Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trust me, we wish we had noticed it was a big loser county model when we bought in our early 30s. Instead coworkers kept harping about how good the schools were. Haha. Never would have left DC.

You post that all the time but you're still here. You know it's not too late to go back.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

Is Howard county open? PG? Frederick?...

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo? This pandemic has me questioning how the school system is setup in the county. It’s gotten to big to manage. Is it time to break it up to smaller manageable school districts within the county? This is done in Texas, California etc.

LOL not this again. You know this can't happen right?

Why can’t this happen? Genuinely want understand.

Because smaller districts generally serves to exacerbate inequalities and racial/socio-economic segregation. The current trend is in the opposite direction.

The county is setup where this already occurs minus the magnet programs. I think you could have more equity when the districts are smaller and tailored to meet the needs of its student population versus generalizing everyone into large bucket categories.

It would be interesting as apart of the county boundary study for the consulting company to evaluate breaking apart MCPS into smaller districts and evaluate the benefits and weaknesses of this model compared to the current situation.

This is well-studied. The Milwaukee-area public schools are a good example of what happens if you do that.

What happened in Milwaukee?

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

Huh? Milwaukee has huge problems with racial segregation and inequality, even compared to other urban districts. These problems are evident in the Milwaukee school district itself, and obviously also when compared to the more affluent (and white) suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

Is Howard county open? PG? Frederick?...

Washington County opened up today with the first set of students (pre-k and special ed):
https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/special/coronavirus/washington-co-schools-chief-wednesday-was-our-second-first-day-of-the-new-year/article_c1278714-f9a1-569a-94d4-d9459065ab96.html

Allegany County starts opening next week.

Meanwhile, MCPS has not published a plan showing what metrics need to be met to start reopening; the phases of reopening (who goes back first); or anything like that. I guess they're too big and over-resources to be able to publish a plan. Meanwhile, poorly-funded school districts are able to publish and execute on a plan:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

I can find no such plan on MCPS's website. I'm not saying they should open (I'm not a scientist), but they should at least publish the stages and metrics needed for each stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

Is Howard county open? PG? Frederick?...

Washington County opened up today with the first set of students (pre-k and special ed):
https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/special/coronavirus/washington-co-schools-chief-wednesday-was-our-second-first-day-of-the-new-year/article_c1278714-f9a1-569a-94d4-d9459065ab96.html

Allegany County starts opening next week.

Meanwhile, MCPS has not published a plan showing what metrics need to be met to start reopening; the phases of reopening (who goes back first); or anything like that. I guess they're too big and over-resources to be able to publish a plan. Meanwhile, poorly-funded school districts are able to publish and execute on a plan:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

I can find no such plan on MCPS's website. I'm not saying they should open (I'm not a scientist), but they should at least publish the stages and metrics needed for each stage.

That’s because they don’t have a plan and haven’t even submitted an opening plan to the State.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

Is Howard county open? PG? Frederick?...

Washington County opened up today with the first set of students (pre-k and special ed):
https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/special/coronavirus/washington-co-schools-chief-wednesday-was-our-second-first-day-of-the-new-year/article_c1278714-f9a1-569a-94d4-d9459065ab96.html

Allegany County starts opening next week.

Meanwhile, MCPS has not published a plan showing what metrics need to be met to start reopening; the phases of reopening (who goes back first); or anything like that. I guess they're too big and over-resources to be able to publish a plan. Meanwhile, poorly-funded school districts are able to publish and execute on a plan:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

I can find no such plan on MCPS's website. I'm not saying they should open (I'm not a scientist), but they should at least publish the stages and metrics needed for each stage.

That’s because they don’t have a plan and haven’t even submitted an opening plan to the State.

Why didn't they? Can't be lack of funding. Can't be lack of staff.

[Anonymous]

It’s about 20 years too late. Of course they should have. We are now at the point it should be at least 6. I mean NJ, PA, DE, NY, MA, etc... all have regions and districts. I have no clue why this county continues this BS. The budget is so poorly run too. There is no personalization. No accountability. The board meetings, boundaries, open forums, etc.. never resolve anything because it is too much. Don’t even get me started on snow days when there is one patch of ice up by Damascus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

Is Howard county open? PG? Frederick?...

