Anonymous wrote:My favorite was Essie McGuire - when asked about the continued necessity of the regional model being linked with the boundary study since there is declining enrollment, I got the impression that she was making it up on the spot. Even said that because there is declining enrollment, this is even more reason to keep the regional model going with the boundary study.

I was thinking that with declining enrollment, the spaces in the schools will open up, so there is no longer the urgent need to force the regional model prematurely. AKA the regional model can be separated from the boundary study.

My 2nd favorite was with a different person from Program Analysis (regional model) team - I mentioned that they are asking current 7th grade families to commit blind to these programs since they will be building them out year-over-year, only one year at a time. The answer was we will have a plan. Left unsaid was anything about actual implementation - like getting programs staffed with teachers, never mind getting teachers who can actually teach the program content.

Anonymous wrote:My favorite was Essie McGuire - when asked about the continued necessity of the regional model being linked with the boundary study since there is declining enrollment, I got the impression that she was making it up on the spot. Even said that because there is declining enrollment, this is even more reason to keep the regional model going with the boundary study.

I was thinking that with declining enrollment, the spaces in the schools will open up, so there is no longer the urgent need to force the regional model prematurely. AKA the regional model can be separated from the boundary study.

My 2nd favorite was with a different person from Program Analysis (regional model) team - I mentioned that they are asking current 7th grade families to commit blind to these programs since they will be building them out year-over-year, only one year at a time. The answer was we will have a plan. Left unsaid was anything about actual implementation - like getting programs staffed with teachers, never mind getting teachers who can actually teach the program content.

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Anonymous wrote:Thank you for going and reporting back. So much here is extremely alarming, esp #4 and #5 above.

I hope the County Council is paying attention to answers like "we'll put more money into it if it's not successful" because if that's the case, this is going to be far more expensive than presented. Where is that money going to come from? At the expense of K-8 education? The 85% of Grade 9-12 students who aren't in one of these special programs?

Jennie said 25% of students will be in these special programs as the goal. Their numbers just keep on changing because they don't need to take responsibility for what they say.

That's so nuts to me! I'm not anti-magnet, but how can we have a system where 1 in 4 students isn't able to get what they need from the standard HS curriculum and needs something special, most likely not at their high school? We're losing the plot.

About half of the programs are CTE-oriented, not magnet. Academic rigor won't be the focus of those programs. Getting students graduate with a certificate with whatever skills they can teach them is the goal.

I think CTE is also great actually! What I don't understand is the need to switch to a different high school for all 4 years to get a certificate in something.

I'm not against CTE either. I think it's great for kids who are not interested in academics but interested in certain techniques/skills. But look, they don't and won't invest in developing good CTE program either based on the near-zero staffing budget. Look at Jennie's answer about fashion design and game design.

We have to stop the idea that CTE automatically means not interested in academics. It’s an absolutely false idea. Because a kid pursued a pharmacy tech certificate doesn’t mean they don’t want to get a PharmD. It might mean they want to more fully explore a filed and/or be able to meaningfully work while going to school.

PP here. Sorry to offend you as I know nothing about CTE. But based on your knowledge looking at CTE curriculum, do they fulfill what students want and should get if they want get a pharmD? I would assume the latter would require more academically rigorous course in HS, which the CTE programs might set to exclude in order to stuff in special courses? Reading Jennie Franklin’s example, do you feel the CO persons who design the curriculum could know the difference, and what kids want vs what they can offer?

A PharmD just like a MD requires a person to go college at some point. A CTE course or a course of study may be more hands on and maybe be more practical but that doesn't mean its doesn't require someone to use their brain. It can be beneficial to someone pursing college after HS just as it is beneficial to those not pursing college after HS (or not immediately after HS).

Example - A kid thinking of being a mechanical engineer could learn quite a lot by taking courses related to being an automative or aeronautical mechanic.
A kid thinking about going to Nursing school or even becoming a doctor will learn important things about the medical professional and clinical care while earning a CNA certification.

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Anonymous wrote:I hope this thread can collect ppl's feeling/feedback from last night's in-person meeting as well as new information. I'll share first my experience:

1. Central office sent like 50 employees, so people can't gather in large groups or voice out loudly. Essie and Nikki were both in the feedback room, but they didn't host a gathered session but rather only allow individual discussion. Jennie was in the cafeteria presenting the regional model, which consistently gathered good size of audience (~ 30 or more). It's like a conference poster session setting.

