Support the Montgomery Virtual Academy (MVA) from Budget Cuts!

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Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

I never saw any math - can you re-post it? All I saw were baseless claims from random people about how continuing to run this $5M would save MCPS some moeny because of the poster's best guess about how allocations and funding works.

Also, MCPS isn't offering a virtual program after this year either, so your anecdotal perspective about why it works in the face of a mountain of objective evidence that says the contrary is also irrelevant at this point.

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Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

I never saw any math - can you re-post it? All I saw were baseless claims from random people about how continuing to run this $5M would save MCPS some moeny because of the poster's best guess about how allocations and funding works.

Also, MCPS isn't offering a virtual program after this year either, so your anecdotal perspective about why it works in the face of a mountain of objective evidence that says the contrary is also irrelevant at this point.

It's in the thread. A program like Virtual Virginia, which is a private program is $5500-6K. So, do the math with $5500 with 850 (there are slightly more) students. That is close to 4.7 million and that's assuming the $5500 price and not more. Also, there are kids on the waitlist so add in maybe $1K students or more. And, MCPS is paying less than $5 million.

And, if MCPS is only paying $5-6K per student, they are profiting the rest.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

Every time talk start calling names, it makes me care about your plight even less. Bravo! Buh bye.

You care as you keep posting here and on multiple social media platforms. We all know who you are. It's sad you think you are advocating for students and you are hurting them. You don't care about anyone but yourself and your five minutes of fame. You couldn't hack virtual so you think it doesn't work for all kids.

What do you propose MCPS to do with kids who cannot go in person? Do you think the few hours ISS is sufficient a week for a proper education? There are kids with serious medical issues.

DP. Funny how quickly this turned from "Sign our Petition! Save our School!" to these kind of bizarre conspiracy theories ("we alll know who you are") and stupid insults about virtual. MVA parents have shown who they are and it is UGLY.

You are the one badmouthing and insulting. Read your posts. We just posted a petition, you came on the thread to bash and be pleased about the closure. You are the one showing who you are and it's ugly. If you don't support it or want your kids in it, fine but no need to post here and every other social media site with your nastiness and negativity.

I didn't see any bashing at all. I saw data about how the program fails to educate students and how much more poorly it educates young and poor students as compared to in-person school. I also saw objective enrollment figures that show that this program loses 40% of its students every year and that over 67% of its enrollees have fled the program since it started. I saw a re-post of a news article that quoted a mom talking about how the MVA is necessary for her kids so that they're not distracted by the vagaries of middle and high school fashion. The bullying and bashing seems to be coming from one side, and ironically it's the side that says that the MVA is needed to protect kids who are bullied in-person.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

I never saw any math - can you re-post it? All I saw were baseless claims from random people about how continuing to run this $5M would save MCPS some moeny because of the poster's best guess about how allocations and funding works.

Also, MCPS isn't offering a virtual program after this year either, so your anecdotal perspective about why it works in the face of a mountain of objective evidence that says the contrary is also irrelevant at this point.

It's in the thread. A program like Virtual Virginia, which is a private program is $5500-6K. So, do the math with $5500 with 850 (there are slightly more) students. That is close to 4.7 million and that's assuming the $5500 price and not more. Also, there are kids on the waitlist so add in maybe $1K students or more. And, MCPS is paying less than $5 million.

And, if MCPS is only paying $5-6K per student, they are profiting the rest.

It's hard to understand this post, but I think you're saying that the $5M that MCPS spends is less than what it would spend on paying for a private virtual program like Virtual Virginia? OK, well, then let's not use this option since it seems to be too expensive. How does that prove that MVA is somehow saving money? It's maybe cheaper than the ONE alternative you decided to identify, but that's not a compelling argument to keep the MVA in place.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There should be a statewide virtual option for everyone.

+1 I went to a state virtual school for remedial classes and was able to enroll in AP classrooms by high school. I even stayed enrolled in the online program while going to my local high school. I had enough credits to graduate in my junior year, because it ignited my passion for learning.

This is the obvious solution. It doesn't make sense to do virtual at a local level. There just aren't enough students, even in a district the size of MoCo.

