Anonymous wrote:Yes, you can, and the good ones do (lived through it). Get a teacher for a grade rather than a reading initiative teacher. But really, it's all a numbers game. If they are above 30 by March, nbd. No school should start the year with those kids of numbers. I would be on the phone with Board of Ed member and writing to Dr Smith and Dr Zuckerman with every Board member copied about how the large class size is unacceptable.

UNLESS your school is already overcapacity, there are no available additional classrooms, and there is no room on the site for additional portables. That would be the ONLY excuse acceptable, and MCPS had better have a plan in place to address it by the next year, or I would make myself the biggest PITA they've ever seen.

Agree with OP who said they are disappointed they moved here for the schools that are supposed to be so good only to find out they are not. Overcrowding, disastrous curriculum, abuse, lack of discipline, etc., etc.

If you want more of this, vote for Floreen. She does not give a rat's ass about those who are already "fine." At least Elrich spent time in the schools as a social studies teacher. I think he really gets it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Where are staff supposed to park?

You can ask MCPS that question if/when MCPS proposes putting portables in the staff parking lot.

MCPS isn’t proposing it. Some idiot here is. So I’m asking that idiot.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else just sick at the sheer amount of parent involvement required to make improvements in MCPS or to aid your children's education?

I mean, ignorance is bliss, but it is tough to ignore the ridiculous class sizes, erroneous worksheet materials, and class schedules consisting of only math and reading 3 hours a day. I'd like to take that "Oh well, at least he's learning something and has good friends" approach but it's all relative in the real world. Learning something....

Yep, more than sick. I laugh when people insist it's a good school system. Good school systems are largely in small towns. We have a bloated bureaucracy trying to serve too many disparate groups. Our kids are now in private, and we're struggling, but it's worth it.

Anonymous wrote:

Remember, MCPS goals are to close the achievement gap between hispanics/blacks and whites/asians, and have everyone graduate at a level of proficiency to be able to go to community college.
If you have other goals, do them yourself. They will use the $2.2B budget to pay themselves, their benefits and help the bottom with food, healthcare, english, childcare, reading and math.

I've read this assertion multiple times on DCUM. Nobody has ever produced any evidence to support this assertion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not in Title I or Focus schools. Everybody else, common in 3th or 5th, not the lower grades. Ours is a big/overcrowded school, and that is the norm, not the exception. But, usually not until mid-year, not at the start of the year!

Let me guess, one of the many new Principals who does what MCPS tells them and doesn't know how to finesse the system to get what they need?

OP here- Yes, new principal this year, but this isn't the first time MCPS has refused staffing requests for this school. In second grade, my child was in a class that started at 29 students and went over 30 students during the school year. They added an extra teacher for third grade, which improved things considerably. Now we are losing a teacher again for fourth grade. In a small school that has a good reputation, but when you are packing 30+ students in a classroom with one teacher, it's not ideal for the teacher or the students. Ugh, any advice on what to do to address this at the parent level? (sending letters/emails to MCPS has gotten nothing but radio silence)

You need to go to the State, which has accountability for education. Cc your elected delegates and MoCo council candidates on your correspondence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if it's common, but it does happen.

I think it's too big. But, I also think 27 kids in K with no aide is ridiculous. And, MCPS disagrees.

Remember, MCPS goals are to close the achievement gap between hispanics/blacks and whites/asians, and have everyone graduate at a level of proficiency to be able to go to community college.
If you have other goals, do them yourself. They will use the $2.2B budget to pay themselves, their benefits and help the bottom with food, healthcare, english, childcare, reading and math.

BINGO.

Anonymous wrote:More common in small schools with special ed programs because those kids don’t count (don’t get me started...).

Are you f**(*& kidding me? That explains a lot. I had no idea.

Anonymous wrote:Its common in Potomac ES schools where the over all enrollment is low and the scores are off the charts - the lowest reading group is a year above grade level, less than 5% of the kids get under 90% on MAP tests etc. MCPS doesn't care about these kids, in fact they hurt the achievement gap numbers for performing so well.

