7/24 BOE meeting thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm highly skeptical that MCPS can serve kids grandfathered into the existing countywide and consortia program models AND simultaneously stand up and transition into the regional program models.

While it sounds nice, that would require a level of planning, coordination and competence from MCPS that I have never seen before.

I agree. It will be a logistical nightmare just in terms of staffing allocations. Teachers will have to hyper specialize in multiple things. Plus the transportation will still be a nightmare if the old and new routes are running at the same time.

I also think Taylor overestimates what teachers want. Many want a short commute, a good principal and a safe school where they can feel part of a community. Shuffling teachers around for program interests wont do that. Having to get training to hyperspecialize in the flavor of the month courses wastes a lot of time.

This means Taylor would have to address the real problems. Instead of doing that, he's covering it up with this non-sense so people focus on this and not on whats really going on.

This! I so wanted to be at the meeting in person to hold a sign that reminds the BOE that none of this matters of kids can’t read. We are missing the bigger issues with this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why, why, why can't we just work on 26 strong high schools that all offer a variety of leveled work? Why can't all students just go to their zoned school? What if we used all of this money from their "Research," buses, program procurement etc, to add more teachers to the county and reduce the size of classes? Why does everyone need a program?

Because in this county, like everywhere else, the rich hoard the good stuff. If you are a kid who goes to predominantly poor school and you want to take advanced physics or be in a stellar symphony, you just can’t, because there aren’t enough other kids like you at your school. Specialized programs help those kids.

You have to private pay for the stellar orchestra. It sucks not having the same opportunities.

You don’t have to private pay for the stellar orchestra. Frost, Wootton, Takoma Park kids all take their school orchestra classes for free. Do many of them also pay to be in MCYO and take lessons? Yes, but their school experience is free and has more diversity than their paid youth orchestra.

You just proved the point. The discussion is about our kids who are NOT at those schools and the lack of offerings at our school. Those kids are challenged in a stellar orchestra, but if you are MCYO or PVYO, you are light years ahead of your school orchestra. That is the issue. MCYO and PVYO offer low-income financial help but few kids take them up on it. Its too bad as they are amazing experiences many of our kids cannot replicate at school. So, YES, we do have to private pay to get quality music programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm highly skeptical that MCPS can serve kids grandfathered into the existing countywide and consortia program models AND simultaneously stand up and transition into the regional program models.

While it sounds nice, that would require a level of planning, coordination and competence from MCPS that I have never seen before.

I agree. It will be a logistical nightmare just in terms of staffing allocations. Teachers will have to hyper specialize in multiple things. Plus the transportation will still be a nightmare if the old and new routes are running at the same time.

I also think Taylor overestimates what teachers want. Many want a short commute, a good principal and a safe school where they can feel part of a community. Shuffling teachers around for program interests wont do that. Having to get training to hyperspecialize in the flavor of the month courses wastes a lot of time.

This means Taylor would have to address the real problems. Instead of doing that, he's covering it up with this non-sense so people focus on this and not on whats really going on.

This! I so wanted to be at the meeting in person to hold a sign that reminds the BOE that none of this matters of kids can’t read. We are missing the bigger issues with this one.

Most of us aren't missing them who are here and other platforms but people are getting hyperfocused on this not realizing that this is smoke for covering up all the bad stuff. Taylor has been on board a year so he and the BOE, as well as central office need to be held accountable. Our kids only get one chance at an education and many kids are struggling due to their incompetence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who would be the inaugural class of this change, and the change looks reasonable to me.

Change is hard, but there have long been more kids capable of doing magnet-level work than spots available. Creating new, diverse, regions and expanding magnet offerings is a common-sense solution.

Those are nice sentiments, but your post doesn’t address the actual logistical challenges presented by this plan. You call the plan reasonable; please explain how it is even feasible, let alone reasonable.

Do you have any children who have already participated in one of the existing high school magnet programs? I have a senior who has experienced a CES and magnets for middle school and high school. I’m surprised that anyone whose child will be in high school during this transition would support it. Significant and widespread changes will not roll out smoothly. There will be disparities in the implementation between regions.

I'm the PP and I do have a child in one of the existing programs, after participating in a CES and MS magnet. Those experiences revealed how many talented kids are being missed by the current scarcity.

You asked about feasibility, as though no one has ever thought about this question before. This is not an insurmountable issue. It's just a matter of sequencing.

They've already drawn up the regions, and determined the 5 magnets for each region. Now they need to assign the programs to the schools. If we take the southernmost region, I'd assume Blair keeps STEM, Northwood gets medical, Einstein takes performing arts, B-CC has IB/Humanities, and Whitman takes leadership/public service. This more or less tracks with their existing programs.