There are enough students. The MVA has a waitlist and they could offer a hybrid program as well.

Enrollment in the program dropped by over 40% each year it’s been in place. Overall since its inception it has lost more than 65% of its participants. The fact that there’s a waitlist is meaningless. It’s a program that’s hemorrhaging kids.

They aren't letting new kids in. Kids graduate, families move....

Naw that’s not it but keep trying to make up excuses and maybe something will stick. 7.87% of the MVA’s enrollment in 2021-2022 was 12th graders yet enrollment dropped over 40% after that school year ended. So 32% of the program’s cohort moved that summer? Similarly, 7.79% of the MVA program’s enrollment was 12th graders in 2022-2023 but enrollment dropped 43.9% after they graduated. So another 36% of the program moved out of moco? That’s why enrollment has plummeted?

They aren't letting new students in as they don't have the staffing. It was always clear some would just the there a year or so till covid got better.

And covid isn't better.

Be sure to use that in your testimony, Sterling. It definitely won't make you sound hysterical.

NP, but who is Sterling?

Also, you guys always sounds stupid when you try to call people out. It's happened on my post before were people call me some random name as if its some 'gotcha'.

I'm willing to bet that they they are wrong 95% of the time

A really good person trying to help save the school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

Every time talk start calling names, it makes me care about your plight even less. Bravo! Buh bye.

You care as you keep posting here and on multiple social media platforms. We all know who you are. It's sad you think you are advocating for students and you are hurting them. You don't care about anyone but yourself and your five minutes of fame. You couldn't hack virtual so you think it doesn't work for all kids.

What do you propose MCPS to do with kids who cannot go in person? Do you think the few hours ISS is sufficient a week for a proper education? There are kids with serious medical issues.

DP. Funny how quickly this turned from "Sign our Petition! Save our School!" to these kind of bizarre conspiracy theories ("we alll know who you are") and stupid insults about virtual. MVA parents have shown who they are and it is UGLY.

You are the one badmouthing and insulting. Read your posts. We just posted a petition, you came on the thread to bash and be pleased about the closure. You are the one showing who you are and it's ugly. If you don't support it or want your kids in it, fine but no need to post here and every other social media site with your nastiness and negativity.

I'm not posting about this on any other social media sites, you sound like you've got a cork board with red strings all over it in your basement. You could have responded to the legitimate criticisms of the program and maybe saved it, but you didn't. You ranted and raved and now your kids' school is gone.

WOMP WOMP

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

I never saw any math - can you re-post it? All I saw were baseless claims from random people about how continuing to run this $5M would save MCPS some moeny because of the poster's best guess about how allocations and funding works.

Also, MCPS isn't offering a virtual program after this year either, so your anecdotal perspective about why it works in the face of a mountain of objective evidence that says the contrary is also irrelevant at this point.

It's in the thread. A program like Virtual Virginia, which is a private program is $5500-6K. So, do the math with $5500 with 850 (there are slightly more) students. That is close to 4.7 million and that's assuming the $5500 price and not more. Also, there are kids on the waitlist so add in maybe $1K students or more. And, MCPS is paying less than $5 million.

And, if MCPS is only paying $5-6K per student, they are profiting the rest.

It's hard to understand this post, but I think you're saying that the $5M that MCPS spends is less than what it would spend on paying for a private virtual program like Virtual Virginia? OK, well, then let's not use this option since it seems to be too expensive. How does that prove that MVA is somehow saving money? It's maybe cheaper than the ONE alternative you decided to identify, but that's not a compelling argument to keep the MVA in place.

Yes, for an equal school with live teaching, it would be expensive to outsource. Many of the virtual programs are not live teaching and equal to the MVA. It would be more expensive to outsource it when you look at actual per pupil spending on the MVA (especially compared to in person). MCPS is actually making money from the virtual students as they are not using the full pupil allocation on them.

Please suggest a better option with a full day of live teaching and all the other things that the MVA offers. Families have been scrambling to find alternatives and no one has found a good alternative. The best I found was over $30K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

I never saw any math - can you re-post it? All I saw were baseless claims from random people about how continuing to run this $5M would save MCPS some moeny because of the poster's best guess about how allocations and funding works.

