Reply to BOE reconsidering the Virtual Academy, Leader in Me, and Innovative School Year Calendar

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]From what I recall the virtual academy services about 1,800 students. That is pretty large, given there are schools with just three hundred or less in the district. The problem is that federal funds have essentially run out. I would prefer that it continue, as there are students who clearly thrive there.

Beyond that I don't think that the system would actually benefit from the virtual academy staff coming back, in-person. Some, because of health reasons, can't. They would probably quit or retire. Others may be problematic, as there are one or two who were transferred there after being troublesome in their own schools. (Harassment of staff comes to mind.)

And then there is the issue of redistributing students, which might push class capacity in some schools. So there are a lot of factors to consider.[/quote]

No, virtual academy is less than 900 students, with enrollment dropping rapidly. Spread across all grades and schools, that's miniscule.  VA students would simply get absorbed back into their home schools.  The marginal cost of bringing these students back into schools is almost nothing. Getting rid of VA would save a ton of money.[/quote]

Or, get rid of other programs and use the real student funding to pay for the va vs giving it to the home schools that are not providing anything to the students.  [/quote]

So, what programs do you want to get rid of that collectively cost the same amount as VA?[/quote]

We can cut central office staff, stop finding nonprofits that don’t benefit students, like the kid museum.   The kid museum gets mil,ions and dies very little for mcps kids.  They charge for field trips.  https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OMB/Resources/Files/omb/pdfs/fy23/ciprec/P721903.pdf
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I'd like to see the kid museum funding reduced and give the teachers money for supplies.  Why are we being asked to donate paper?  Why can't MCPS provide this?![/quote]

Dumb question and I don’t have time to search- how much exactly is MCPS giving to the kids museum annually?[/quote]

They gave a $2.37 million contract to Kid Museum in September 2022.  That appears to be a multi-year award.  The last extension of the original 2017 contract was in 2021 for $1.6 million.

That's significantly cheaper than VA.  VA's proposed budget for FY25 is $4.3 million. But they're playing some sort of funny accounting game where they exclude the cost of employee benefits from the cost of the VA program, so it's actually quite a bit more than that.[/quote]

You are forgetting, 2023, 2024, 2025 funding as well.  And, it serves no function for MCPS other than an BOE member's wife's pet project.  The majority of the schools have to pay a field trip fee and most schools are not doing field trips there and if they are its once per school year.

Again, the simple solution is to stop funding those students at their home schools, who provide nothing to the students, and use the allocated money per student to go to the MVA instead.  Right now they are double funding each student by paying for them to be at the home school and at the VA.  And, $4.3 million is nothing for MCPS or what it costs to run one in person school.[/quote]

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