Reply to MCEA warns members that MECCA Business Learning Institute (MBLI) may not be ready

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Reply to "MCEA warns members that MECCA Business Learning Institute (MBLI) may not be ready"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The uncertainty around the readiness of Mecca's opening was addressed in an interview with I Hate Politics Podcast.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdizVsFtcPc[/youtube]

I think individual teachers and parents can decide if the school leaders' answers inspire confidence or concern.[/quote]
I’ve followed their story over the years as they tried to get approved. Nice curriculum, but they repeatedly showed their lack of understanding that running an entire school, with facilities, is different than running an after school program in someone else’s building. I was surprised to see the job postings pop up under MCPS careers, because I was under the impression that they were hiring people separately. I still don’t understand their model - is the admin part of MCPS too? And staff? I appreciated MCEA’s cautionary email, because people need to know the current uncertainties with the school before leaving their current positions. Opening a new school is an opportunity, but this one has a lot more risks than usual.[/quote]

100% their hours seem longer and they can't even answer how many periods it will be, some have 7 some have 8 periods?  How much planning time will teachers have? Who is facilitating these extra advisory and business classes every day? Are they allowed to use MCPS' curriculum that MCPS paid for? I would assume not since the point is to be different, so how much time is being planned for teachers teaching a brand new curriculum? Will parents get to preview these curriculums?[/quote]
In the podcast they discussed that for the upcoming school year they plan to address some of these questions with MCEA via a contract addendum/MOU (I forget the name) which may include a stipend for additional hours. Once they are up and running, then some of this gets rolled in to the normal budgetary/contract negotiation process.

They also seemed to indicate that they already have a lot of staff interest from the past few years, not necessarily through MCPS. Per state law regarding public charters, the staff are employees of the local school system in order to participate in the state pension. But it is the charter operator who has decision making authority over hiring for the school. It seems to me that some of what may be happening is that people who they want to hire as teachers may be going through the process of being hired by MCPS first, and then hired by MBLI. If the school is going to be initially staffed by people already familiar with the business model and curriculum (or at least, aware that there will be start-up challenges), then great. I'm pretty sure that MBLI has their own curriculum because they presented it for review by MCPS in their initial approval process. MCPS liked the curriculum, but was skeptical about their funding and ability to get a building going which met all the requirements/codes for a school building.

This whole process of interfacing with a public charter is new to MCPS. How much they get integrated into the entire public school/MCPS ecosystem (HR basics like payroll, IT infrastructure, testing, etc.) remains to be seen. As long as everyone involved understands that there are going to be a lot of things to work out, good luck to them. I think that more choice programs for parents & students is a good thing.[/quote]

I think you should read about how charter schools and school choice programs affect  the public schools they divert funding from.[/quote]

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