Also, MCPS isn't offering a virtual program after this year either, so your anecdotal perspective about why it works in the face of a mountain of objective evidence that says the contrary is also irrelevant at this point.

It's in the thread. A program like Virtual Virginia, which is a private program is $5500-6K. So, do the math with $5500 with 850 (there are slightly more) students. That is close to 4.7 million and that's assuming the $5500 price and not more. Also, there are kids on the waitlist so add in maybe $1K students or more. And, MCPS is paying less than $5 million.

And, if MCPS is only paying $5-6K per student, they are profiting the rest.

To have the state pay, you'd probably need to meet certain eligibility criteria. And the state might be able to negotiate a better rate.

Also, the budget line item for MVA doesn't include institutional support. MCPS isn't going to immediately get rid of that support, but it will free up resources for elsewhere in the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

I never saw any math - can you re-post it? All I saw were baseless claims from random people about how continuing to run this $5M would save MCPS some moeny because of the poster's best guess about how allocations and funding works.

Also, MCPS isn't offering a virtual program after this year either, so your anecdotal perspective about why it works in the face of a mountain of objective evidence that says the contrary is also irrelevant at this point.

It's in the thread. A program like Virtual Virginia, which is a private program is $5500-6K. So, do the math with $5500 with 850 (there are slightly more) students. That is close to 4.7 million and that's assuming the $5500 price and not more. Also, there are kids on the waitlist so add in maybe $1K students or more. And, MCPS is paying less than $5 million.

And, if MCPS is only paying $5-6K per student, they are profiting the rest.

It's hard to understand this post, but I think you're saying that the $5M that MCPS spends is less than what it would spend on paying for a private virtual program like Virtual Virginia? OK, well, then let's not use this option since it seems to be too expensive. How does that prove that MVA is somehow saving money? It's maybe cheaper than the ONE alternative you decided to identify, but that's not a compelling argument to keep the MVA in place.

Yes, for an equal school with live teaching, it would be expensive to outsource. Many of the virtual programs are not live teaching and equal to the MVA. It would be more expensive to outsource it when you look at actual per pupil spending on the MVA (especially compared to in person). MCPS is actually making money from the virtual students as they are not using the full pupil allocation on them.

Please suggest a better option with a full day of live teaching and all the other things that the MVA offers. Families have been scrambling to find alternatives and no one has found a good alternative. The best I found was over $30K.

You can somewhere that has a public school system that meets your wishes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Who wants virtual academy”
*everyone raises hands*

“Who wants to pay more taxes to fund such virtual academy”
*no hands are raisedi

There is no cost. Students are still in the system.

In fact, it is a savings. No buses, buildings, HVAC, maintenance or cafeteria.

I thought the same thing except I think mcps is going to fire all the virtual academy teachers so that probably would save them some money even though it goes against the MCEA Union.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Who wants virtual academy”
*everyone raises hands*

“Who wants to pay more taxes to fund such virtual academy”
*no hands are raisedi

There is no cost. Students are still in the system.

In fact, it is a savings. No buses, buildings, HVAC, maintenance or cafeteria.

I thought the same thing except I think mcps is going to fire all the virtual academy teachers so that probably would save them some money even though it goes against the MCEA Union.

That's not the plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Who wants virtual academy”
*everyone raises hands*

“Who wants to pay more taxes to fund such virtual academy”
*no hands are raisedi

There is no cost. Students are still in the system.

In fact, it is a savings. No buses, buildings, HVAC, maintenance or cafeteria.

I thought the same thing except I think mcps is going to fire all the virtual academy teachers so that probably would save them some money even though it goes against the MCEA Union.

They're not being fired, but they are going to be reassigned to other open positions. Overall that is effectively the same thing as eliminating the MVA positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Who wants virtual academy”
*everyone raises hands*

“Who wants to pay more taxes to fund such virtual academy”
*no hands are raisedi

There is no cost. Students are still in the system.

In fact, it is a savings. No buses, buildings, HVAC, maintenance or cafeteria.

I thought the same thing except I think mcps is going to fire all the virtual academy teachers so that probably would save them some money even though it goes against the MCEA Union.

