Reply to What are the pros & cons of the consortium model? (Does it differ for DCC vs NEC?)

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Reply to "What are the pros & cons of the consortium model? (Does it differ for DCC vs NEC?)"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wish the NEC would expand their performing arts program to either Paint Branch or Springbrook. Blake is too highly desired and overcrowded and there are many kids who can’t into the program because of this.[/quote]

This is the inherent flaw of the consortia model that we're talking about. You can't fix it. With the consortia model, inevitably, one or two schools will become the favored ones, leaving the least desirable school underutilized and undesirable by the student population.

In the NEC, that least desirable school is Springbrook. In the DCC, that least desirable school is Kennedy.[/quote]

Kennedy has the least amount of programs and resources to draw the smarter/talented/interested kids.  If they put another magnet program there - maybe a computer science program, kids would go.  [/quote]

Putting the Regional IB Program at Kennedy was MCPS's magnet play. And it's kind of working, but the IB program is incredibly shaky and some of the better resourced, white kids who the Regional IB program was intended to draw to the school are being dropped into Kennedy to great shock with the lack of resources, underwhelming classroom instruction and chaos of the safety environment at the school. Several of those families are abandoning ship when they realize the mediocre state of the school, and I imagine they are telling others about their not-so-great experiences.

The idea of a magnet only works if the program is well resourced and is a good experience for students and families. And right now, the Regional IB Program at Kennedy is not quite there yet. [/quote]

Is Kennedy badly run/staffed/etc?  Like, there will always be some families who will try to avoid a school with demographics like Kennedy's and will think of schools with those demographics as "bad schools" regardless of any other factors, but some schools with the same demographics can be much better than others.[/quote]

Kennedy has had not-so-great leadership for years and that is directly the result and consequence of MCPS’s own failed leadership.

Dr. Rubens was principal for 10 years and he was never held accountable for the outcomes of the school. Rather, he focused on covering things up, until he couldn’t any longer when Ashleigh Edwards, Kennedy sophomore died of fentanyl overdoses and her mother, Edith Montalvan, pointed the finger at the school and MCPS for being aware of and doing nothing about the drug trafficking going on at the school.

Instead of firing Dr. Rubens after this, they promoted him to director and he currently oversees the Wheaton and Einstein clusters.

The next principal appointed in 2023, Vickie Adamson, had never been a principal before. She was an AP at BCC. Grace Rivera-Oven voted against her confirmation at the BOE. She struggled from the jump and mightily overwhelmed by the job. She failed and floundered until she was pushed into early retirement in February this year.

The latest principal, Karla Lopez-Arias, is a CO reject who needed a new job after her current CO role was eliminated. She’s never been a principal. I doubt her stint as Kennedy’s principal will be much better than Adamson’s.

But these principals do not bear all or most of the blame. Their directors, associate superintendents and the superintendents themselves have been knowledgeable and complicit in the failures of the school as they ignore problems, neglect complaints and encourage coverups.

[/quote]

What do you expect them to do to fix the school, one could argue that the outcomes of the students exceed their expectations it just that statistically their probabilities are very low. With that much mediocity the school is then forced to structure around it leaving others neglected causing the middle class to flee. People say FARMS doesn't matter but this is what the poorest school in the county looks like.  What are you hoping for, Whitman?
[/quote]

If you believe MCPS has no culpability and could not be doing much better by Kennedy than it currently is doing, I'm not going to waste my breath explaining to you why that is not the case.

But know that the leadership failures that have made Kennedy what it is run deep and far beyond the poor principal they place in the hot seat at the moment.[/quote]

Can you explain? I don’t know Kennedy and am genuinely interested[/quote]

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