Reply to TPMS is killing the arts, the magnet program, and the autism program

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Reply to "TPMS is killing the arts, the magnet program, and the autism program"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'd like to try and summarize so I can keep this straight in my head.

TPMS currently has an 8 period schedule and teachers voted to move it to a 7 period schedule.  This is inline with other MCPS MS but the vote did not engage the community (parents).  Teachers also voted not to increase class size.

As an example: if a grade has 100 kids.  There used to be 5 periods of English available so there would be 20 kids in a class.  Now there are only 4 periods of English available so there would be 25 kids in a class.  However, teachers also did not want class size to increase.

So budget will have to be allocated to increase teachers for core classes to keep the class size the same.  The budget will come from a decrease in the art and music budget.  As there will be less teachers for art and music, there will be less elective periods available and now students will be limited to one elective (language, art, or music)

Did I get all of that correct?[/quote]

This is all correct. As someone inside the school community, I'd say there are two issues here, the content of the decision and the process of the decision.

The [b]content[/b] of the decision is fairly defensible. Teachers were working beyond the contract, and it is their right to request a solution that would bring them back in line with their peers. Moreover, there's precedent (Eastern MS) for magnet kids to have only one "true" elective, with another elective taken up with magnet classes.

[b]The [b]process[/b], however, has been so very bad. I mean, the kind of bad that destroys parent faith in administration and damages a school community for years.[/b]

First of all, the decision was presented to parents as "under discussion" when in reality it was a [i]fait accompli[/i]. So there were teachers telling the kids it was a done deal even while the administration presented it to parents as "opening discussion."

Then, there was a weird series of lies and half-truths that the administration presented, and then retracted as soon as the parents started fact-checking. For example, parents were told that the change to 7 periods was necessary to keep class sizes from going up, but we learned last night that the shift would actually increase class size.

Then we were told that the shift was needed because of a growing student population at TPMS, but that was also retracted when parents started asking questions about where this increase was coming from.

We were also told that no other MS has block scheduling, and that it is considered too difficult/long for MS-aged brains, but parents found multiple examples in MCPS basically immediately.

The principal told some parents that she was seeking a solution that would preserve electives, but none of those solutions were presented to parents in the end. Maybe worse, she presented three schedules, two of which were clearly chosen only for their impossibility and leaving the community with only one option. It was that trick of showing people two terrible things and one slightly-less-terrible thing and then forcing them into the bad option.

This has been incredibly frustrating. It's clear that the principal is basically throwing explanations at the wall at this point and hoping one will stick. It's doing an incredible amount of damage, particularly given that one of the benefits of TPMS had long been its strong administration. It was previously a very well-run school but the new principal is obviously in over her head juggling multiple constituencies (students, teachers, parents) and failing to facilitate communication between any of them. [/quote]

This is absolutely spot-on. Thank you. I hope the administration and central office are reading this thread because they should be VERY concerned especially about the bolded part. As a parent I’ve completely lost trust with the school.[/quote]

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