Wait, are we looking to be the last district to submit a plan when others have weeks ago? Do we win a prize for dead last? Is that a goal we are trying to achieve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta get the poors their own district.

It's not about that. It's about how local needs are different. Poolesville has different weather patterns than Silver Spring. They probably need way more school closures than we do in the southern part of the county.

Most of the covid cases are also in the east side of the county. North county is green. They should be able to open at least hybrid, but they can't because we are one school district.

you can dress the argument up any way you like but it's still going to be about kicking all the poor kids out of Montgomery county public schools and making their own district.

Besides I thought that we weren't going to have snow days anymore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 20 years too late. Of course they should have. We are now at the point it should be at least 6. I mean NJ, PA, DE, NY, MA, etc... all have regions and districts. I have no clue why this county continues this BS. The budget is so poorly run too. There is no personalization. No accountability. The board meetings, boundaries, open forums, etc.. never resolve anything because it is too much. Don’t even get me started on snow days when there is one patch of ice up by Damascus.

You are welcome to move to any of those other states if that is your preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 20 years too late. Of course they should have. We are now at the point it should be at least 6. I mean NJ, PA, DE, NY, MA, etc... all have regions and districts. I have no clue why this county continues this BS. The budget is so poorly run too. There is no personalization. No accountability. The board meetings, boundaries, open forums, etc.. never resolve anything because it is too much. Don’t even get me started on snow days when there is one patch of ice up by Damascus.

You are welcome to move to any of those other states if that is your preference.

So you believe the budget, the upper administration, the board and everything are the best here, right?

You are satisfied with being the second largest suburban county school district in the country in number of students (Fairfax now has more due to MoCo white flight)

And MCPS is THE largest suburban school district based on square mile size? Meaning no other school district without a major city (NY, LA, Chicago, etc...) is bigger.

A handful of board members for 160,000+ students? No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Biggest employer in the county.

That’s the only line that matters. Full stop. MCPS ceased to be an educational system long ago. (That sounds crazy I know) It’s a daycare for jobs program as the pandemic has made clear. As an MCPS employee said a few boards ago (paraphrasing) ‘parents aren’t stakeholders.’ No truer words have been spoken.

We simply moved to a Catholic school and found the scale I think the original poster is looking for. This debate falls under you can’t fight city hall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biggest employer in the county.

That’s the only line that matters. Full stop. MCPS ceased to be an educational system long ago. (That sounds crazy I know) It’s a daycare for jobs program as the pandemic has made clear. As an MCPS employee said a few boards ago (paraphrasing) ‘parents aren’t stakeholders.’ No truer words have been spoken.

We simply moved to a Catholic school and found the scale I think the original poster is looking for. This debate falls under you can’t fight city hall.

And yet here you are, posting on the MCPS forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 20 years too late. Of course they should have. We are now at the point it should be at least 6. I mean NJ, PA, DE, NY, MA, etc... all have regions and districts. I have no clue why this county continues this BS. The budget is so poorly run too. There is no personalization. No accountability. The board meetings, boundaries, open forums, etc.. never resolve anything because it is too much. Don’t even get me started on snow days when there is one patch of ice up by Damascus.

You are welcome to move to any of those other states if that is your preference.

So you believe the budget, the upper administration, the board and everything are the best here, right?

You are satisfied with being the second largest suburban county school district in the country in number of students (Fairfax now has more due to MoCo white flight)

And MCPS is THE largest suburban school district based on square mile size? Meaning no other school district without a major city (NY, LA, Chicago, etc...) is bigger.

A handful of board members for 160,000+ students? No thanks.

Citation needed.

Also, LOL on measuring school district size in square miles - although I infer that you actually meant number of students per square mile, and I would love to read an explanation of why that's a relevant measure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 20 years too late. Of course they should have. We are now at the point it should be at least 6. I mean NJ, PA, DE, NY, MA, etc... all have regions and districts. I have no clue why this county continues this BS. The budget is so poorly run too. There is no personalization. No accountability. The board meetings, boundaries, open forums, etc.. never resolve anything because it is too much. Don’t even get me started on snow days when there is one patch of ice up by Damascus.

Hey, how about that, some states that are not Maryland do things differently from the way Maryland does things.