Reply to Superintendent Taylor says he is responsible for what happens next

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What exactly did Dr. Taylor accomplish with this meeting? As he stated, he can’t undo the decision so why was this a priority?[/quote]

He learned he can undo the decision.[/quote]

There's no money, and even more, there's no time to "undo" the closure. School assignments for teachers have been updated. Some teachers have resigned.  Attempting to reopen MVA at this point would leave a large number of students in schools and MVA without teachers.

I don't understand what the MVA families expect at this point. They lost the battle to keep MVA in place. They'd be better off refocusing on lobbying the state to create a virtual program rather than complaining about a decision that can't be undone.[/quote]

The battle will continue until its reopened.  If they don't do it for this year, there is always next year.[/quote]

MCPS isn't going to bring back MVA when it is obvious the better long-term solution is a state program.[/quote]

The state isn't offering a solution although most states don't provide their own program and they outsource it to K-12.  Clearly you haven't looked into it.  Its actually cheaper to do it inhouse.[/quote]

The county isn't offering synchronous online school, either.

If it's really cheaper to insource it, then the state could do that. But you don't know what contracted rates the states pay, just what they charge individuals.[/quote]

It’s not the state who provides education, the county does.  The state provides over site.  What is your obsession with the state providing it?   The county woukd have to pay the state if that happened like in VA.  Mcps would not get it for free.  [/quote]

There aren't even enough students in Montgomery County to make MVA scale effectively (e.g., the 10-person classrooms in some grades). How could smaller counties ever do virtual without being grouped with kids from the larger counties?

A state-based program makes much more sense for a niche program like virtual learning for kids.[/quote]

800 students is plenty. 
MCPS has a number of programs with less thsn that.[/quote]

Nots with their own standalone administration, and not for kids with no identified special needs.

Running an entire separate administrative and educational apparatus for 800 kids is a terrible use of money. It makes much more sense to scale that up to the state level.[/quote]

Way more is spent on school athletic programs. Those aren’t needed at all and don’t serve kids with any special need. There’s an entire admin apparatus behind it with athletic directors, coaches, athletic trainers, etc. and that doesn’t even count the millions spent on fields and equipment. The state needs to fund all that or else close them all down and use the money for the educational needs of all kids rather than the extracurricular choices of the few who play sports. [/quote]

I have a child who has never, and will never, do a sport in MCPS and I still think you are dead wrong here. First of all, it's really not "a few" kids who play sports. I'd actually guess that the majority of MCPS kids play at least one sport, one time, in either MS or HS. It might be a sport they already play, or trying something new like cross-country or volleyball or bocce (which is reserved for kids who don't normally play sports and kids with learning differences).

It's like orchestra - most kids will try it at some point (4th or 5th grade) and then have the chance to decide whether it is right for them.

Also, as an MCPS parent, I actually think the district does a good job of communicating healthy messages about sports. Again, my kid is emphatically not athletic, but their principals have celebrated the athletes AND the mathletes AND the theater kids, so every kid feels like they have something they can be proud of.

Sports also add value to the overall student experience. Watching two MCPS schools battle it out in the girls soccer championship last year was a peak high school experience for a lot of kids.

Basically, this is the wrong tree to bark up. Not quite as bad as advocating to close the highest-needs schools, but close. [/quote]

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