Reply to Dec 18th: FY 2026 Recommended Operating Budget

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think financially the consortium program no longer makes sense.  [b]All of these schools are in the Woodward boundary study[/b] so that could be the device to make each school diverse and end choice/bussing.  The MCPS portion of the study is also looking to make programs more equitable across the county and certainly having school choice only in that one area is not equitable. MCPS after the boundary study could save lots of money by eliminating that consortium.  That gets rid of lots of bussing plus all staff that oversaw the logistics of that program.  The special programs housed at each school could be either closed or distributed differently to  make county access to those programs more equitable.  I do not see a future where MCPS is flush with money again so focusing schools back on the basics of teaching academics and offering less choice/bussing could free up lots of money that could then be used for smaller class sizes for the entire county, more para educators and more resources for English learners and special education - two areas that are underfunded and struggling.  Really all kids in the county should have access at their local schools to desirable programs and courses. [/quote]

The DCC schools are included in the boundary study. The NEC schools are not.[/quote]

You are right! I forgot about the NEC schools.  My guess would be if MCPS uses the boundary study to eliminate choice in the DCC then they could use the concurrent program offering study to eliminate choice in the NEC in some back door manner.  I am not a fan of eliminating choice. I just think in a shrinking funding county that bad choices will need to be made to lower class size, something all schools need.  I would rather have much smaller classes for all schools than school choice for a few schools.  [/quote]

I don’t see the full elimination of choice happening because it’s one of the only ways that advanced learners are being served in the county.  What I can see happening is less choices.  I heard there is something like 100 programs.  And while I’m sure they all offer something that students want, it may not be feasible to have that many.  It may be more impactful to turn some of these programs into Summer

Also, there seems to be some choice/signature programs that despite different names and schools seem on their face to be offering the same thing.  These programs could likely benefit from some standardization and alignment.

Will see in a few days how much our new Superintendent is willing to shake things up and how he’ll ensure the political winds.[/quote]

They have already announced they're going to "conduct a districtwide program analysis to evaluate whether academic and specialized programs are equitably distributed across the district." That will occur over the next year+. So perhaps Taylor will eventually include cuts or other changes to these programs in a future budget presentation, once the analysis has happened. But I would not expect to see anything about this on Wednesday.[/quote]

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