Is Einstein getting totally screwed in the boundary and program study proposals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:We’re in-bounds for Einstein and have kids in middle and elementary currently.

We need to speak up about the unfairness of these proposed changes. There are a lot of well-educated, articulate parents who could make a strong case why we need different options. I’ve already responded to the survey as such.

What else? Testimony to the BOE? Get media attention on the issue? I don’t know that it will ultimately change things, but I think we have to try hard.

Attend the County Council's Education and Culture Committee session tomorrow from 1:30-4:30pm at 100 Maryland Avenue in Rockville in the 3rd Floor Hearing Room and bring signs

Here is the link to the agenda for this public meeting occurring tomorrow. The third item relates to the regional program proposal https://montgomerycountymd.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=169&event_id=16606

Thanks for sharing! I just quickly went through the document attached to the 3rd item using keyword search, and didn't find their plan for middle school program layout. Didn't they promise to share their plan in Oct. meeting?

So this is a County Council meeting, not a BOE meeting. I assume the October meeting you are referring to is a BOE meeting (not sure which one)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:They should have the same strong offerings at every school. Having speciality programs at different schools is silly if students don’t get school choose and each school doesn’t have equal strong offerings. Taylor and the BOE clearly ditched equity and student needs. How many kids want a teacher academy. They reduced the current program a few years ago. How about a poll asking parents, teachers and students what they want at these schools. People are going to bail from Einstein if they can and either move or go private. It and Kennedy will be the weak links.

+1

The DCC is what keeps wealthier kids in public schools. DH and I have just discussed upping our 529 contributions so we can afford private if need be.

Having a standardized base of strong offerings at all schools is part of the plan. Funny how most people are not asking questions or focused on that piece.

We don't buy it because MCPS has caveated it with saying they will offer courses "if there is interest" which is a circular way of saying they won't actually offer that strong base or will have it be virtual in the lower income schools, which will lead wealthy families to flee public schools.

The more comfortable families will leave Einstein and the FARM rate will likely rise. The school gained students for its VAPA program, but many academically strong students now choose magnets or lottery into Blair or Wheaton due to Einstein's limited advanced course offerings. The principal claims there's no demand for higher-level classes, but demand is low because the classes aren't offered. Students are often pushed through AB, BC, then Stats, with no alternatives. MCPS offers no virtual high school math options and has no plans to. Students are left with three choices: take what is available, drive their kids to another school, or to Montgomery College for the classes they need. There is no excuse for MCPS not providing enough math to meet graduation requirements. The minimum at each school should be MVC as then students can take Statistics after MVC if they need an extra math class.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If they’re going to do all these split articulations anyway they should pull Town of Kensington kids within the Einstein walk zone into the school. That might get people’s attention.

This!!! It is absurd that TOK within walking distance doesn’t go to Einstein!

But WJ's in a different region than Einstein, and I don't think they split-articulate across regions.

WTF are you even talking about? For decades white people in the TOK have insisted their kids get bussed to WJ rather than WALKING to Einstein. It is friggin absurd. Especially when those people put of Black Lives Matter signs in their front yards. So hypocritical.

I naively thought this might change with the boundary study. My DD has already graduated from Einstein so I don’t have much of a stake in this (except possibly property value), but it’s disappointing that when there a real opportunity to diversify socioeconomically it’s again being ignored.

It's not being ignored. It's a racist pattern that is being deliberately kept for political reasons to appease the rich white people of the Town of Kensington.

Can you explain more? Do Einstein families want all of Kensington zoned to it? Was that one of the options initially present th at has now changed?

I don't think most Einstein families care that much but some don't love that the new options increase the FARMS rate at Einstein.

I don't care about FARMS, as most of the FARMS students are really nice kids. But, I do care about the lack of school course offerings and clubs/activities/sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has MCPS provided more info on what the edication magnet will look like? Is this an existing local or regional program they are modeling it after? What is the goal? To have people ready to be education majors in college? To target people who can serve as paraedicators eight after HS? To have people work in daycares right after HS?

