Reply to COSA for overcrowding?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "COSA for overcrowding?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
They actually stopped that practice, as of this past year.  You have to prove an additional hardship other than the typical situation of having two children in different schools.  Any new HGC parents applying for it for the first time were denied.

Hardship COSAs are intentionally vague.  There is no hard and fast "this is accepted."  I posted earlier about having colleagues that work in the office.  Fraudulently filling out a shared housing form is not a COSA--that's for people who know their COSA application would never be approved.  Most hardship COSAs are cases specific to the family, and the limited options available to that family.

Some examples that might be approved:
Parent is deployed, other parent works off hours and cannot get to daycare before it closes.  A COSA might be granted for a caregiver's home school. (might)  Hardship is that the parent would have to change jobs/careers.

Parents are divorced, non-primary custody parent uses public transportation and could not get child to other parent's home school.  COSA might be granted for child to attend that parent's home school, rather than the one one of primary custodial parent.  Hardship is that parent would lose custody time with child.

Child is placed in foster care.  COSA may be granted for child to continue attending home school rather the school assigned to foster parents' address.  Hardship would be lack of consistency for an already vulnerable child.

Single parent works retail hours and uses public transportation.  Doesn't have a work schedule that guarantees parent's ability to pick up at daycare before it closes.  Maybe an additional hardship that the parent needs a daycare voucher and is therefore limited in daycare choices.  A relative has offered to provide all-hours childcare but doesn't drive.  COSA might be granted for the relative's home school.  Hardship would be parent would have to quit job and has limited options for new one.

A child with special needs attends one school for a specific special ed program.  The parents have limited transportation options.  The siblings of that student might be granted a COSA to attend the school with the program.

Those are just some examples, but again, there are usually specific to the person applying.  Being inconvenienced by attending the home school is not a hardship.  The home school not being up to your standard is not a hardship.  It being easier to attend a different school is not a hardship.  The receiving principal generally has to sign off on the COSA as well.  Seriously, none of you believe me, but there are many many applications for COSAs every year, and the vast majority (like 90%) are denied.  After that, parents can go through a lengthy appeal process that involves working with a hearing officer who contacts anyone involved, including employers, child care providers, both schools, etc.  Their job is to prove the parents wrong, and they are usually successful in doing that.  After the appeal is denied, in order to get the COSA, the parent must go before the school board and state the case.  They don't give them out like candy, like everyone seems to think.  And in the past 2-3 years, the restrictions have tightened considerably.[/quote]

All of the above sound like valid reasons for a COSA, but I'm not in the position to judge either way (I don't work for the schools!).

However, we know of a family that just got a COSA this year for their DS to attend older DD's new HGC school.  Definitely no 'hardship' as described above.  Mom is a SAHM and we know the family well.  They were denied, but then granted the COSA on appeal.

So, at least in that one case, it doesn't seem like MCPS is cracking down.  And, we definitely know of many families at our ES who do the 'shared housing', but I'm sure there is no way for MCPS to monitor/control that.  [/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