Curricula already exist for most of those programs, so all they need to do is create the course sequence for performing/fine arts, building off VAC and probably CAP sequencing.

There is already an online system to apply to the magnets. So they just need to program the application to let the kids rank/select the programs that interest them, and to consider them only for those in their region.

Finally, transportation. That's sticky, but again not insurmountable. Right now, MCPS runs magnet busses all over the county, and across the DCC. Multiple busses for the Poolesville program go 20+ miles. The longest bus ride in the new regions would be about 10 miles. It's a logistical challenge, but not a particularly hard one.

10-20 mile bus rides are absurd. And, what happens with after school activities for kids who have no transportation outside the school bus. How about providing the same opportunities at all schools.

That would make the special kids less special and we couldn’t possibly have that. Enough resources for everyone who qualifies? How scandalous!

I have no qualms about admitting more students to special programs, but I don’t think substantially increasing the number of special programs and decreasing catchment areas is going to result in the same experience that today’s magnet students are having. It’s going to give more students something moderately better than what they currently have, while taking away the thing that is most valuable to the highest performing of the high performers: an exceptional cohort. Given the issues with staffing, can MCPS even deliver enough qualified teachers who are willing to take on these classes?

So, I don't actually think it is the job of a public education system to offer classes that only 10/200,000 kids per year take. Yes, the top .1% of kids might lose access to "an exceptional cohort" but thousands of kids are going to benefit.

In public education, the goal cannot be to absolutely maximize the experience of a tiny handful of kids. It has to be serving the largest number of learners possible with available resources.

But there is an argument to be made that some learners do actually need more challenging material in order to be academically successful. Being gifted and bored in a mainstream class is not awesome and is shown to lead to behavioral issues and disengagement.

Sure, but we're not talking about students in mainstream classrooms. We're talking about students in specialized regional magnets that are still drawing from a pool of something like 3,000 kids per grade level per year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming the new STEM program will get nothing like the current SMCS with all the electives and functions and research projects? Will it just be more like the academy style system with a few extra classes?

Aren't there like 15 different math and science classes at Blair? It's not really necessary to have that many in every school, or even at Blair, is it? Which are the ones that are really important?

My DC who is Blair alum took every single math and physics electives, plus quite a few computer science, and some chemistry and biology electives. I'm sure there are students who did vice versa. (These electives are not all offered every semester or every year. Some are offered one semester per year. Some are offered every other year etc.) But the point is, they are almost all valuable.

You are lucky. We have no science ap classes, no math after bc and one engineering class and only a few cs classes. If they are all valuable shouldn’t all our kids get them too?

What MCPS high school offers no science AP classes? I call BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why, why, why can't we just work on 26 strong high schools that all offer a variety of leveled work? Why can't all students just go to their zoned school? What if we used all of this money from their "Research," buses, program procurement etc, to add more teachers to the county and reduce the size of classes? Why does everyone need a program?

Because in this county, like everywhere else, the rich hoard the good stuff. If you are a kid who goes to predominantly poor school and you want to take advanced physics or be in a stellar symphony, you just can’t, because there aren’t enough other kids like you at your school. Specialized programs help those kids.

You have to private pay for the stellar orchestra. It sucks not having the same opportunities.

You don’t have to private pay for the stellar orchestra. Frost, Wootton, Takoma Park kids all take their school orchestra classes for free. Do many of them also pay to be in MCYO and take lessons? Yes, but their school experience is free and has more diversity than their paid youth orchestra.

You just proved the point. The discussion is about our kids who are NOT at those schools and the lack of offerings at our school. Those kids are challenged in a stellar orchestra, but if you are MCYO or PVYO, you are light years ahead of your school orchestra. That is the issue. MCYO and PVYO offer low-income financial help but few kids take them up on it. It's too bad as they are amazing experiences many of our kids cannot replicate at school. So, YES, we do have to private pay to get quality music programs.

It's the students that take private lessons and play in additional orchestras that make the public school orchestras at Frost, Wootton, Blair, and Takoma Park the outstanding public programs that they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who would be the inaugural class of this change, and the change looks reasonable to me.

Change is hard, but there have long been more kids capable of doing magnet-level work than spots available. Creating new, diverse, regions and expanding magnet offerings is a common-sense solution.

Those are nice sentiments, but your post doesn’t address the actual logistical challenges presented by this plan. You call the plan reasonable; please explain how it is even feasible, let alone reasonable.

