, staffing?

I did talk to someone from MCPS involved in the STEM program design and they said there would be no changes to selection criteria, staffing or program size for Blair SMCS. Not sure I fully believe them.

Didn't get any answers about transportation.

Who was it who said this? Unless it was someone near the top of this, I'm skeptical. Blair SMCS gets a ton of extra resources/staffing on top of their regular allocations, and I suspect MCPS doesn't want to either give those same resources to all 6 SMCSes or to have just one of them with way more staffing than the others. Which suggests major cuts at Blair instead. But I could be wrong...

It was not a high level staff member, hence my skepticism. But that is what they told me, and I talked to them for a while about it.

I'm skeptical too. Keeping Blair (and Poolesville)'s SMCS program with their current level of staffing and resources would be hugely inequitable for the other 4 regions. But providing the other 4 regions with that level of staffing and course offerings would be very expensive. That's the issue with this whole scheme. I think it *could* work if they were trying a 3-region model, but with 6 it's just unwieldy and inefficient.

[Anonymous]

Looks like the video from the 10/30 session at Kennedy is posted:

https://youtu.be/InnCtMCX2J0?si=PshfHfoUiPZHtxCZ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the video from the 10/30 session at Kennedy is posted:

https://youtu.be/InnCtMCX2J0?si=PshfHfoUiPZHtxCZ

Chief of Staff Essie McGuire was absolutely eaten alive. She is incompetent, inept and tone deaf. She needs to go.

[Anonymous]

Embedded for those who are too lazy to click the link

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the video from the 10/30 session at Kennedy is posted:

https://youtu.be/InnCtMCX2J0?si=PshfHfoUiPZHtxCZ

Chief of Staff Essie McGuire was absolutely eaten alive. She is incompetent, inept and tone deaf. She needs to go.

They thoughy they could get away with faking community engagement. See from the 25:30 minute mark. Very interesting to see MCPS leadership’s true color being exposed

[Anonymous]

If you plan to go, you need to check their link almost daily to make sure nothing has changed.

There's no longer a Rockville HS meeting that was planned for Nov. 12, for example, and Clarksburg was added.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/academic-programs-analysis/

As of Nov. 5, in Person Community Engagement Meetings from 7-8 p.m. at:

Nov. 10 – Montgomery Blair High School (Region 1)
Nov. 13 – Winston Churchill High School (Region 4)
Nov. 17 – Paint Branch High School (Region 2)
Nov. 18 – Clarksburg High School (Region 6)

Interesting why there's not been widespread texts or emails. They didn't seem to have a problem announcing webinars multiple times. Looks bad faith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the video from the 10/30 session at Kennedy is posted:

https://youtu.be/InnCtMCX2J0?si=PshfHfoUiPZHtxCZ

Chief of Staff Essie McGuire was absolutely eaten alive. She is incompetent, inept and tone deaf. She needs to go.

They thoughy they could get away with faking community engagement. See from the 25:30 minute mark. Very interesting to see MCPS leadership’s true color being exposed

+1 it was pretty disrespectful to demand people's time but ignore them and walk out of the room when they told you they wanted to have their questions answered publicly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the video from the 10/30 session at Kennedy is posted:

https://youtu.be/InnCtMCX2J0?si=PshfHfoUiPZHtxCZ

Chief of Staff Essie McGuire was absolutely eaten alive. She is incompetent, inept and tone deaf. She needs to go.

They thoughy they could get away with faking community engagement. See from the 25:30 minute mark. Very interesting to see MCPS leadership’s true color being exposed

+1 it was pretty disrespectful to demand people's time but ignore them and walk out of the room when they told you they wanted to have their questions answered publicly.

That was odd about the microphone—Essie would not let anybody even touch it or go near it. The make was held a few feet away from the concerned parent asking the question.

And to try to put people in small tables and having MCPS visit the tables, instead of having a normal open Q and A.

And now cancelling or changing engagement sessions without sufficiently notifying the public.

MCPS looks very defensive and trying to avoid meaningful community engagement.