Reply to Second round options for Woodward boundary study

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Second round options for Woodward boundary study "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm curious which option current WJ Cluster families prefer: A, B, C or D.

To me, B appears the best outcome.[/quote]

WJ cluster is going to see some serious staffing cuts when a good portion of their school moves to Woodward.[/quote]

Well yeah, that's the main reason they opened Woodward.[/quote]

Yes, but when that happens, staffing will be cut which means classes will be cut.[/quote]

Because they don't need as many staff members if there are fewer students![/quote]

For schools like WJ with relatively low FARMS rates this will be fine. It's the high FARMS schools that have trouble offering certain courses as it is that will struggle with lower enrollment, especially when half the high achieving cohort signs up for programs in low FARMS schools.[/quote]

Will it be fine?  There will be some serious cuts.  [/quote]

I mean they might lose a few of their least popular elective, but generally, yes, they will be fine.  A lot of the cuts just amount to there being half as many staff left to teach all the basic core courses, but there will also be half as many students taking them so it works out fine.

The real classes at risk there or anywhere, are classes where there aren't that many kids taking them to start with.  At schools like Einstein this may include some higher level academic classes, but I doubt that's the case at WJ.  Both they and poorer schools facing cuts will instead be more likely to lose electives (and possibly certain foreign language classes, if there were ones with lower numbers of kids to start with.). If they previously barely filled a class for an elective, it's probably gone with the cuts.[/quote]

WJ is the "less common languages" designated school in Region 3, so I would think its unlikely that they will lose languages. More likely in the other schools in the region. If language is important those kids will move to WJ (in theory, anyway).  I wonder about the visual arts classes - a general high school may not be able to offer Ceramics, and Photography and Drawng/Painting at the same time. If that level of art engagement is a student's interest, they may need to move to the school that has those programs.  If that is the case, I hope they have transfers/onramps after 8th grade. Because kids interests change  [/quote]

Good luck with that. It’s not just about interests.  It’s about staffing.  Lose 1/4 of the students lose 1/4 of the staff.  [/quote]

Staffing is always proportional to student enrollment. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise.[/quote]

Correct but what is each school going to lose in terms of classes with the staffing losses. [/quote]

I mean, most of it (not all of it) is going to be stuff like you need 1/4 fewer English 9 classes so you have 1/4 fewer English 9 teachers, you need 1/4 fewer Algebra 2 classes so you have 1/4 fewer Algebra 2 teachers, etc... in those cases the impacts are almost invisible for kids.  it's mostly just the least popular electives where there's a real impact on students (and if there are any high-level classes that they don't usually run multiple sections of.)[/quote]

That’s not how it works.  [/quote]

How does it work?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics