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Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:Charting historic MCPS SMOBs by high school.
The 2 schools with SMOB finalists make up 33.3% (1/3) of all SMOBs ever despite 2 schools being under 8% of MCPS HS.
The top 3 schools make up 46.6% of all SMOBs (12% of schools).
6 High Schools have never had a SMOB. Inequity starts at the top.
? Springbrook (tied with Whitman) is a high FARMs school.
RM has a lot because many of the RMIB students are very engaged with leadership and SGA.
You do know that the students vote for their SMOB, right? Should we give extra votes to certain SMOB candidates from certain locations and demographics?
The student general population only votes for the finalists. A much smaller select group are the ones who vote for who will be a finalist.
That smaller group is not "select." It is comprised of every single kid from any school who chooses to be a part of the process. Nobody is excluded and all have the opportunity to participate.
“There is a selection/election of nominating convention delegates by local schools.“
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/student-leadership/smob/election-process.aspx
Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:Charting historic MCPS SMOBs by high school.
The 2 schools with SMOB finalists make up 33.3% (1/3) of all SMOBs ever despite 2 schools being under 8% of MCPS HS.
The top 3 schools make up 46.6% of all SMOBs (12% of schools).
6 High Schools have never had a SMOB. Inequity starts at the top.
? Springbrook (tied with Whitman) is a high FARMs school.
RM has a lot because many of the RMIB students are very engaged with leadership and SGA.
You do know that the students vote for their SMOB, right? Should we give extra votes to certain SMOB candidates from certain locations and demographics?
The student general population only votes for the finalists. A much smaller select group are the ones who vote for who will be a finalist.
Anonymous wrote:Well, the students are the ones who vote. What do you suggest to remedy the issue? Is there something inherent in the process that causes this inequity?
I’d think outreach to schools to identify strong candidates would be a first step, perhaps working with counselors and SGA sponsors.
The biggest issue is that the narrowing down to finalists is done by a small select group of kids who need to go in person to vote and not everyone gets to vote.
Once the finalists are narrowed down, everyone gets to vote but that is not so for selecting who the finalists are.
After County Exec Elrich posted a tweet saying the population is actually growing, we decided to take a closer look at the population trends in Montgomery County, Frederick County and the state with full charts based on actual U.S. Census data.
https://moderatelymoco.com/cracking-the-mystery-of-montgomery-countys-population-from-boom-to-bust/
Conclusion:
"Yes, Montgomery County population has shrank over the last 3 years and Frederick County has had tremendous growth.
The County Executive quoted a website that while it was the top hit on Google, does not appear to be using actual U.S. Census data and is not accurate according to U.S. Government sources."
https://moderatelymoco.com/cracking-the-mystery-of-montgomery-countys-population-from-boom-to-bust/
Conclusion:
"Yes, Montgomery County population has shrank over the last 3 years and Frederick County has had tremendous growth.
The County Executive quoted a website that while it was the top hit on Google, does not appear to be using actual U.S. Census data and is not accurate according to U.S. Government sources."
Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:This passed today with a 9-2 vote.
Glass and Luedtke were the only two to vote against.
Thanks you two for pushing back against this example of cronyism and waste in the face of a historically large tax increase.
Shame on the rest of County Council for passing it.
Good for for them.
Not to downplay Luedtke's vote but it's to be expected, her constituents are more likely to pay attention to you Jason.
But Glass's vote is telling. He knows this deal is dirty and is voting against it even though there is no upside for him politically.
I’m not sure I have that much power that she cares much what I think but thanks I guess?
This passed today with a 9-2 vote.
Glass and Luedtke were the only two to vote against.
Thanks you two for pushing back against this example of cronyism and waste in the face of a historically large tax increase.
Shame on the rest of County Council for passing it.
Glass and Luedtke were the only two to vote against.
Thanks you two for pushing back against this example of cronyism and waste in the face of a historically large tax increase.
Shame on the rest of County Council for passing it.
Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Have the council members staked out positions on this yet?
If they are smart they avoid it entirely, since it doesnt need their vote.
In theory it would need full council approval unanimously but since it doesnt- why would they go on record for supporting a huge tax increase?
Sorry for asking but can you explain? Do they need to vote for it or not?
By law any increase in the property tax requires a unanimous vote by the council, to raise the charter limit.
The one exception is the state allows them to go around this to comply with maintenance of effort for schools funding. So, a bit of a gray area- but I dont think it needs their vote- and they are probably quite relieved about that.
Yea it’s pretty shady because tons of other things are increasing in the budget too but since the increase is just under the increase for MCPS alone, he is making the argument they only need a majority. So much for that charter amendment pushed through with promises of needing an anonymous vote
But the council still needs to vote on it, right? It's just that it's a majority vote. Elrich cannot do it on his say-so alone, so the council members cannot avoid the issue.
Yes this is true. I think personally they’ll have little trouble getting a majority. With needing unanimous there would be some hard decisions needing to be made to get everyone’s vote
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Have the council members staked out positions on this yet?
If they are smart they avoid it entirely, since it doesnt need their vote.
In theory it would need full council approval unanimously but since it doesnt- why would they go on record for supporting a huge tax increase?
Sorry for asking but can you explain? Do they need to vote for it or not?
By law any increase in the property tax requires a unanimous vote by the council, to raise the charter limit.
The one exception is the state allows them to go around this to comply with maintenance of effort for schools funding. So, a bit of a gray area- but I dont think it needs their vote- and they are probably quite relieved about that.