Is education program ever a criteria-based magnet program? Based on the discussion shared on another thread titled "What If I Told You The Regional Model Isn’t About Advanced Academics?", I'd think the new education program is a CTE program.

The education program is definitely not labeled as criteria-based. My guess is it is indeed CTE, focused on the CDA credential for early childhood teachers or on some kind of credential for students aspiring to be K-12 teachers or paras, not sure what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they’re going to do all these split articulations anyway they should pull Town of Kensington kids within the Einstein walk zone into the school. That might get people’s attention.

This!!! It is absurd that TOK within walking distance doesn’t go to Einstein!

But WJ's in a different region than Einstein, and I don't think they split-articulate across regions.

Good catch. They actually did split articulate across regions in the first round (and some Woodward study schools even overlapped with the crown study schools for regions), but I think they fixed this in round 2 and it makes sense for these to be clean and clear of overlap.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like it. Thoughts? What should we do about this?

What’s gonna happen to Einstein?

Boundary study options all pull lower FARMS schools out of Einstein/higher FARMS schools into it and the regional magnet program will pull higher achieving kids into magnets placed at other schools within the region leaving existing programs at Einstein without students and therefore without funding. MCPS is taking a school with a diverse socioeconomic population and good programs, which has been a relative success story, and cutting it off at the knees (and uniquely so among all the rest of the schools at issue). Parents in boundary need to speak up!

Einstein gets no regional program? What about IB, VAPA, or VAC?

Regional IB goes to BCC. Regional performing arts go to Northwood. Einstein keeps regional visual arts only plus education which as I understand it is low interest. BCC also gets humanities magnet. Someone on another thread suggested as a minimum advocating for humanities magnet at Einstein and education at BCC since they have some sort of preschool training piece.

Humanities at einstein is a good idea, and you are right that BCC has long had a preschool on site for early childhood classes that HS students take. I don't know why you'd put Humanities AND IB at the same school -- it is an overlap. Einstein needs a draw to maintain that neighborhood and the quality of education -- and I say that as a BCC parent.

The humanities program would be a better fit for Northwood considering the fact Northwood has 4 academies that are strongly focus on the humanities.

Another reason to do humanities at Northwood would be that there should be a robust set of AP courses wherever the humanities program is-- families who pick the humanities program over the IB program likely will have a preference for AP over IB classes. If Einstein wants to stay as an IB school maybe they could do humanities at Northwood and the criteria-based medical science program at Einstein? Hopefully that program would be similar to the one currently at Wheaton which is popular and draws a lot of smart kids.

Although frankly the Einstein families are getting so screwed over here that if they have a strong preference/consensus around which programs they get, I for one am glad to line up behind them to support it regardless of whether I personally think it makes the most sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re in-bounds for Einstein and have kids in middle and elementary currently.

We need to speak up about the unfairness of these proposed changes. There are a lot of well-educated, articulate parents who could make a strong case why we need different options. I’ve already responded to the survey as such.

What else? Testimony to the BOE? Get media attention on the issue? I don’t know that it will ultimately change things, but I think we have to try hard.

Attend the County Council's Education and Culture Committee session tomorrow from 1:30-4:30pm at 100 Maryland Avenue in Rockville in the 3rd Floor Hearing Room and bring signs

Here is the link to the agenda for this public meeting occurring tomorrow. The third item relates to the regional program proposal https://montgomerycountymd.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=169&event_id=16606

Thanks for sharing! I just quickly went through the document attached to the 3rd item using keyword search, and didn't find their plan for middle school program layout. Didn't they promise to share their plan in Oct. meeting?

So this is a County Council meeting, not a BOE meeting. I assume the October meeting you are referring to is a BOE meeting (not sure which one)

+1. The middle school program plan is slated to be presented to the BOE on October 16th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has MCPS provided more info on what the edication magnet will look like? Is this an existing local or regional program they are modeling it after? What is the goal? To have people ready to be education majors in college? To target people who can serve as paraedicators eight after HS? To have people work in daycares right after HS?

Is education program ever a criteria-based magnet program? Based on the discussion shared on another thread titled "What If I Told You The Regional Model Isn’t About Advanced Academics?", I'd think the new education program is a CTE program.

