Anonymous wrote:What are their priorites post US election?

Can they advocate for more school busses so all schools' (ES, MS, HS) bell times can be changed to a reasonable hour -MS a9am and ES no earlier than 8:30am.? What can students and families do to assist if needed?

How do you propose that happens? They'd have to get more buses and drivers or you'd have to drive your own kids. Put your kids to bed earlier.

What are their priorites post US election?

Can they advocate for more school busses so all schools' (ES, MS, HS) bell times can be changed to a reasonable hour -MS a9am and ES no earlier than 8:30am.? What can students and families do to assist if needed?

Anonymous wrote:What does the MCCPTA do? How are delegates chosen? What have they accomplished, honestly don't know our ES or our former MS delegates NEVER shared.

Here's a snippet of their work:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/195/1078504.page#23297838

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCCPTA is the coalition of local school PTAs. Those local school PTAs are formally part of the state PTA, which is formally part of the National PTA.

Local school PTAs often have difficulty recruiting enough volunteers (officers or otherwise) to maintain efforts for their individual schools and ensure continuity, much less maintaining awareness of county-wide issues. MCCPTA, drawing from across the county, maintains enough participation to help locals with the basics that otherwise might fail due to that lack of continuity/knowledge transfer, keep awareness of many of the county-wide issues and, sometimes, organize broadly backed advocacy.

Like any organization, it can be co-opted, as the "extension of the teacher union" poster suggests, but that is not my observation, here, from several years of participation as a delegate (just a parent) from my local PTA. I do suggest that folks not rely exclusively on MCCPTA -- though there is great information in many cases, there, individual advocacy, hopefully informed from multiple sources, is important.

At policies of MCCPTA at the county level are driven by MCEA. The local school PTAs are a bit different, but those won't influence the BoE or county council.

You are ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:Poster 19:54, how long does it take for change? To get students who need enriched and acceleration to receive it in their home school if they are not selected for a CES or don't want to attend if selected?

There are several things that would be effective.

1) Parents should engage with their schools to advocate that the mre challenging work be selected. For example, in the English 9 curriculum being discussed in another thread, in Q1 there is one on-grade novel included (A Separate Peace). The other two are below grade level, and one is for struggling readers (the middle-grade graphic novel The Magic Fish). Schools have the discretion to choose any, so posters could work with their schools to advocate for the more challenging material to be selected. Successful work this year could enable positive change next year.

2) Parents should put pressure at the central office/BOE level for change to ensure that work is, at a minimum, on-grade level. Ideally this would mean that MCPS adopts an external curriculum that has been vetted. There are options that are publicly available and low cost, so this can be done with a relatively low budget. If MCPS insists on using its own materials, central office needs to update what they offer to be on-grade level. Novels that are below grade-level should be removed from the curriculum; honors sections should be required to use the most challenging texts.

MCCPTA has been doing work on this, but it is of limited effectiveness because the BOE, central office, and schools aren't hearing from parents that change is needed. They need to hear from parents--LOTS of them--to effect change.

Poster 19:54, how long does it take for change? To get students who need enriched and acceleration to receive it in their home school if they are not selected for a CES or don't want to attend if selected?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can they advocate for better novels in MS English class? Why does the ELA continue to use the SAME novels year after year. Also, that Global whatever class, that too same novels after all these years!

The Gifted Ed committee just did a presentation on MS English last week covering the novel studies.

Reading graphic novels in HS English? Why? Who advocated for THAT???

Why do people come in here without educating themselves. Who said that the Gifted Ed committee advocated for reading graphic novels? And, even if they did advocate for that graphic novels have a place in HS English.

The gifted education committee did not advocate for graphic novels. In fact, they were the ones who pointed out that the novels being offered for "advanced" English in MS and "honors" English in HS are all below grade level texts.

Both the Curriculum Committee and the Gifted Education Committee see major flaws in the curriculum. They are advocating for change. If you are concerned, you should get involved, because it's all volunteer-run.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can they advocate for better novels in MS English class? Why does the ELA continue to use the SAME novels year after year. Also, that Global whatever class, that too same novels after all these years!

The Gifted Ed committee just did a presentation on MS English last week covering the novel studies.

Reading graphic novels in HS English? Why? Who advocated for THAT???

Why do people come in here without educating themselves. Who said that the Gifted Ed committee advocated for reading graphic novels? And, even if they did advocate for that graphic novels have a place in HS English.

The gifted education committee did not advocate for graphic novels. In fact, they were the ones who pointed out that the novels being offered for "advanced" English in MS and "honors" English in HS are all below grade level texts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can they advocate for better novels in MS English class? Why does the ELA continue to use the SAME novels year after year. Also, that Global whatever class, that too same novels after all these years!

The Gifted Ed committee just did a presentation on MS English last week covering the novel studies.

Reading graphic novels in HS English? Why? Who advocated for THAT???

Parents and educators who cater to "what kids like."

I actually have no problem with graphic novels being offered to students as part of getting kids comfortable and acquainted with reading for fun. But in terms of developing deep, complex literacy skills, they're obviously not a useful tool in that regard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can they advocate for better novels in MS English class? Why does the ELA continue to use the SAME novels year after year. Also, that Global whatever class, that too same novels after all these years!

The Gifted Ed committee just did a presentation on MS English last week covering the novel studies.

Reading graphic novels in HS English? Why? Who advocated for THAT???

I'm going to guess that those novels are written in English, is why