2. They will present a "version 3" regional model in Nov. 20 BOE meeting, where some details will be modified.

3. A NEC/DCC transportation POC was there, and said they would use the NEC/DCC transportation model rather than the HS-HS model so to make sure visiting neighborhoods. I've checked the 2016 METIS report and estimated the 2025 dollar-equivalent: it's about 1.6 million/year operating cost for DCC. As a contrast, the Oct. 16 BOE meeting slides had $740K/year operating cost estimation. So expecting the yearly operating cost to double at least.

4. Nikki and Jennie gave very different answers to questions. They appeared thinking right on spot of whatever answer they can think of. For example, I asked if a program is later evaluated not sustainable (e.g., low enrollment, can't acquire teachers, poor score metrics, etc.), will this program get cancelled across-board. Nikki said they would put more money into that program until it's successful, and no program would fail. Jennie gave a much more realistic reply, although still quite funny. They would maintain the same "theme" but change the program to another "sub-theme" to see if it would work. She gave an example that they could change "fashion design" to "game design", as if they would require the same set of expertise from teachers.

5. STEM program POC said she hadn't contacted SMCS coordinators nor teachers for curriculum design. She "will do" once the regional model gets approved. So current 7th grader need to make a decision based on a program without curriculum or teaching staffs. Jennie said the STEM program will have the 8th period to accommodate the additional CS courses.

6. I've told two staffs that my questions/feedback using the online google form never got addressed in Q&A doc or BOE meeting. They told me to "keep on submitting another form".

7. Jennie said the criteria-based programs won't use lottery. She might consider use local-norm of MAP-M and other metric scores if waitlist is too long for one region over another.

My gut feeling: Jennie is the one leading the design of details. If you have any detailed suggestion/tweak that you think might be very useful, contact her directly. Nikki and Essie know absolutely no detail and no interest to know at all. So they say nonsense. This entire regional model is an absolute "top-down" thing and they have absolutely no interest of compromising a little bit (e.g., slow down, scale back, use community feedback). The current 7th grader will be the unfortunate guinea pig.

Regarding number 7, that is ridiculous. So the scores to get into programs will be different for different regions. So your zip code actually DOES determine your access to programs if they locally norm your score based on your zip code. They are waltzing around saying your zip code shouldn’t be determinative. So then don’t recalculate STANDARDIZED test scores.

You do realize the same criteria can get like 1000 qualified applicants in Region 4 (Wootton, Churchill, RM, Rockville) vs. maybe 100 qualified applicants in Region 2 (James hubert, Paint branch, springbrook, sherwood), right? It's not just because of the academic performance, but also parents and students interests and vesting in education. So they'd have to either use a higher criteria for Region 4 or use a lottery. Honestly I'd think a higher criteria would be much more reasonable but then it would result in a much stronger program in Region 4 vs. Region 2 over years, which is inequitable. If you use lottery, the criteria-based program will wither as kids can get much less trouble and equally good or better education in local HSs.

I personally would rather they scale the programs than have different criteria or lotteries. If you don’t have as many applicants in a region who can handle a program, have a strong but smaller program there. If you have many, have a bigger program. The issue they are trying to solve is literally having more interested capable students than they have seats. So put more seats where you have interested students, not where you don’t.

I wish they could create a bigger program if more qualified applicants are interested. However, they don’t put one dollar into enrolling more teachers, and a school is bounded by its capacity, so expanding is not likely happen in reasonable scale. They other thing I was concerning is if they use the current qualification criteria (taking algebra 1, gpa >=3.0 for SMCS and taking one semester of foreign language), nearly the entire Wootton and Churchill students qualify, and stem program looses its meaning.

The justification for them to create 6 regions is to eliminate the 2000 kids on the waitlist for SMCS and RMIB. Did they ever analyze the stats of those on the waitlist? No they don’t. It can be ridiculously low or vary vastly. The admitted students have a much higher stats than the current criteria.

