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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
My parents taught me to stand up for what I believe in and what’s best for kids. We don’t want our kids growing up like you, mean nasty bullies.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Don't have kids there, don't really care one way or the other. But I have advocated for many things over the years. It's rarely a straight, easy road. Resilience and determination are needed. Dismissing such work as a temper-tantrum is only a self-reflection.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
Wrong forum. MCPS does not always have alternatives. Dream on.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
Wrong forum. MCPS does not always have alternatives. Dream on.
It doesn't have the MVA either so maybe you're both in the wrong forum.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
Wrong forum. MCPS does not always have alternatives. Dream on.
It doesn't have the MVA either so maybe you're both in the wrong forum.
Why are people acting like a middle school bullies. Please knock it off. If you can’t converse respectfully then don’t talk. The world will be better.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
Wrong forum. MCPS does not always have alternatives. Dream on.
The main alternative is that they can go to in-person school. The vast majority of MVA can do this- their parents just don't want them to. There are a variety of reasons that their parents don't want them to, some which are better than others, but they could go.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
Wrong forum. MCPS does not always have alternatives. Dream on.
The main alternative is that they can go to in-person school. The vast majority of MVA can do this- their parents just don't want them to. There are a variety of reasons that their parents don't want them to, some which are better than others, but they could go.
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.
ABC7 just interviewed the nominated superintendent Thomas Taylor and he said he would be meeting with the Montgomery Virtual Academy families because that is part of the process. He is agreeing to meet with these families after Felder refused.
Yea, families have really been pushing for this.
Gluttons for punishment? They want yet another person to tell them MVA is dead?
MVA families will not stop till the MVA is restored, just like you'd do if they shut down your child's school that was working for them.
That's called a temper tantrum. Your parents should have done more to teach you those aren't effective.
No, you can advocate for something long term without throwing a temper tantrum. Of course if that's the only lens you see the world in, everything looks that way to you. Strategic thinkers take the long view.
They made the decision to close it. You voiced your objections, but the policymakers in power decided to close it anyway. Continuing to whine about it is a temper tantrum.
identifying an alternative, sustainable path could be productive, but that isn't what the MVA supporters have been attempting to do.
Grow up. It’s a vital school for kids. Kids needs should come first. Try it.
If by "vital school" you mean "nice-to-have program", then yes, I agree
I'm sure for some kids it's a nice-to-have, but it sounds like there are a lot of kids there who have no other good alternative. (Outsider here, but some of the stories are really heart-rending.)
There's always an alternative. Some parents just don't like thise alternatives.
Wrong forum. MCPS does not always have alternatives. Dream on.
The main alternative is that they can go to in-person school. The vast majority of MVA can do this- their parents just don't want them to. There are a variety of reasons that their parents don't want them to, some which are better than others, but they could go.
Forum Index
»
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