Yea it’s pretty shady because tons of other things are increasing in the budget too but since the increase is just under the increase for MCPS alone, he is making the argument they only need a majority. So much for that charter amendment pushed through with promises of needing an anonymous vote
Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Haven’t we had enough threads on this? No, I do not want SROs back in schools. They’re not the solution
Really, you do not care about this fact: ???
Public safety is in the gutter due to policies enacted in recent years and our schools are both less safe and teaching students less. . .“SROs were removed from schools in 2021 and violence (second article) and drug use has skyrocketed since in MCPS. Some community members say MCPS was safer with SROs. Following the in MCPS school shooting at Magruder HS, MCPS reconsidered this and eventually came up with CEO 2.0 and brought Community Engagement Officers back into schools. In fact, there is recent data showing that Black and Hispanic students percentage of suspensions for discipline has actually increased since SROs were removed (which is part of the problem removing them was supposed to solve). That article did not go into the violence or other types of suspensions but the full Maryland report can be see here.
PP: when you say you do not care if Black and Hispanic students are expelled at increasing rates, what does that make YOU ?
I am confused why people think this is some smoking gun about removing SROs from schools. There are a lot of other things going on besides the removal of SROs.
Whatever is going on, violence is up. Drug use in bathrooms are out of control.
Why do you think both MCPS and now the County Council are looking into school safety again, and why some MCPS schools have implemented CEO 2.0?
We need all hands on deck, and SROs or CEO 2.0 can be part of the solution. It's not a panacea. Not even RJ is a panacea. But we can use every tool we have to address these serious issues.
I believe CEO 2.0 is at all schools. Some schools are actually bringing SROs back essentially by having them there full time in building (unless needed elsewhere in cluster).
As far as other comment about MCPD, they’re trying to leave less serious issues to MCPS to handle (which they should) but MCPS is not doing much about any of it (imo). We’ll get more into that in the next part on the restorative justice practices. These RJ practices can be useful in some circumstances but in others serve to re victimize the victims and don’t provide much accountability to the offenders.
1000% agree
I thought I read that CEO 2.0 is at the discretion of the Principals, so not all schools have the CEO 2.0 where they are allowed to walk the halls.
So, some schools have CEO 2.0. How are they different to SROs? It is just a label change?
I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure MCPS went fully into CEO 2.0 across the system after Magruder. There may be some up to discretion by principals though. There are a lot of similarities though the kept them name so that politicians don’t have to be accountable for removing them. Im not an expert but there are other differences in training. The CEOs also are cluster wide whereas SROs were mainly in HS though they could go to other cluster schools when requested.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Haven’t we had enough threads on this? No, I do not want SROs back in schools. They’re not the solution
Really, you do not care about this fact: ???
Public safety is in the gutter due to policies enacted in recent years and our schools are both less safe and teaching students less. . .“SROs were removed from schools in 2021 and violence (second article) and drug use has skyrocketed since in MCPS. Some community members say MCPS was safer with SROs. Following the in MCPS school shooting at Magruder HS, MCPS reconsidered this and eventually came up with CEO 2.0 and brought Community Engagement Officers back into schools. In fact, there is recent data showing that Black and Hispanic students percentage of suspensions for discipline has actually increased since SROs were removed (which is part of the problem removing them was supposed to solve). That article did not go into the violence or other types of suspensions but the full Maryland report can be see here.
PP: when you say you do not care if Black and Hispanic students are expelled at increasing rates, what does that make YOU ?
I am confused why people think this is some smoking gun about removing SROs from schools. There are a lot of other things going on besides the removal of SROs.
Whatever is going on, violence is up. Drug use in bathrooms are out of control.
Why do you think both MCPS and now the County Council are looking into school safety again, and why some MCPS schools have implemented CEO 2.0?
We need all hands on deck, and SROs or CEO 2.0 can be part of the solution. It's not a panacea. Not even RJ is a panacea. But we can use every tool we have to address these serious issues.
I believe CEO 2.0 is at all schools. Some schools are actually bringing SROs back essentially by having them there full time in building (unless needed elsewhere in cluster).
As far as other comment about MCPD, they’re trying to leave less serious issues to MCPS to handle (which they should) but MCPS is not doing much about any of it (imo). We’ll get more into that in the next part on the restorative justice practices. These RJ practices can be useful in some circumstances but in others serve to re victimize the victims and don’t provide much accountability to the offenders.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do property tax increases still require the council's unanimous support, and is that likely?
Technically, no.
The state overrode that, when they put in Maintenance of effort for schools.
Technically it’s in question. If the raise was only for schools, it would not need it. But you can’t increase a ton of budgets across the board and then pretend it is just for schools. See what else is increasing here: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2023/03/16/the-central-fiction-of-elrichs-budget/
As far as other questions about accountability and this money going towards smaller class sizes and teacher pay… don’t count on it. Our county has no accountability and frankly no reason to change that:
https://moderatelymoco.com/taxes-up-services-down-why-accountability-matters-more-than-ever/
Anonymous wrote:ModeratelyMoco wrote:Anonymous wrote:The school data is kind of eye opening in terms of the level and type of problems.
Keep in mind that they only call in the more serious stuff and this is in school only
I think my surprise came from where the volume had been coming from. And seriously, traffic violations being included in a report about violence, theft, sexual assault . . . It was distracting.
I had that thought too
Anonymous wrote:The school data is kind of eye opening in terms of the level and type of problems.
Keep in mind that they only call in the more serious stuff and this is in school only
Anonymous wrote:Haven’t we had enough threads on this? No, I do not want SROs back in schools. They’re not the solution
Is there a thread on the report that just came out? Don’t like data?