They didn't say 2,000 kids on wait lists for SMCS and RMIB. They said 2,000 kids total are left on a waitlist or wait pool at the end of the process. This could include interest-based programs. I asked for some clarification last night, including how many students apply to programs in general and how many students that remain in a wait list or wait pool were also accepted to/chose to attend a different program. I also asked how many of the 2,000 kids were not accepted into any programs they applied to. The person I was speaking to had no answers to any of these questions. She claimed that the county shared data about number of applicants from each high school, but I'm pretty sure she was referring to the graph that talks about number of attendees for each of the criterion based programs.

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Anonymous wrote:I hope this thread can collect ppl's feeling/feedback from last night's in-person meeting as well as new information. I'll share first my experience:

1. Central office sent like 50 employees, so people can't gather in large groups or voice out loudly. Essie and Nikki were both in the feedback room, but they didn't host a gathered session but rather only allow individual discussion. Jennie was in the cafeteria presenting the regional model, which consistently gathered good size of audience (~ 30 or more). It's like a conference poster session setting.

2. They will present a "version 3" regional model in Nov. 20 BOE meeting, where some details will be modified.

3. A NEC/DCC transportation POC was there, and said they would use the NEC/DCC transportation model rather than the HS-HS model so to make sure visiting neighborhoods. I've checked the 2016 METIS report and estimated the 2025 dollar-equivalent: it's about 1.6 million/year operating cost for DCC. As a contrast, the Oct. 16 BOE meeting slides had $740K/year operating cost estimation. So expecting the yearly operating cost to double at least.

4. Nikki and Jennie gave very different answers to questions. They appeared thinking right on spot of whatever answer they can think of. For example, I asked if a program is later evaluated not sustainable (e.g., low enrollment, can't acquire teachers, poor score metrics, etc.), will this program get cancelled across-board. Nikki said they would put more money into that program until it's successful, and no program would fail. Jennie gave a much more realistic reply, although still quite funny. They would maintain the same "theme" but change the program to another "sub-theme" to see if it would work. She gave an example that they could change "fashion design" to "game design", as if they would require the same set of expertise from teachers.

5. STEM program POC said she hadn't contacted SMCS coordinators nor teachers for curriculum design. She "will do" once the regional model gets approved. So current 7th grader need to make a decision based on a program without curriculum or teaching staffs. Jennie said the STEM program will have the 8th period to accommodate the additional CS courses.

6. I've told two staffs that my questions/feedback using the online google form never got addressed in Q&A doc or BOE meeting. They told me to "keep on submitting another form".

7. Jennie said the criteria-based programs won't use lottery. She might consider use local-norm of MAP-M and other metric scores if waitlist is too long for one region over another.

My gut feeling: Jennie is the one leading the design of details. If you have any detailed suggestion/tweak that you think might be very useful, contact her directly. Nikki and Essie know absolutely no detail and no interest to know at all. So they say nonsense. This entire regional model is an absolute "top-down" thing and they have absolutely no interest of compromising a little bit (e.g., slow down, scale back, use community feedback). The current 7th grader will be the unfortunate guinea pig.

Regarding number 7, that is ridiculous. So the scores to get into programs will be different for different regions. So your zip code actually DOES determine your access to programs if they locally norm your score based on your zip code. They are waltzing around saying your zip code shouldn’t be determinative. So then don’t recalculate STANDARDIZED test scores.

You do realize the same criteria can get like 1000 qualified applicants in Region 4 (Wootton, Churchill, RM, Rockville) vs. maybe 100 qualified applicants in Region 2 (James hubert, Paint branch, springbrook, sherwood), right? It's not just because of the academic performance, but also parents and students interests and vesting in education. So they'd have to either use a higher criteria for Region 4 or use a lottery. Honestly I'd think a higher criteria would be much more reasonable but then it would result in a much stronger program in Region 4 vs. Region 2 over years, which is inequitable. If you use lottery, the criteria-based program will wither as kids can get much less trouble and equally good or better education in local HSs.

I personally would rather they scale the programs than have different criteria or lotteries. If you don’t have as many applicants in a region who can handle a program, have a strong but smaller program there. If you have many, have a bigger program. The issue they are trying to solve is literally having more interested capable students than they have seats. So put more seats where you have interested students, not where you don’t.

