What could be up? Elementary School Changes for next year?

[Anonymous]

What schools are losing Title 1 status?

I hope one is not Viers Mill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the CEP program is impacting this. Given that there is no need for families to complete the forms to receive meals, how do they actually know the FARMS rate? Both NHE and Oak View are CEP schools with all students receiving free meals. No one had to complete the forms.
https://www..org/news/quick-notes/2023-08/2023-08-issue/important-information-about-student-meals/

This is exactly what is happing at the Title 1 school where I work. We didn’t have families complete FARMS forms this year since MCPS said it wasn’t needed. We aren’t sure what method MCPS used to calculate FARMS rate without the forms but we dropped from over 80% FARMS to around 65% FARMS. This means big cuts for staffing and funds next year. Our students definitely didn’t get wealthier.

This is the kind of thing someone should be getting an explanation for at the board meeting.

+1 I'm really struggling to imagine that a lot of schools have overtaken Oak View with rates higher than 75 percent. So someone needs to ask MCPS what they are doing with those Title I funds. Are they doubling down on a smaller number of schools? Are they spreading them out among a larger number of Focus Schools? Is there less federal funding next year and they had to make hard cuts?

Basically, this is an amazing chance for any incumbents BoE members who would like to be reelected to ask specific questions about MCPS's plan to meet the needs of students at some of the highest needs schools without access to these funds and the staff positions they fund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What schools are losing Title 1 status?

I hope one is not Viers Mill.

I teach there and that kind of info would've likely been told to staff by now (it happened once before, years ago, and we had an "emergency" staff meeting). The only cut I've learned of for next year is a slight reduction in ELD/ESOL, which doesn't surprise me given the threshold for eligibility went up. But we still haven't been given the full outlook yet.

[Anonymous]

It looks like the only Title 1 Elementaries that host magnet programs are Oakview and Burnt Mills. Does that sound right to those in the know?

[Anonymous]

This is probably not worthy of an emergency meeting, but I also just read that MCPS is eliminating Kindergarten Orientation because they’ve decided it’s not equitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is probably not worthy of an emergency meeting, but I also just read that MCPS is eliminating Kindergarten Orientation because they’ve decided it’s not equitable.

I thought they did not want current kindergartens to miss 2-3 days of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like the only Title 1 Elementaries that host magnet programs are Oakview and Burnt Mills. Does that sound right to those in the know?

Yes, that sounds right. Having been at a school that "lost" Title I funding previously, it's a huge deal. At the time, it was more than $200K in lost funding for a student population that remained incredibly high-needs academically and psychologically. I think most principals would happily give up a magnet program or rezoning to keep Title I funding, since bringing in 100 middle class kids doesn't actually change the needs of the kids who were there to begin with.

The Oak View principal is known to be a strong one, I wonder if he'd advocate for the program to be moved to another school in the cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like the only Title 1 Elementaries that host magnet programs are Oakview and Burnt Mills. Does that sound right to those in the know?

Yes, that sounds right. Having been at a school that "lost" Title I funding previously, it's a huge deal. At the time, it was more than $200K in lost funding for a student population that remained incredibly high-needs academically and psychologically. I think most principals would happily give up a magnet program or rezoning to keep Title I funding, since bringing in 100 middle class kids doesn't actually change the needs of the kids who were there to begin with.

The Oak View principal is known to be a strong one, I wonder if he'd advocate for the program to be moved to another school in the cluster.

They could pretty easily move the four Oak View CES classes over to Pine Crest, which already hosts a CES plus has plenty of capacity since they had a recent addition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like the only Title 1 Elementaries that host magnet programs are Oakview and Burnt Mills. Does that sound right to those in the know?

Yes, that sounds right. Having been at a school that "lost" Title I funding previously, it's a huge deal. At the time, it was more than $200K in lost funding for a student population that remained incredibly high-needs academically and psychologically. I think most principals would happily give up a magnet program or rezoning to keep Title I funding, since bringing in 100 middle class kids doesn't actually change the needs of the kids who were there to begin with.

The Oak View principal is known to be a strong one, I wonder if he'd advocate for the program to be moved to another school in the cluster.

They could pretty easily move the four Oak View CES classes over to Pine Crest, which already hosts a CES plus has plenty of capacity since they had a recent addition.

And this would also help Oak View's overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is probably not worthy of an emergency meeting, but I also just read that MCPS is eliminating Kindergarten Orientation because they’ve decided it’s not equitable.

Where did you read this factually incorrect information? MCPS is eliminating spring orientation for next year's kindergartners because it requires this year's kindergartners to miss several days of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is probably not worthy of an emergency meeting, but I also just read that MCPS is eliminating Kindergarten Orientation because they’ve decided it’s not equitable.

I thought they did not want current kindergartens to miss 2-3 days of school.

The issue is that Kindergarten orientation as it had been done before required that current Kindergarten students miss 2-3 days of school. This caused Kindergarten parents to complain lots since they had to make arrangements for their students not to have school those days and since the kids were missing instruction. Plus, it was not clear that the orientations helped in any tangible way. Basically parents with kids in Kindergarten protested enough since they did not want their kids to miss school to have orientation removed for better or worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES Principal announced that there will be changes at our school next year and called an Emergency PTA meeting this week to share the change for next year?

What could be up? This is a grade 3-5 school with a CES. I’m hoping it is just a personnel change.

My friend at the central office says they're rolling out the ES equivalent of honors for all. So instead of groupings based on ability for math and reading, they're just going to random group students to help decrease the achievement gap from the top down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our ES Principal announced that there will be changes at our school next year and called an Emergency PTA meeting this week to share the change for next year?

What could be up? This is a grade 3-5 school with a CES. I’m hoping it is just a personnel change.

My friend at the central office says they're rolling out the ES equivalent of honors for all. So instead of groupings based on ability for math and reading, they're just going to random group students to help decrease the achievement gap from the top down.

Trollololol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is probably not worthy of an emergency meeting, but I also just read that MCPS is eliminating Kindergarten Orientation because they’ve decided it’s not equitable.

Where did you read this factually incorrect information? MCPS is eliminating spring orientation for next year's kindergartners because it requires this year's kindergartners to miss several days of school.

Our school's newsletter says no orientation during the school year or the summer. The transition to Kindergarten is really important and can be so difficult for some kids. I think it's terrible they aren't doing it and I also think the roll out of this change is so typical of MCPS - unclear messaging so there are so many rumors and mixed messages going around. What a dumpster fire MCPS is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is probably not worthy of an emergency meeting, but I also just read that MCPS is eliminating Kindergarten Orientation because they’ve decided it’s not equitable.

Where did you read this factually incorrect information? MCPS is eliminating spring orientation for next year's kindergartners because it requires this year's kindergartners to miss several days of school.

Our school's newsletter says no orientation during the school year or the summer. The transition to Kindergarten is really important and can be so difficult for some kids. I think it's terrible they aren't doing it and I also think the roll out of this change is so typical of MCPS - unclear messaging so there are so many rumors and mixed messages going around. What a dumpster fire MCPS is.

K students will still be able to meet their teachers before school starts at the open house. The sky is not falling.