Can someone summarize what happened at the County Council meeting today? What positions are still going to be cut?

Why isn't the Equity Department on the chopping block?

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/equity/

In 2024 the 8 current members of the Equity Dept cost MCPS $1,107,810 in salary alone. And that was two years ago! I’m sure it’s even more now.

While I believe equity work is important work, these overpaid 8 are basically never seen or heard from in central office or in the schools they are purported to serve. They are working on "professional development" that the county could easily find online for free.

Sayles shows once again she just hasn't been paying attention, asking questions that have already been answered

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the biggest categories are:

- Media assistants
- College and career navigators
- Social workers
- English composition assistants
- Pupil personnel workers
- EML therapeutic counselors
- Family engagement specialists
- Special education resource teachers
- Staff development teachers
- And 220 middle school teachers

Total of 850 employees being laid off

If you are in high school or a parent of a high school student, you should be advocating not to cut the position of College and Career navigators. They have a wealth of knowledge and organize many beneficial workshops.

Ours is super helpful.

Comp Assistants, too!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the biggest categories are:

- Media assistants
- College and career navigators
- Social workers
- English composition assistants
- Pupil personnel workers
- EML therapeutic counselors
- Family engagement specialists
- Special education resource teachers
- Staff development teachers
- And 220 middle school teachers

Total of 850 employees being laid off

If you are in high school or a parent of a high school student, you should be advocating not to cut the position of College and Career navigators. They have a wealth of knowledge and organize many beneficial workshops.

Ours is super helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to cut language immersion & programming like that.

Focus on the basics
Trade programs
College tracking
gifted programming
Special education
General populace & education

This would not save any money. Immersion teachers do not get paid more than a regular elementary teacher. And the students still need to be in school, so they would just be in an English speaking class instead. Absolutely no impact on the budget.

Yes it would save money. Immersion programs have a different extra sets of curriculums, extra staff hiring goes into finding dual language teachers, there are central office positions that have to support those schools. Most of the kids in the programs, struggle with the language, parents sign up because they don't want their kids to be in a highly concentrated Latino school.

Oh you again. Just go away- I'm sorry your kids didn't get in but don't assume your reason for applying to language immersion is the same as everyone else's. (FWIW, we deliberatebly bought a house in bounds for a dual immersion school, which gasp, has a decent percentage of Latino students, because learning a foreign language is important to our family. sorry if that's a weird concept for you!)

This is true. They should have it for Spanish speaker only kids and make Spanish a special for all other kids.

Maybe we should start evaluating the need for language instruction at all in public schools- how many students can actually converse in the language upon gradation? And what is the need when the rest of the world learns English already? That's a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere.

Likewise, math needs to go. We have calculators.

And English is only needed through 8th grade at most, at which point you are literate enough to use ChatGPT.

I know you joke but you aren't exactly wrong. After middle school, our entire educational model should be changed to be career focused. We don't need to create well rounded students anymore. We desperately need to create specialized workers for a changing economy and workforce. College should be limited to only very essential programs such as law and medicine. Most other majors should be eliminated and replaced with OJT seeing how like 90% of entry level jobs will train you to do things a specific way that is often counter productive to what you learned in college.

Hoping this is a joke. People like you have already had too much influence on the American education system. Pretty soon, no one will be able to read AI output and understand that it is blather.

Not a joke. We should identify students and career paths much earlier on. A student with a strong mechanical aptitude who likely is going to work in a skilled trade does not need to waste their time taking Modern World History, Literature classes, or non mechanical sciences. Many countries in Europe adopt this sort of model and it's very successful.

The worst thing we ever did for younger generations is continue to promote this myth that "you can be whatever you want when you grow up." There is too much choice being allowed and sadly, these kids are often choosing poorly. We have too many completely useless majors being offered in colleges because we have encouraged students to pursue something they enjoy over something that is useful. If you want to spend 80k to major in Gender Studies, then enjoy your lifetime of crippling and unavoidable debt. It's your own fault for having unrealistic expectations from life. Sorry but no amount of hopes and dreams will make up for obvious lack of aptitude and job opportunities.

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the biggest categories are:

- Media assistants
- College and career navigators
- Social workers
- English composition assistants
- Pupil personnel workers
- EML therapeutic counselors
- Family engagement specialists
- Special education resource teachers
- Staff development teachers
- And 220 middle school teachers

Total of 850 employees being laid off

If you are in high school or a parent of a high school student, you should be advocating not to cut the position of College and Career navigators. They have a wealth of knowledge and organize many beneficial workshops.

Fire most of central office. Most of these turds are admin who screwed up, got mcps sued, get teachers fired for not frauding, and they get kush job with no accountability. These jobs shouldn't exist when they are attained through things like teacher bashing and coercion of teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to cut language immersion & programming like that.

Focus on the basics
Trade programs
College tracking
gifted programming
Special education
General populace & education

This would not save any money. Immersion teachers do not get paid more than a regular elementary teacher. And the students still need to be in school, so they would just be in an English speaking class instead. Absolutely no impact on the budget.