I wish they could create a bigger program if more qualified applicants are interested. However, they don’t put one dollar into enrolling more teachers, and a school is bounded by its capacity, so expanding is not likely happen in reasonable scale. They other thing I was concerning is if they use the current qualification criteria (taking algebra 1, gpa >=3.0 for SMCS and taking one semester of foreign language), nearly the entire Wootton and Churchill students qualify, and stem program looses its meaning.

The justification for them to create 6 regions is to eliminate the 2000 kids on the waitlist for SMCS and RMIB. Did they ever analyze the stats of those on the waitlist? No they don’t. It can be ridiculously low or vary vastly. The admitted students have a much higher stats than the current criteria.

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Anonymous wrote:3. A NEC/DCC transportation POC was there, and said they would use the NEC/DCC transportation model rather than the HS-HS model so to make sure visiting neighborhoods. I've checked the 2016 METIS report and estimated the 2025 dollar-equivalent: it's about 1.6 million/year operating cost for DCC. As a contrast, the Oct. 16 BOE meeting slides had $740K/year operating cost estimation. So expecting the yearly operating cost to double at least..

Do you know the name of the person who said this and are you positive they know what they're talking about? Because both Jeannie Franklin and the chief of operations (Mamoon) both said on Monday that this had not been decided yet and made it sound like it wasn't going to be decided for months or maybe not even until 2027... I mean, maybe they have changed their position quickly based on feedback, which would be great and would be the right thing to do, but I also really wonder if this is just a mistake or misstatement from someone lower down who's not in the know (they being a bunch of lower-level people to these meetings too alongside the high-level ones.)

Also the DCC and NEC offer full transportation from neighborhood stops just like if you were going to your local HS (so multiple stops per neighborhood sometimes)... I'd honestly be shocked if they do that, versus an amended version of central stop transportation where they *do* guarantee a stop within a couple miles of your home (current central stop transportation does not), so that also makes me wonder about the accuracy of this info. But I would love to be wrong and maybe this is a pleasant surprise from MCPS for once!

I asked Nikki about bussing and she had no idea the October slides suggested high school to high school busses only.

Genuinely didn't know, or do you think she was pretending she didn't know to make her sound better? Did she say anything that revealed her opinion on what the transportation plan should be?

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Anonymous wrote:Thank you for going and reporting back. So much here is extremely alarming, esp #4 and #5 above.

I hope the County Council is paying attention to answers like "we'll put more money into it if it's not successful" because if that's the case, this is going to be far more expensive than presented. Where is that money going to come from? At the expense of K-8 education? The 85% of Grade 9-12 students who aren't in one of these special programs?

Jennie said 25% of students will be in these special programs as the goal. Their numbers just keep on changing because they don't need to take responsibility for what they say.

Yes! It was 20% when she was talking to parents at Blair this week!

Anonymous wrote:And where do they think all the money is coming from? Do they not read the news?

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Anonymous wrote:Thank you for going and reporting back. So much here is extremely alarming, esp #4 and #5 above.

I hope the County Council is paying attention to answers like "we'll put more money into it if it's not successful" because if that's the case, this is going to be far more expensive than presented. Where is that money going to come from? At the expense of K-8 education? The 85% of Grade 9-12 students who aren't in one of these special programs?

Jennie said 25% of students will be in these special programs as the goal. Their numbers just keep on changing because they don't need to take responsibility for what they say.

That's so nuts to me! I'm not anti-magnet, but how can we have a system where 1 in 4 students isn't able to get what they need from the standard HS curriculum and needs something special, most likely not at their high school? We're losing the plot.

About half of the programs are CTE-oriented, not magnet. Academic rigor won't be the focus of those programs. Getting students graduate with a certificate with whatever skills they can teach them is the goal.

I think CTE is also great actually! What I don't understand is the need to switch to a different high school for all 4 years to get a certificate in something.

I'm not against CTE either. I think it's great for kids who are not interested in academics but interested in certain techniques/skills. But look, they don't and won't invest in developing good CTE program either based on the near-zero staffing budget. Look at Jennie's answer about fashion design and game design.

We have to stop the idea that CTE automatically means not interested in academics. It’s an absolutely false idea. Because a kid pursued a pharmacy tech certificate doesn’t mean they don’t want to get a PharmD. It might mean they want to more fully explore a filed and/or be able to meaningfully work while going to school.