Exactly. These kids need to be challenged too.

Anonymous wrote:Yes our school had this in the first grade. MCPS response - doesn't matter kids are already testing above grade level before the start day one so there can be no adverse effect. MCPS central office also claimed that the "cap" is a guideline and not a hard cut off so for some schools they go over. It gets worse because staffing increases don't happen during the year - or so they said. So when new kids joined the class size became even bigger.

I really think someone needs to get the State Superintendent of Education involved. Hogan would love to embarass MoCo officials. MoCo does not care about a certain segment of the population that it really should care about.

Who has said that it is easy to add capacity? The discussion was about whether there is space for more portables. Here is what the CIP says about Burnt Mills ES:

Burnt Mills Elementary School
Capital Project: An FY  2012 appropriation
was approved for facility planning to determine
the feasibility, scope, and cost for a classroom
addition. Current projections indicate enrollment
at Burnt Mills Elementary School will exceed
capacity by 92 seats or more by the end of the
six-year planning period. In addition to the overutilization
at this school, various building systems
may need to be addressed. A new approach to
address capacity and building infrastructure is
under review in order to develop a multi-variable
approach to determine the priority order of largescale
renovations of facilities, possibly including
programmatic and capacity considerations.
Recommendations regarding possible changes
to this program will be released once the review
is complete. Relocatable classrooms will be utilized until
additional capacity can be added.

So evidently MCPS does not share the PP's assessment that it is impossible to add portables at Burnt Mills ES.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Many schools are overcapacity, with no available additional classrooms and no room on site for additional portables, like my kids' school. And the MoCo Council approved more residential development and just put a "placeholder" in the budget that gives MoCo 6 years to figure out what to do to add more capacity. So yes, then you see 30+ kids in a classroom.

Could you please name two schools that are over capacity and do not have space for more portables?

I can name 4. Bethesda Elementary, Somerset Elementary, Judith Resnik ES, Burnt Mills ES

Is it your assessment that there is no space for more portables, or MCPS's assessment?

MCPS. Read and learn. http://www.theseventhstate.com/?p=10222

That's about placeholders. It doesn't say anything about portables.

Burnt Mill ES is on 15.1 acres.

Burnt Mill ES is at 150%+ capacity. It has 200+ kids in portables already--why isn't MCPS building an addition if it's so easy to add capacity?

Anonymous wrote:

Where are staff supposed to park?

You can ask MCPS that question if/when MCPS proposes putting portables in the staff parking lot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Bethesda and Somerset most certainly are not. There is no place to put portables at those two schools.

Says you, or says MCPS? Says you, I infer.

Feel free to offer your plan of where they can put portables. Because smarter minds than you who have actually been to the school have already concluded that there is no place to put them.

OK, says you.

If MCPS needs to add portables, they will find somewhere to put them, including in the playground area and/or in the parking lot.

Where are staff supposed to park?

Anonymous wrote:Scrap PE classes and subdivide the gymnasiums into 4 classrooms. All the kids play soccer anyway, right?

Serve the first lunch at 9:50 AM and use those classrooms then. The teachers can keep floating all day. In fact, make each class take turns serving another. That way you can fire the cafeteria workers AND free up another classroom.

Use the principal’s office, health suite, and janitorial closets as classrooms instead. Oh, and that den of inequity, the teachers’ lounge should be throughly sage smudged and turned into at least two instructional spaces.

+1 My kid is at one of the overcapacity schools mentioned above. The teacher's lounge was converted to a classroom. The music room was converted into a classroom. Lunch starts at 10 a.m. to fit all the kids. But yeah, keep insisting that it's easy to add space out of nowhere in urban environments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Bethesda and Somerset most certainly are not. There is no place to put portables at those two schools.

Says you, or says MCPS? Says you, I infer.

Feel free to offer your plan of where they can put portables. Because smarter minds than you who have actually been to the school have already concluded that there is no place to put them.

OK, says you.

If MCPS needs to add portables, they will find somewhere to put them, including in the playground area and/or in the parking lot.