They're not being fired, but they are going to be reassigned to other open positions. Overall that is effectively the same thing as eliminating the MVA positions.

In an effort to downplay the situation, they attempted to avoid using terms like "fired" or "laid off." Instead, they opted for the term "transfer," but the reality is that it would be an involuntary transfer. Their best hope is that the transfer will result in a similar position, pay, and proximity to their home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Who wants virtual academy”
*everyone raises hands*

“Who wants to pay more taxes to fund such virtual academy”
*no hands are raisedi

There is no cost. Students are still in the system.

In fact, it is a savings. No buses, buildings, HVAC, maintenance or cafeteria.

I thought the same thing except I think mcps is going to fire all the virtual academy teachers so that probably would save them some money even though it goes against the MCEA Union.

They're not being fired, but they are going to be reassigned to other open positions. Overall that is effectively the same thing as eliminating the MVA positions.

In an effort to downplay the situation, they attempted to avoid using terms like "fired" or "laid off." Instead, they opted for the term "transfer," but the reality is that it would be an involuntary transfer. Their best hope is that the transfer will result in a similar position, pay, and proximity to their home.

What's wrong with that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Priority needs to be to keep teachers in-person at school. If you want virtual school for your kid, then go private.

You are fooled by MCPS if you think they will have money to keep the teachers after shutting down programs.

Here is what MCEA has shared earlier -

“ payments for contractual services have ballooned by 42% to $100 million in the proposed FY25 budget. These services should be reduced significantly before any cuts to the classroom can be seriously considered. Examples include:

1. $4.5 million in building rental fees (including new executive offices)
2. $1,031,000 in consultant fees (not comprehensive)
3. $850,000 in recycling fees paid to Montgomery County (why doesn't the county just take care of recycling?)
4. $809,717 in outside attorney fees (MCPS has a substantial in-house legal
team.)
5. $525,000 for "random requests that come up and funding is needed"
6. Plus, an additional $13 million in unspecified contractual sevices that MCPS still has not explained”

They didn’t review any of the above but as you may already know teachers will get involuntarily transferred - decisions will be made as of today and process done by end of the week.

It’s obviously BOE/MCPS management problem!!

Plus, please review the actual budget breakdown. Under Other Contractual Services, there are other instructional costs, all miscellaneous but requesting an almost double, 100% increase of 10M totaling over 21M. Is this more questionable than going after this group?

Entrepreneurial ACTIVITIES funds also got similar increase from 6M previous year to totaling over 11M this upcoming year. Is it mandatory and should the “activities” fund taking priority over education for our kids and over the already short staff teachers?

How would putting those MVA kids to private help the disaster happening right now? All families with kids in MCPS are suffering! So are the teachers!!

I agree that the MVA is the first of many cuts the county should be making to the MCPS budget.

Why? ever consider the impact on the kids? Kids needs should come first.

Consider the impact of the cuts they'd have to make if they don't cut MVA.

No impact. $30M is nothing to MCPS and easily eliminated from spending without any impact on classrooms.

Come up an alternative set of $30M in cuts that doesn't involve taking away special education resources and instructional supports.

When they are taking away the MVA, they are taking away special education services for students.

One has nothing to do with the other.

There's at least one MVA supporter here that has been arguing to cancel contracted services that currently provide, among other things, speech therapy to many students in the district.

No one is arguing to cancel speech services but if you were a smart parent you wouldn't exclusively rely on them and also get private.

So, what do you think will happen to these kids who cannot go in person. They will go from a full academic schedule to IIS which is a few hours a week. You think that's ok?

Sounds like you need to take your own advice and go private. I think many will agree that IIS could use improvements. But there are a lot of families in MVA for other reasons that wouldnt even qualify for that. Not sure what camp yours falls into.

ISS could use improvement. They provide a few hours a week of tutoring. That's not an education. Most families cannot afford private. And, it would be near impossible to get a private school spot at this point.

Then your choices are in-person or homeschooling. What's more important to you: your kids' education, or your own anxiety over covid?

Covid is not the concern. You simply don't get it and want to make assumptions about all the students in the MVA.

