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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

I know there are kids now in schools who require security escorts at all times because they pose an immediate danger to others. Will we have enough staff to accommodate any increase in those kinds of students?

There are no kids in MCPS regular schools with a security escort. I’m a teacher at a “rough” public HS. We sometimes have kids with ankle bracelets for tracking by their probation officer but never anyone with an actual security escort. We have fights break out every few weeks but most kids are just regular kids and there are no actual safety issues. It is a much better experience than virtual school.

I would not want my kid going to school with kids that violent they need ankle bracelets. What is your experience with the MVA to decide in person is better for all students? You can say that as you don't have to worry about kids mental health, health issues, or significant special needs.

Ankle bracelet is not a measure of violence it is about probationary monitoring.

[Anonymous]

I'm not reading 60 pages and it looks like the current conversation is a little afield of the original topic, but I just wanted to say I know of one kid who needed this program this year due to months of serious illness/repeated hospitalizations and it allowed them to keep up with their schoolwork and jump back into school when they were recovered. I'm glad it was there for them when they needed it and I hope other kids in similar circumstances aren't forced to miss a year of school in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

I know there are kids now in schools who require security escorts at all times because they pose an immediate danger to others. Will we have enough staff to accommodate any increase in those kinds of students?

There's a state-administered online program that MCPS uses in those cases.

There is no state online program. Stop making stuff up.

There is. It predates covid. I think we use Edmentum as the vendor for most/all courses.

Edmentum is the platform for the Online Pathways to Graduation (OPTG). It's an asynchronous, self-driven course model. That's different from the MVA which offered live, synchronous instruction.

I didn't say it was equivalent to MVA, but it is used with kids with behavioral records that prevent them from attending school or RICA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

I know there are kids now in schools who require security escorts at all times because they pose an immediate danger to others. Will we have enough staff to accommodate any increase in those kinds of students?

There's a state-administered online program that MCPS uses in those cases.

There is no state online program. Stop making stuff up.

There is. It predates covid. I think we use Edmentum as the vendor for most/all courses.

Edmentum is the platform for the Online Pathways to Graduation (OPTG). It's an asynchronous, self-driven course model. That's different from the MVA which offered live, synchronous instruction.

I didn't say it was equivalent to MVA, but it is used with kids with behavioral records that prevent them from attending school or RICA.

Ok, so how is this helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

I know there are kids now in schools who require security escorts at all times because they pose an immediate danger to others. Will we have enough staff to accommodate any increase in those kinds of students?

There's a state-administered online program that MCPS uses in those cases.

There is no state online program. Stop making stuff up.

There is. It predates covid. I think we use Edmentum as the vendor for most/all courses.

Edmentum is the platform for the Online Pathways to Graduation (OPTG). It's an asynchronous, self-driven course model. That's different from the MVA which offered live, synchronous instruction.

I didn't say it was equivalent to MVA, but it is used with kids with behavioral records that prevent them from attending school or RICA.

Ok, so how is this helpful.

Read the post I responded to and it will become clear.

I'm sorry- I know your brain fog must be awful.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

Wow that is so hard. I’m sorry. I hope it gets better for your kiddo. Can you move? Rent an apartment in a better school area? This would be heartbreaking. 💔

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

That does sound hard, but besides advocating for MCPS to do more about bullying, it would be better to lobby for charter schools, and perhaps vouchers, than to fight for MVA.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

they are at W schools.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

they are at W schools.

Wootton isn’t a W school, sorry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

I know there are kids now in schools who require security escorts at all times because they pose an immediate danger to others. Will we have enough staff to accommodate any increase in those kinds of students?

There's a state-administered online program that MCPS uses in those cases.

There is no state online program. Stop making stuff up.

There is. It predates covid. I think we use Edmentum as the vendor for most/all courses.

Edmentum is the platform for the Online Pathways to Graduation (OPTG). It's an asynchronous, self-driven course model. That's different from the MVA which offered live, synchronous instruction.

I didn't say it was equivalent to MVA, but it is used with kids with behavioral records that prevent them from attending school or RICA.

Ok, so how is this helpful.

Read the post I responded to and it will become clear.

I'm sorry- I know your brain fog must be awful.

You all keep bring up topics not relevant. None of this is equal or accessible to MVA students.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

That does sound hard, but besides advocating for MCPS to do more about bullying, it would be better to lobby for charter schools, and perhaps vouchers, than to fight for MVA.

Charter schools in the future aren't going to help families now. MCPS will not do anything about bullying or behavior problems. So, none of these comments are helpful.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

That does sound hard, but besides advocating for MCPS to do more about bullying, it would be better to lobby for charter schools, and perhaps vouchers, than to fight for MVA.

They want the MVA, why is that so hard for you to understand. They aren't doing vouchers, or charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

I know there are kids now in schools who require security escorts at all times because they pose an immediate danger to others. Will we have enough staff to accommodate any increase in those kinds of students?

There's a state-administered online program that MCPS uses in those cases.

There is no state online program. Stop making stuff up.

There is. It predates covid. I think we use Edmentum as the vendor for most/all courses.

Edmentum is the platform for the Online Pathways to Graduation (OPTG). It's an asynchronous, self-driven course model. That's different from the MVA which offered live, synchronous instruction.

I didn't say it was equivalent to MVA, but it is used with kids with behavioral records that prevent them from attending school or RICA.

Ok, so how is this helpful.

Read the post I responded to and it will become clear.

I'm sorry- I know your brain fog must be awful.

You all keep bring up topics not relevant. None of this is equal or accessible to MVA students.

Believe it or not, there are other kids in MCPS besides yours. Another poster asked:

Other districts use virtual instruction to keep kids who are dangerous to others out of the school buildings. Do we? If so, will they all be sent back into school?