Yes it would save money. Immersion programs have a different extra sets of curriculums, extra staff hiring goes into finding dual language teachers, there are central office positions that have to support those schools. Most of the kids in the programs, struggle with the language, parents sign up because they don't want their kids to be in a highly concentrated Latino school.

Oh you again. Just go away- I'm sorry your kids didn't get in but don't assume your reason for applying to language immersion is the same as everyone else's. (FWIW, we deliberatebly bought a house in bounds for a dual immersion school, which gasp, has a decent percentage of Latino students, because learning a foreign language is important to our family. sorry if that's a weird concept for you!)

This is true. They should have it for Spanish speaker only kids and make Spanish a special for all other kids.

Maybe we should start evaluating the need for language instruction at all in public schools- how many students can actually converse in the language upon gradation? And what is the need when the rest of the world learns English already? That's a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere.

Likewise, math needs to go. We have calculators.

And English is only needed through 8th grade at most, at which point you are literate enough to use ChatGPT.

I know you joke but you aren't exactly wrong. After middle school, our entire educational model should be changed to be career focused. We don't need to create well rounded students anymore. We desperately need to create specialized workers for a changing economy and workforce. College should be limited to only very essential programs such as law and medicine. Most other majors should be eliminated and replaced with OJT seeing how like 90% of entry level jobs will train you to do things a specific way that is often counter productive to what you learned in college.

Hoping this is a joke. People like you have already had too much influence on the American education system. Pretty soon, no one will be able to read AI output and understand that it is blather.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to cut language immersion & programming like that.

Focus on the basics
Trade programs
College tracking
gifted programming
Special education
General populace & education

It hilarious that people believe language and programming like that are not needed skills. Meanwhile business and government hire for them regularly.

It's just for kids to escape low performing schools.

My guess is there are more kids in TWI immersion which occurs at the home school (many of which are "low performing" schools) than in the lottery immersion programs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to cut language immersion & programming like that.

Focus on the basics
Trade programs
College tracking
gifted programming
Special education
General populace & education

It hilarious that people believe language and programming like that are not needed skills. Meanwhile business and government hire for them regularly.

It's just for kids to escape low performing schools.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to cut language immersion & programming like that.

Focus on the basics
Trade programs
College tracking
gifted programming
Special education
General populace & education

It hilarious that people believe language and programming like that are not needed skills. Meanwhile business and government hire for them regularly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I hate the idea of people losing jobs, I think special ed teachers and PPWs should be retained from this above list. Some of these positions, media assistants, CCNs, English Composition Assistants are helpful, but not crucial.

Without CCNs and PPWs, expect HS counselors to be so flooded with work that your juniors and seniors will 100% be on their own when it comes to navigating the college and scholarship application process.

Aren't they already?? I don't recall any to real guidance or assistance..just an email with dates/deadlines l

Our CCN at the school I work at does a lot for the students. Without him, I'd imagine like 25-30% of the kids going to college, would not be going to college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I hate the idea of people losing jobs, I think special ed teachers and PPWs should be retained from this above list. Some of these positions, media assistants, CCNs, English Composition Assistants are helpful, but not crucial.

Without CCNs and PPWs, expect HS counselors to be so flooded with work that your juniors and seniors will 100% be on their own when it comes to navigating the college and scholarship application process.

Aren't they already?? I don't recall any to real guidance or assistance..just an email with dates/deadlines l

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to cut language immersion & programming like that.

Focus on the basics
Trade programs
College tracking
gifted programming
Special education
General populace & education

This would not save any money. Immersion teachers do not get paid more than a regular elementary teacher. And the students still need to be in school, so they would just be in an English speaking class instead. Absolutely no impact on the budget.

Yes it would save money. Immersion programs have a different extra sets of curriculums, extra staff hiring goes into finding dual language teachers, there are central office positions that have to support those schools. Most of the kids in the programs, struggle with the language, parents sign up because they don't want their kids to be in a highly concentrated Latino school.

Oh you again. Just go away- I'm sorry your kids didn't get in but don't assume your reason for applying to language immersion is the same as everyone else's. (FWIW, we deliberatebly bought a house in bounds for a dual immersion school, which gasp, has a decent percentage of Latino students, because learning a foreign language is important to our family. sorry if that's a weird concept for you!)

This is true. They should have it for Spanish speaker only kids and make Spanish a special for all other kids.

Maybe we should start evaluating the need for language instruction at all in public schools- how many students can actually converse in the language upon gradation? And what is the need when the rest of the world learns English already? That's a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere.

That’s shortsighted. We had over 100 students in my HS who earned their seat of biliteracy this year in over 6 different languages. That seal gives them an advantage in hiring as well as earning more money. Many of these students are native speakers of the language they took the exam in, but many were not and some didn’t start learning their second language until MS.

I'm guessing when you factor in native speakers and ones who went through immersion, the number is pretty small. You really need to be a motivated student to become a fluent speaker with that late of a start. I'd rather see dedicated Spanish instruction for ALL students starting in ES, or just make foreign languages an elective in MS/HS so that kids can still choose to take music or electives they are passiionate about despite the new math requirement. Or they can choose a foreign language as the elective if that is what they (or their parents) prioritize.