Not the students. They're not there by choice. The question is why the parents are doing that to them.

Just because your kids wouldn't choose it, doesn't mean other kids wouldn't. You are advocating its closure for your own interests, not the best interests of the students in it. I'm sorry you couldn't make virtual work. It takes a lot of parental involvement. Not all kids are fortunate enough to have involved parents.

My interest lies in identifying programs that are failures and cutting them to free up funds for programs that are working. All available data shows that the NCS is worse at educating kids than in-person schools, especially elementary aged kids and poor kids, and has a much higher rate of chronic absenteeism than in-person school.

Your family seems to be an exception to this objective, broad-based data. But we can’t throw $5M at a program because it works for some people based on whatever standard of “it works” those people have in their minds.

And you’re right. Not all MVA families choose it because of Covid concerns. One prevalent concern I’ve seen from MVA families is with their kid being bullied at in-person school. Which is why I always find it fascinating that some mva supporters routinely resort to personal attacks and bullying of other parents as “too lazy to get the best out of virtual” or “maybe if you spent more time with your kids you wouldn’t be so mean” etc.

You have no data and multiple mcps schools have serious issues so those should also close.

The board discussed the attendance problems, and lower overall test scores. There were also some equity concerns since the program was 35% African American. It’s easier to meet student needs in person.

No it’s not.

Elementary: 28% of MVA students were African American vs 22% county wide in-person

Middle School: 37% MVA vs 22% in-person

High School: 37% MVA vs 22% in person

FARMS:

Elementary: 46% mva vs 42% in-person
Middle: 48% MVA vs 40% in-person
High: 47% MVA vs 37% in-person

White:

Elementary: 11% MVA vs 24%
Middle: 13% MVA vs 26%
High: 18% MVA vs 27%

Is it that surprising? Poor people can least afford to get sick. Maybe if y’all wouldn’t have been so opposed to masking you wouldn’t have forced so many to MVA. SMH.

I’m not sure whether it’s surprising or not but I posted it because a PP lied and said the program was not 35% African American.

Either way, I have a hard time believing that the making habits of school children from 3 years ago are still impacting a meaningful portion of mva program participants. Seems like it’s more about parents who don’t want their kid exposed to in-person school children’s fashion choices or other “distractions” like that.

Also some who like homeschooling in theory but are too lazy to do it themselves.

You are picking and choosing what you want to believe. A child is waiting for an organ transplant in the MVA. Is that not a good enough reason? I don't care what it costs but that child deserves an equal education and we should do what ever it takes to support them. Their life is work way more than the minimal amount the MVA costs MCPS.

You do realize that kids experienced health emergencies that required alternative arrangements long before the county decided to start spending $5 million per year on the MVA, right? Those programs will continue to serve these kids as they had been for years before Covid sparked the creation of the MVA.

You do realize it's the year 2024 and most districts throughout the country offer virtual schooling in some capacity,right? Most did pre-pandemic. MoCo is OBSESSED with keeping students stuck in the past. The refusal to evolve here is just amazing/embarrassing.

Again, most virtual options are offered at the STATE level. There’s no reason the state of MD can’t set something up like Virginia has. Virtual programs at the district level are pretty inefficient, even in a large district like MCPS.

With all the other cuts MCPS is proposing, the MVA is way down on my list of things to advocate funding. Sorry.

No, they aren’t. You do realize not all states do districts by county like Maryland does, right? So nah…most places have virtual at the district level. I don’t really care what’s on your personal list to advocate for, I just know you’re stuck in the past. Sad.

And yet whenever we ask you’re never able to produce examples of all the district level virtual programs that you claim are so prevalent…

Virginia outsources there. It's not actually at the state or district level. Each county has to pay for the students to attend and if you look at the cost per student it's much cheaper to do in house. We've posted the math for they but you refuse to listen.

AND, the state is not offering a virtual program so it's really not relevant. You post all over social media suggesting a state option but there is none so it's irrelevant.

This is kind of bizarre logic. Most states offer a virtual option, so their districts don't need individual options. Our state does not offer a virtual option, but since we can't point to district examples, we shouldn't do that either...