The point is that closing MVA doesn't mean violent kids will be moved back into schools. There is still an online option.

[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:If you are dead set that your kid needs virtual education and you refuse to consider other options, perhaps move to Florida. Apparently they have a Va run by the state that fits what you are looking for

+1. It’s very strange to me that it’s all or nothing for the MVA advocates. Maybe it speaks to the fact that it was a very niche, small program with essentially private tutoring, and the other available programs won’t have that. If simply having a virtual education was their #1 priority, they’d be making arrangements for their child to attend another program.

+2 The alternative to MVA isn't IIS, it's an appropriate in-person placement. Depending on the child, that might take a lot of different forms.

If a child was in MVA because their family wanted to be able to travel freely to Disneyland on the off-season, that child can return to a regular classroom.

If a child was in MVA due to bullying, the answer might be a COSA, but it's also worth considering that a child who entered MVA in 1st grade would be entering 6th next year. That's a whole new peer group and dynamic.

If a child was in MVA due to anxiety/rigidity, there are accommodations, interventions, and in-school placements that can help move the needle on those issues.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If those options were viable, MVA families would have gladly used them. Having your child attend virtual school requires more work for the parent. It involves supervision and controlling gadgets/technologies, arranging social activities to ensure your child is not isolated. It is definitely much easier to just send them in person. Why do you think MVA families advocated so much for the school? They really do not have any other options other than private online programs, which not everyone can afford.

How is in-person school not viable for the mom quoted in recent press articles as needing MVA for her daughters because they would otherwise be too distracted by fashion if they went in-person?

Maybe, for that one family, an in-person option would work. But what about the girl with medically resistant epilepsy who had a seizure in the school building and fell down the stairs, injuring herself? Or the suicidal teen who wanted to drop out of high school but is now considering attending college? I can provide you with many examples and quotes. These are real families with kids who were in MVA for various reasons, but they all absolutely thrived. If you are an MVA teacher reading this, thank you for your amazing work. What happened is so terribly sad, but you have truly touched those kids' hearts and changed their lives.

So where do we draw the line? Serving 800 students is too expensive when the cohort includes the kids who are using MVA because it’s a nice option for them. Do we add some sort of medical criteria to make sure the kids who truly need it get it and we don’t spend money on a virtual program for kids who should be back in-person?

Making it smaller would make it even more expensive on a per pupil basis. And give it fewer stakeholders.

Maybe it would be more expensive, maybe not if you take out the costs associated with all the kids who didnt really need it and would return to school.

We spend more money on a per pupil basis on certain populations all the time anyway. Poor kids get wrap around services at community schools, for example. Recent immigrants get English language learning services. Special needs children get specialized instruction from separate staff. Delayed talkers and readers get speech therapy and literacy intervention. High achievers get separate magnet programs. None of that is free and all of it adds to the per pupil cost beyond the cost of educating your plain vanilla kid. But it sounds like if your child is born with a disability making in-person schooling impossible or highly risky to their health, the system says “sorry, here’s 4 hours per week of isolated instruction” even though we now have evidence of a virtual model that works much better.

Is there public data on the cost and effectiveness of wrap-around services? Depending on their needs, the MVA has a much higher likelihood of benefiting those children. They should probably consider cutting funding to wrap-around services in favor of keeping the MVA.

You know, if you are going to advocate BOE to restore funding for MVA, you should probably come up with some items to cut instead, so why don’t you propose this and see what they say? Never know.

So far, I've heard two options for cutting expenses.

1) Cut funding for schools with low test scores
2) Cut wrap-around services

Guess what those two ideas have in common?

Totally fits if they’re using MVA to escape low performing schools….

I looked through MCPS's report on MVA and did not see anything about why MVA students were placed at MVA. It would be interesting to see a breakdown. I suspect that few people are using it truly to escape low-performing schools. Just doesn't make sense to me. For kids who have been in it since the pandemic, does it still make sense for them to be in MVA. Is there any evaluation done to see if MVA is still the best placement after a year or two. The FARMS rate is high. 43.1% for an environment where presumably kids need parent support and help at home. As a social worker that works with low income families, this is a big red flag for me that something doesn't quite make sense.

This. The farms rate being high for the virtual academy is a red flag

What red flag? Parents who stay home with their children are likely to earn less income but I am sure that they believe that it is worth the sacrifice to avoid overcrowded, underperforming in-person schools that can’t meet their children’s educational needs. For some families, the MVA is their only chance at escaping generational poverty. I can’t imagine why that’s a red flag to a social worker.

That's quite the claim. What MCPS school is so bad that it guarantees its students will end up poverty for the rest of their lives? That sounds like a bigger problem than getting rid of MVA.

I think we're getting a window into the minds of some of the MVA folks here. It's not about disability - it's about fear of Black and brown students. They are so worked up into their idea of public schools as some gang-infested hellscape that they can't imagine their poor child navigating that minefield every day. Never mind that almost 200K kids go to MCPS schools every day and the vast majority of them never encounter anything scarier than a tussle in the hallway.

As a former MVA parent who is black, I am compelled to speak up here. Our local
school *is* a hellscape. My child got tussled and bullied for weeks and went from being so passionate about academics to the point of pursuing it during spare time to wanting to be accepted by those bullies and losing just about all interest in academic pursuits because those bullies found it “weird”. The principal informed us that bullying and fighting are quite normal there and that it’s an underperforming school so I should adjust my expectations.

We wanted to return to the MVA but are disappointed that we no longer can.
Now, you are essentially saying that these hellscape schools don’t exist.

That does sound hard, but besides advocating for MCPS to do more about bullying, it would be better to lobby for charter schools, and perhaps vouchers, than to fight for MVA.

They want the MVA, why is that so hard for you to understand. They aren't doing vouchers, or charters.

They aren't doing MVA, either.