PP here. Sorry to offend you as I know nothing about CTE. But based on your knowledge looking at CTE curriculum, do they fulfill what students want and should get if they want get a pharmD? I would assume the latter would require more academically rigorous course in HS, which the CTE programs might set to exclude in order to stuff in special courses? Reading Jennie Franklin’s example, do you feel the CO persons who design the curriculum could know the difference, and what kids want vs what they can offer?

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Anonymous wrote:I sent a letter to the BOE earlier this week as a concerned parent asking about the transportation plans and urging board members to get a clear answer on planning and cost before approving the regional plan. I pointed out the likelihood that if transportation were only provided between high schools, participation in the regional programs in the NEC and DCC would likely drop, since families now rely on the neighborhood stops. I'm happy to hear they are reconsidering the plan and at least discussing neighborhood bus stops. But it's still mind-boggling that they are trying to rush this through without taking the time to really analyze and design a plan.

+1

I think this is only really worth doing with DCC/NEC style transportation. The HS-HS proposal would be so inequitable, so I guess it's good they're rethinking. But having DCC/NEC style busing all over the county for this many programs has to be extremely expensive. I think a better solution would be to scale WAY down the number of new programs but slowing add them in targeted places, and dissolve the DCC/NEC.

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Anonymous wrote:Thank you for going and reporting back. So much here is extremely alarming, esp #4 and #5 above.

I hope the County Council is paying attention to answers like "we'll put more money into it if it's not successful" because if that's the case, this is going to be far more expensive than presented. Where is that money going to come from? At the expense of K-8 education? The 85% of Grade 9-12 students who aren't in one of these special programs?

Jennie said 25% of students will be in these special programs as the goal. Their numbers just keep on changing because they don't need to take responsibility for what they say.

That's so nuts to me! I'm not anti-magnet, but how can we have a system where 1 in 4 students isn't able to get what they need from the standard HS curriculum and needs something special, most likely not at their high school? We're losing the plot.

About half of the programs are CTE-oriented, not magnet. Academic rigor won't be the focus of those programs. Getting students graduate with a certificate with whatever skills they can teach them is the goal.

I think CTE is also great actually! What I don't understand is the need to switch to a different high school for all 4 years to get a certificate in something.

I'm not against CTE either. I think it's great for kids who are not interested in academics but interested in certain techniques/skills. But look, they don't and won't invest in developing good CTE program either based on the near-zero staffing budget. Look at Jennie's answer about fashion design and game design.

We have to stop the idea that CTE automatically means not interested in academics. It’s an absolutely false idea. Because a kid pursued a pharmacy tech certificate doesn’t mean they don’t want to get a PharmD. It might mean they want to more fully explore a filed and/or be able to meaningfully work while going to school.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for going and reporting back. So much here is extremely alarming, esp #4 and #5 above.

I hope the County Council is paying attention to answers like "we'll put more money into it if it's not successful" because if that's the case, this is going to be far more expensive than presented. Where is that money going to come from? At the expense of K-8 education? The 85% of Grade 9-12 students who aren't in one of these special programs?

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Anonymous wrote:I sent a letter to the BOE earlier this week as a concerned parent asking about the transportation plans and urging board members to get a clear answer on planning and cost before approving the regional plan. I pointed out the likelihood that if transportation were only provided between high schools, participation in the regional programs in the NEC and DCC would likely drop, since families now rely on the neighborhood stops. I'm happy to hear they are reconsidering the plan and at least discussing neighborhood bus stops. But it's still mind-boggling that they are trying to rush this through without taking the time to really analyze and design a plan.

+1

I think this is only really worth doing with DCC/NEC style transportation. The HS-HS proposal would be so inequitable, so I guess it's good they're rethinking. But having DCC/NEC style busing all over the county for this many programs has to be extremely expensive. I think a better solution would be to scale WAY down the number of new programs but slowing add them in targeted places, and dissolve the DCC/NEC.

Exactly! They can try pioneering building one program across 6 regions, or one region with these many programs and learn from there for expansion. Taylor did a three-year roll-out of 6 new programs in his previous county, which is a much more reasonable scale compared to the current scale. Their transportation system melted down even with that small-scale implementation. What gives him confidence and rigidity to scale-up so much this round?

He left Stafford in July and did not witness the transportation meltdown in August.