Reply to Does MCPS administrators need better Project or Program Management skills

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The majority are just not smart people. [/quote]

The brutal, but honest truth of the matter. The level of incompetence that is tolerated and even celebrated in MCPS makes me feel like I'm existing in an alternate reality.[/quote]

I could have written the exact same thing.
I'm regretful and embarrassed that we stayed in this school system. Every encounter I have with staff at the counselor or admin level is shockingly ....... stupid. I know that is a very harsh word but there is no other way to say it. Combine that with the apathy and it's just a sad place.[/quote]

Agree.  Our school does not have a class for my child for next year and the counselor and admin told me to figure it out.  [/quote]

Is this a math class and your child has finished the sequence offered at your local school?

I have, in general, had pretty good experiences with school-level administration. Maybe I don't get exactly what I want, but they are responsive within the confines of not being able to create a bespoke curriculum for one child.

Where I've seen much larger issues, and [b]lack of accountability, is at the Central Office level.[/b] I'm guessing that's what the OP was talking about. They are just very very bad at if/then analysis in ways are are really harmful to students and families.

To take an easy example, look at the schools that lost Title I funding last year.

MCPS Central Office staff made a decision to tell the neediest schools in MCPS that they no longer needed to collect FARMS forms, since every kid would get free lunch instead. Instead, the district decided to rely on other indicators of poverty, such as Medicaid sign-ups.

Now, any person who has any familiarity with characteristics of poverty in Montgomery County, or any ability to look six months out into the future, could have told you the problem with that strategy. All it would have taken is one person in a position of authority to throw the brakes and ask some questions. Instead, we got a bad system that produced bad outcomes and led to a bunch of scrambling and the need to cover those costs from other budgets.

I'm not the OP, but when I talk about incompetence at the Central Office, this is the sort of thing I mean. Failure to think critically, failure to plan, failure to ask questions.

I work in the nonprofit direct service sector, and make a lot less money than the senior folks at MCPS making these plans, and I could have told them that relying on indicators of poverty that are explicitly linked to "having US citizenship" was going to produce a bad outcome. Moreover, if I made a mistake that cost my employer almost $1m and resulted in weeks of lost staff time, not to mention a loss of services for our most vulnerable clients, I would have lost my job. 
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