Do you have any children who have already participated in one of the existing high school magnet programs? I have a senior who has experienced a CES and magnets for middle school and high school. I’m surprised that anyone whose child will be in high school during this transition would support it. Significant and widespread changes will not roll out smoothly. There will be disparities in the implementation between regions.

I'm the PP and I do have a child in one of the existing programs, after participating in a CES and MS magnet. Those experiences revealed how many talented kids are being missed by the current scarcity.

You asked about feasibility, as though no one has ever thought about this question before. This is not an insurmountable issue. It's just a matter of sequencing.

They've already drawn up the regions, and determined the 5 magnets for each region. Now they need to assign the programs to the schools. If we take the southernmost region, I'd assume Blair keeps STEM, Northwood gets medical, Einstein takes performing arts, B-CC has IB/Humanities, and Whitman takes leadership/public service. This more or less tracks with their existing programs.

Curricula already exist for most of those programs, so all they need to do is create the course sequence for performing/fine arts, building off VAC and probably CAP sequencing.

There is already an online system to apply to the magnets. So they just need to program the application to let the kids rank/select the programs that interest them, and to consider them only for those in their region.

Finally, transportation. That's sticky, but again not insurmountable. Right now, MCPS runs magnet busses all over the county, and across the DCC. Multiple busses for the Poolesville program go 20+ miles. The longest bus ride in the new regions would be about 10 miles. It's a logistical challenge, but not a particularly hard one.

10-20 mile bus rides are absurd. And, what happens with after school activities for kids who have no transportation outside the school bus. How about providing the same opportunities at all schools.

That would make the special kids less special and we couldn’t possibly have that. Enough resources for everyone who qualifies? How scandalous!

I have no qualms about admitting more students to special programs, but I don’t think substantially increasing the number of special programs and decreasing catchment areas is going to result in the same experience that today’s magnet students are having. It’s going to give more students something moderately better than what they currently have, while taking away the thing that is most valuable to the highest performing of the high performers: an exceptional cohort. Given the issues with staffing, can MCPS even deliver enough qualified teachers who are willing to take on these classes?

So, I don't actually think it is the job of a public education system to offer classes that only 10/200,000 kids per year take. Yes, the top .1% of kids might lose access to "an exceptional cohort" but thousands of kids are going to benefit.

In public education, the goal cannot be to absolutely maximize the experience of a tiny handful of kids. It has to be serving the largest number of learners possible with available resources.

But there is an argument to be made that some learners do actually need more challenging material in order to be academically successful. Being gifted and bored in a mainstream class is not awesome and is shown to lead to behavioral issues and disengagement.

Sure, but we're not talking about students in mainstream classrooms. We're talking about students in specialized regional magnets that are still drawing from a pool of something like 3,000 kids per grade level per year.

3,000 students per grade eligible for magnets? Where did you find that number?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming the new STEM program will get nothing like the current SMCS with all the electives and functions and research projects? Will it just be more like the academy style system with a few extra classes?

Aren't there like 15 different math and science classes at Blair? It's not really necessary to have that many in every school, or even at Blair, is it? Which are the ones that are really important?

My DC who is Blair alum took every single math and physics electives, plus quite a few computer science, and some chemistry and biology electives. I'm sure there are students who did vice versa. (These electives are not all offered every semester or every year. Some are offered one semester per year. Some are offered every other year etc.) But the point is, they are almost all valuable.

You are lucky. We have no science ap classes, no math after bc and one engineering class and only a few cs classes. If they are all valuable shouldn’t all our kids get them too?

What MCPS high school offers no science AP classes? I call BS.

I have read complaints about Einstein's science offerings here on DCUM. No personal exp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming the new STEM program will get nothing like the current SMCS with all the electives and functions and research projects? Will it just be more like the academy style system with a few extra classes?

Aren't there like 15 different math and science classes at Blair? It's not really necessary to have that many in every school, or even at Blair, is it? Which are the ones that are really important?

My DC who is Blair alum took every single math and physics electives, plus quite a few computer science, and some chemistry and biology electives. I'm sure there are students who did vice versa. (These electives are not all offered every semester or every year. Some are offered one semester per year. Some are offered every other year etc.) But the point is, they are almost all valuable.

You are lucky. We have no science ap classes, no math after bc and one engineering class and only a few cs classes. If they are all valuable shouldn’t all our kids get them too?

What MCPS high school offers no science AP classes? I call BS.