I assume it's a version of the Teacher Academy of Maryland program, which is already offered at Einstein.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/career-readiness/plans/arts-in-teaching/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has MCPS provided more info on what the edication magnet will look like? Is this an existing local or regional program they are modeling it after? What is the goal? To have people ready to be education majors in college? To target people who can serve as paraedicators eight after HS? To have people work in daycares right after HS?

Is education program ever a criteria-based magnet program? Based on the discussion shared on another thread titled "What If I Told You The Regional Model Isn’t About Advanced Academics?", I'd think the new education program is a CTE program.

I assume it's a version of the Teacher Academy of Maryland program, which is already offered at Einstein.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/career-readiness/plans/arts-in-teaching/

Yes it’s offered, and it has a very small number of students. Unlike VAPA, which is the single largest academy at Einstein. Focus on strengths!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Also it’s my understanding regional magnets have significant set asides for kids in the host school. So if both criteria based magnets are at BCC it makes it easier for BCC kids to get in (since ~30% spots reserved for them whereas remaining 70% spots have to be split among the other schools in the region).

Specialized magnets for the rich kids, virtual precalc for middle class kids

I heard one ES under Einstein couldn’t even secure a compact math teacher, so the 4th grade compact math class needs to take virtual class with a few other schools (not sure what other ESs are), but this sounds pretty sad.

What are you even talking about? Every school has in-person precalc.

It’s not that the school couldn’t secure a compacted math teacher. It’s that there is no longer funding for a compacted math class that is below the size of a regular class. If there are fewer students who qualify for compacted math than whatever the minimum amount of students needed for a class, they put them in a virtual class with students from other similarly situated schools. I believe this is a direct downstream effect of the CES given the number of students the school sends to the CES and the fact that most if not all of those students would also qualify for compacted math. If MCPS would get rid of the regional CES program and offer the curriculum as an in-school curriculum for all the students who qualify instead of making it a lottery, it would not only be fair to the kids who qualify for the CES but currently don’t have access to it, but it would also solve the problem of stupid things like virtual math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also it’s my understanding regional magnets have significant set asides for kids in the host school. So if both criteria based magnets are at BCC it makes it easier for BCC kids to get in (since ~30% spots reserved for them whereas remaining 70% spots have to be split among the other schools in the region).

Specialized magnets for the rich kids, virtual precalc for middle class kids

I heard one ES under Einstein couldn’t even secure a compact math teacher, so the 4th grade compact math class needs to take virtual class with a few other schools (not sure what other ESs are), but this sounds pretty sad.

What are you even talking about? Every school has in-person precalc.

It’s not that the school couldn’t secure a compacted math teacher. It’s that there is no longer funding for a compacted math class that is below the size of a regular class. If there are fewer students who qualify for compacted math than whatever the minimum amount of students needed for a class, they put them in a virtual class with students from other similarly situated schools. I believe this is a direct downstream effect of the CES given the number of students the school sends to the CES and the fact that most if not all of those students would also qualify for compacted math. If MCPS would get rid of the regional CES program and offer the curriculum as an in-school curriculum for all the students who qualify instead of making it a lottery, it would not only be fair to the kids who qualify for the CES but currently don’t have access to it, but it would also solve the problem of stupid things like virtual math.

Yeah... the fact that MCPS has *4th graders* taking virtual math, but not 12th graders can't take MV Calculus virtually is just...?!

[Anonymous]

I wonder if a large part of the problem with Einstein is that they don't seem to want to change the boundary much (e.g. moving Woodlin to BCC) so it is hard to fit 2 programs in given the capacity of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has MCPS provided more info on what the edication magnet will look like? Is this an existing local or regional program they are modeling it after? What is the goal? To have people ready to be education majors in college? To target people who can serve as paraedicators eight after HS? To have people work in daycares right after HS?

Is education program ever a criteria-based magnet program? Based on the discussion shared on another thread titled "What If I Told You The Regional Model Isn’t About Advanced Academics?", I'd think the new education program is a CTE program.

