Reply to Does anybody know what is going on with Crossway Montessori Charter School?

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Reply to "Does anybody know what is going on with Crossway Montessori Charter School?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I am assuming that you "heard" this from the school administration, who has not provided any proof to back up this claim.

MCPS records and documentation shows otherwise.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My impression is that MCPS is not ready to have charters and wanted to run it like a regular ES which defeats the whole purpose of having a charter.There were many issues with funding from MCPS and the charter. There's a reason MOCO does not have charter schools- they don't really want them.[/quote]

This is absolutely untrue, but it is the line that the school's administration is holding to in order to shift blame away from themselves and the fact that the school has been terribly mismanaged.  Crossway knew what they were getting into when when they established the Charter.  And while I agree that it was inane for MCPS to approve the Charter in the first place, I do note that they expressed several times concern over the funding, administration, the ability to hold a fair an open lottery, and separation of public and private funds.  The Charter was rejected the first time, and was only approved after several promises from Crossway, including that they would definitely be able to cover the expenses of the non-funded children (a sentiment that was reiterated this past July in before the MoCo Education Committee).

In the original letter home to parents about the closing of the school, the CEO blamed parents for not contributing more.  Yet now, she is blaming MCPS and has stated that the Crossway Board will consider keeping the school open IF there can be an agreement to allow them more autonomy in their use of MCPS (public tax-payer) funds.  It is also worth noting that parents received no indication of any potential for the school to close until it had already been decided.

This is really the just the tip of the iceberg as far as issues with this school.

While I agree that the teachers are good, I also don't think that they are able to give their all to the student, due to constant administrative issues.[/quote]

I heard that MCPS did not give full funding for the 5 year olds because of mixed age classrooms so the charter only received the % funding of 5 year olds per class- 37%. This made it unsustainable. The charter thought if it had full funding for 5 year olds, it could offset the shortfall for 3's and 4's with fundraising. The charter did not know MOCO would not fully fund the 5 year olds even though Montessori is mixed age grouping and both parties knew that when the agreement was made.

Also public school funds never go directly to the school, the system pays directly. For charters, the difference is that schools have autonomy with how the money is budgeted. So $ that MOCO designates for building supplies can be moved around in a charter. MOCO did not allow the charter that flexibility. [/quote][/quote]

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