Some of the DCC schools. Ours has zero AP science classes. No math past Calc BC (except statistics).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming the new STEM program will get nothing like the current SMCS with all the electives and functions and research projects? Will it just be more like the academy style system with a few extra classes?

Aren't there like 15 different math and science classes at Blair? It's not really necessary to have that many in every school, or even at Blair, is it? Which are the ones that are really important?

My DC who is Blair alum took every single math and physics electives, plus quite a few computer science, and some chemistry and biology electives. I'm sure there are students who did vice versa. (These electives are not all offered every semester or every year. Some are offered one semester per year. Some are offered every other year etc.) But the point is, they are almost all valuable.

You are lucky. We have no science ap classes, no math after bc and one engineering class and only a few cs classes. If they are all valuable shouldn’t all our kids get them too?

What MCPS high school offers no science AP classes? I call BS.

I have read complaints about Einstein's science offerings here on DCUM. No personal exp

Here are Einstein's course offerings, with its multiple science offerings included: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ahQmKa3acSRnJPnTI4UnQ23eQj5GXYUFaBQio0PtgfI/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.rxptk27zv005

[Anonymous]

The earlier PP doesn't like the IB science courses that Einstein has, and posts about it incessantly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming the new STEM program will get nothing like the current SMCS with all the electives and functions and research projects? Will it just be more like the academy style system with a few extra classes?

Aren't there like 15 different math and science classes at Blair? It's not really necessary to have that many in every school, or even at Blair, is it? Which are the ones that are really important?

My DC who is Blair alum took every single math and physics electives, plus quite a few computer science, and some chemistry and biology electives. I'm sure there are students who did vice versa. (These electives are not all offered every semester or every year. Some are offered one semester per year. Some are offered every other year etc.) But the point is, they are almost all valuable.

You are lucky. We have no science ap classes, no math after bc and one engineering class and only a few cs classes. If they are all valuable shouldn’t all our kids get them too?

What MCPS high school offers no science AP classes? I call BS.

I have read complaints about Einstein's science offerings here on DCUM. No personal exp

Here are Einstein's course offerings, with its multiple science offerings included: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ahQmKa3acSRnJPnTI4UnQ23eQj5GXYUFaBQio0PtgfI/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.rxptk27zv005

And that link confirms that Einstein does not offer any AP Science courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming the new STEM program will get nothing like the current SMCS with all the electives and functions and research projects? Will it just be more like the academy style system with a few extra classes?

Aren't there like 15 different math and science classes at Blair? It's not really necessary to have that many in every school, or even at Blair, is it? Which are the ones that are really important?

My DC who is Blair alum took every single math and physics electives, plus quite a few computer science, and some chemistry and biology electives. I'm sure there are students who did vice versa. (These electives are not all offered every semester or every year. Some are offered one semester per year. Some are offered every other year etc.) But the point is, they are almost all valuable.

You are lucky. We have no science ap classes, no math after bc and one engineering class and only a few cs classes. If they are all valuable shouldn’t all our kids get them too?

What MCPS high school offers no science AP classes? I call BS.

I have read complaints about Einstein's science offerings here on DCUM. No personal exp

Here are Einstein's course offerings, with its multiple science offerings included: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ahQmKa3acSRnJPnTI4UnQ23eQj5GXYUFaBQio0PtgfI/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.rxptk27zv005

DP. Are thise held every year, or only when enough students sign up/qualify? If the latter, how often is that in recent years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm highly skeptical that MCPS can serve kids grandfathered into the existing countywide and consortia program models AND simultaneously stand up and transition into the regional program models.

While it sounds nice, that would require a level of planning, coordination and competence from MCPS that I have never seen before.

I agree. It will be a logistical nightmare just in terms of staffing allocations. Teachers will have to hyper specialize in multiple things. Plus the transportation will still be a nightmare if the old and new routes are running at the same time.

I also think Taylor overestimates what teachers want. Many want a short commute, a good principal and a safe school where they can feel part of a community. Shuffling teachers around for program interests wont do that. Having to get training to hyperspecialize in the flavor of the month courses wastes a lot of time.

This means Taylor would have to address the real problems. Instead of doing that, he's covering it up with this non-sense so people focus on this and not on whats really going on.

This! I so wanted to be at the meeting in person to hold a sign that reminds the BOE that none of this matters of kids can’t read. We are missing the bigger issues with this one.

They need to focus on fixing the elementary schools to get all kids reading by the end of second. No way these kids who are behind will ever catch up if the don’t intervene early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The earlier PP doesn't like the IB science courses that Einstein has, and posts about it incessantly.

In are different. Some are two periods. Why not offer both?