Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a rising senior and our one college counselor for 2500 students sent an email and said no one can contact her. She has to finalize other stuff before her job is finished.

Her regular counselor is new this year and completely clueless.

And no more social workers?

High schools NEED social workers, police officers and college counselors. Not one. Multiple. MCPS just does not care.

Get rid of ALL the extra programs first. ALL OF THEM before you take away basic needs for all the students.

High schools need

They can't keep all the positions if they keep increasing compensation by more than what revenues are increasing. That is basic math.

They can get rid of all program you apply for and get bussed too. That is eating up a ton in wasted central office jobs, busses and overall it’s terrible for the environment and a complete waste of time.

If schools want to offer programs or classes, they can do it internally

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Anonymous wrote:Elementary SDTs run the school from behind the scenes. I did it for a few years and got fed up with all the directives from central office. I went right back into the classroom with zero regrets. That being said, there's no way elementary schools could function without SDTs.

That’s laughable considering that so many elementary schools all over the county function just fine and many actually outperform MCPS elementary schools without a SDT. I’ve worked in enough districts to know this for a fact. Cut the crap.

Yikes. Perhaps there is someone else doing what STDs do in other districts. I really think their job titles are mislabeled. That being said- MCPS is highly mismanaged. That doesn’t mean those at the bottom are insincere or that their positions don’t truly benefit staff. They don’t make the rules - they follow what is expected of them. Have some grace. They are valued.

That’s because in elementary schools, SDTs are crucial-they are basically admin without the pay. In middle and high schools, they are not as effective. They provide “PD” once a month that is often not useful and ends up feeling like a waste of planning time. They also run the once-a-month staff meeting-big deal. They don’t do much (or anything) to actually support teachers, whereas in elementary school, SDTs do a lot for teachers.

Most of the STDs at the middle school level hold an admin-like role. Maybe not all, but I know many of them are the testing coordinators - there is a lot more testing at the secondary level. I know many are pulled in directions by admin that takes time away from working directly with staff. Again- each school or level may find that person valuable, just not for duties pertaining to the exact job title they hold.

Our MS SDT was testing coordinator, pulled a lot of long nights arranging testing groups, testing tickets, accommodation groups, testing locations, testing schedules. She pulled MCAP, MAP and WIDA scores for reflection. She facilitated gradebook checks bi-weekly to make sure grades were being put in. She provided coverage so ELD teachers could pull groups and test and screen and do caseload management. She was great. Many teachers don't want to admit there is a layer of resentment many have towards those with release time. If they hate the classroom so much they should leave instead of bashing people who do behind the scenes work.

She’s not very bright. She’s doing an admin job without the admin pay. But I don’t really believe this anyway.

Not really, that's what an sdt should be supporting...she sat in on a PLC with all the content specialists every other wednesday morning and 1x a month an AP would join. I'm sorry you've never gotten to work with a great sdt but high functioning schools exist. She left the role when schools cut them to .6 because she knew there would be no way to do all that and teach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a rising senior and our one college counselor for 2500 students sent an email and said no one can contact her. She has to finalize other stuff before her job is finished.

Her regular counselor is new this year and completely clueless.

And no more social workers?

High schools NEED social workers, police officers and college counselors. Not one. Multiple. MCPS just does not care.

Get rid of ALL the extra programs first. ALL OF THEM before you take away basic needs for all the students.

High schools need

They can't keep all the positions if they keep increasing compensation by more than what revenues are increasing. That is basic math.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an intentional strategy. I’ve worked in similar organizations. You cut things that will have a direct impact on students in the hopes that parents will vote for funding increases or put political pressure on the county to give MCPS more money. If MCPS cut central office or large consultant contracts for their pet projects no one would object but then MCPS wouldn’t get more money.

I agree they should cut central office but respectfully there simply isn't the amount of money there that you think there is

$12 million in unaudited credit cards.
$168 million in illegal EV contract.

Unaudited doesn't mean you can cut it all

EV contract is a big issue, my guess is though there isn't a lot of actual annual savings there. There are savings but the system still needs buses.