I assume it's a version of the Teacher Academy of Maryland program, which is already offered at Einstein.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/career-readiness/plans/arts-in-teaching/

That’s Einstein’s smallest program, according to staff at the school. They were considering discontinuing it. If no kids in the DCC were picking Einstein for the education program, what makes MCPS think kids from the new region will?

Einstein should get a music magnet, since that’s what Einstein does best. Make Northwood’s performing arts program theatre focused.

BCC has an education pathway with a lab preschool. The education magnet should be there.

And Einstein won’t automatically get more STEM offerings. The school already offers all of the courses on the list of core classes MCPS says they want at all schools. It will be the same as before, only now kids won’t be able to choose a school with more science and math like they can (to a point) now. They’ll have to apply for the 50 or so seats per year available in STEM magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like it. Thoughts? What should we do about this?

What’s gonna happen to Einstein?

Boundary study options all pull lower FARMS schools out of Einstein/higher FARMS schools into it and the regional magnet program will pull higher achieving kids into magnets placed at other schools within the region leaving existing programs at Einstein without students and therefore without funding. MCPS is taking a school with a diverse socioeconomic population and good programs, which has been a relative success story, and cutting it off at the knees (and uniquely so among all the rest of the schools at issue). Parents in boundary need to speak up!

Einstein gets no regional program? What about IB, VAPA, or VAC?

Regional IB goes to BCC. Regional performing arts go to Northwood. Einstein keeps regional visual arts only plus education which as I understand it is low interest. BCC also gets humanities magnet. Someone on another thread suggested as a minimum advocating for humanities magnet at Einstein and education at BCC since they have some sort of preschool training piece.

Humanities at einstein is a good idea, and you are right that BCC has long had a preschool on site for early childhood classes that HS students take. I don't know why you'd put Humanities AND IB at the same school -- it is an overlap. Einstein needs a draw to maintain that neighborhood and the quality of education -- and I say that as a BCC parent.

The humanities program would be a better fit for Northwood considering the fact Northwood has 4 academies that are strongly focus on the humanities.

Another reason to do humanities at Northwood would be that there should be a robust set of AP courses wherever the humanities program is-- families who pick the humanities program over the IB program likely will have a preference for AP over IB classes. If Einstein wants to stay as an IB school maybe they could do humanities at Northwood and the criteria-based medical science program at Einstein? Hopefully that program would be similar to the one currently at Wheaton which is popular and draws a lot of smart kids.

Although frankly the Einstein families are getting so screwed over here that if they have a strong preference/consensus around which programs they get, I for one am glad to line up behind them to support it regardless of whether I personally think it makes the most sense.

They don’t ask families what they want. Many want more ap classes. There may not be more ap classes at Northwood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has MCPS provided more info on what the edication magnet will look like? Is this an existing local or regional program they are modeling it after? What is the goal? To have people ready to be education majors in college? To target people who can serve as paraedicators eight after HS? To have people work in daycares right after HS?

Is education program ever a criteria-based magnet program? Based on the discussion shared on another thread titled "What If I Told You The Regional Model Isn’t About Advanced Academics?", I'd think the new education program is a CTE program.

I assume it's a version of the Teacher Academy of Maryland program, which is already offered at Einstein.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/career-readiness/plans/arts-in-teaching/

That’s Einstein’s smallest program, according to staff at the school. They were considering discontinuing it. If no kids in the DCC were picking Einstein for the education program, what makes MCPS think kids from the new region will?

Einstein should get a music magnet, since that’s what Einstein does best. Make Northwood’s performing arts program theatre focused.

BCC has an education pathway with a lab preschool. The education magnet should be there.

And Einstein won’t automatically get more STEM offerings. The school already offers all of the courses on the list of core classes MCPS says they want at all schools. It will be the same as before, only now kids won’t be able to choose a school with more science and math like they can (to a point) now. They’ll have to apply for the 50 or so seats per year available in STEM magnets.

There will be no more lottery. So, if you don’t get to go to a Magnet, you go to Einstein, private, cosa or move. If you stay at Einstein you go to MC or just take what is offered