No need to guess about EV contract!!! Read the CESO audit!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an intentional strategy. I’ve worked in similar organizations. You cut things that will have a direct impact on students in the hopes that parents will vote for funding increases or put political pressure on the county to give MCPS more money. If MCPS cut central office or large consultant contracts for their pet projects no one would object but then MCPS wouldn’t get more money.

I agree they should cut central office but respectfully there simply isn't the amount of money there that you think there is

$12 million in unaudited credit cards.
$168 million in illegal EV contract.

Unaudited doesn't mean you can cut it all

EV contract is a big issue, my guess is though there isn't a lot of actual annual savings there. There are savings but the system still needs buses.

No need to guess about EV contract!!! Read the CESO audit!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an intentional strategy. I’ve worked in similar organizations. You cut things that will have a direct impact on students in the hopes that parents will vote for funding increases or put political pressure on the county to give MCPS more money. If MCPS cut central office or large consultant contracts for their pet projects no one would object but then MCPS wouldn’t get more money.

I agree they should cut central office but respectfully there simply isn't the amount of money there that you think there is

$12 million in unaudited credit cards.
$168 million in illegal EV contract.

Unaudited doesn't mean you can cut it all

EV contract is a big issue, my guess is though there isn't a lot of actual annual savings there. There are savings but the system still needs buses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an intentional strategy. I’ve worked in similar organizations. You cut things that will have a direct impact on students in the hopes that parents will vote for funding increases or put political pressure on the county to give MCPS more money. If MCPS cut central office or large consultant contracts for their pet projects no one would object but then MCPS wouldn’t get more money.

I agree they should cut central office but respectfully there simply isn't the amount of money there that you think there is

$12 million in unaudited credit cards.
$168 million in illegal EV contract.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an intentional strategy. I’ve worked in similar organizations. You cut things that will have a direct impact on students in the hopes that parents will vote for funding increases or put political pressure on the county to give MCPS more money. If MCPS cut central office or large consultant contracts for their pet projects no one would object but then MCPS wouldn’t get more money.

I agree they should cut central office but respectfully there simply isn't the amount of money there that you think there is

Anonymous wrote:This is an intentional strategy. I’ve worked in similar organizations. You cut things that will have a direct impact on students in the hopes that parents will vote for funding increases or put political pressure on the county to give MCPS more money. If MCPS cut central office or large consultant contracts for their pet projects no one would object but then MCPS wouldn’t get more money.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The updated list was just sent to MCPS employees.

So was this comment: "With approximately 90% of our budget composed of people (our teammates), there are really only two places for us to seriously consider making reductions to balance our budget - it must either come from the number of people we employ or the wages and benefits we use to compensate our hard working team."

They won't cut positions. The staff will have to make sacrifices only to be treated like shit and have MCPS ignore the timeline to reinstate wages, just like last time.

If they cut wages and benefits from SEIU staff, many would leave. Wages are very low as it is and if we get our benefits cut, I would leave in a heartbeat.

I really hate that every year we are expected to do more with less. If they freeze wages and increase benefit costs, we will still have to do even more. MCPS just piles more and more on its employees without recognizing that their goals are unattainable and not worth the compensation.

Compensation costs are increasing faster than county revenues. If you can't see why that's a problem it is no wonder so many kids are graduating not proficient in math.

Except this is about workload. The workload gets more demanding every year and MCPS leadership seems to ignore this issue. If you want to start a thread on math proficiency, I'm sure many math teachers will explain how MCPS pushes kids onto the next level before they master the basics as well describe how attention has declined thanks to nonstop cell phone usage, which starts at younger ages every year.

This is a thread about budget costs. Compensation makes up 90% of the budget so to suggest this isn't about compensation is beyond absurd

How stupid to think the 10% shouldn’t even be touched.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only daily, direct, classroom-based, student instructional support position being cut is English composition assistants. There are 39 of us. I wish they'd cut our hours, or make it so there's only 1 in each high school, or something like that! We'd give up our COLA. The kids need our support! It's super sad to think that the kids who I've developed relationships with over the last several years won't have it next year. I have helped so many kids with their college essays - first gen, kids who don't understand the whole process.

Why on earth would they do that? Writing instruction is so poor at MCPS as it is. My MS 8th grader doesn't even write essays--it seems to be all auto-graded multiple choice tests for English.