Anonymous wrote:We had ours last night and they did show the video. The teacher showed it in the classroom on the promethean board. Really there was a small blurb about inclusiveness and was really just a publicity piece from MCPS highlighting some overall vision of the districts current state and trajectory. Barely caught the inclusiveness component actually. Following the brief video the teacher gave a thorough rundown of what would be covered throughout the year, parents asked questions, etc. Not sure this deserved an entire thread....

because some people find fault with every little thing with mcps, and like to make a huge stink about it.

We had ours last night and they did show the video. The teacher showed it in the classroom on the promethean board. Really there was a small blurb about inclusiveness and was really just a publicity piece from MCPS highlighting some overall vision of the districts current state and trajectory. Barely caught the inclusiveness component actually. Following the brief video the teacher gave a thorough rundown of what would be covered throughout the year, parents asked questions, etc. Not sure this deserved an entire thread....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got the pre recorded video message from FCPS last year, with very minimal time to hear from teachers. The video was about the potential budget cuts. Haven't had BTS yet this year, but will not be surprised if it's the same this year perhaps with the addition of a meals tax campaign. Our school is bursting at the seams just due to growth in the past 5 years. It's unsustainable.

Hmm. There are always about 10 minutes of videos and then the rest of a several-hour BTS night consists of class-specific teacher presentations. Just show up 10 minutes late if the video presentations bother you so much.

I'm in mcps, and this what i do. I skip the super's video.

Anonymous wrote:We got the pre recorded video message from FCPS last year, with very minimal time to hear from teachers. The video was about the potential budget cuts. Haven't had BTS yet this year, but will not be surprised if it's the same this year perhaps with the addition of a meals tax campaign. Our school is bursting at the seams just due to growth in the past 5 years. It's unsustainable.

Hmm. There are always about 10 minutes of videos and then the rest of a several-hour BTS night consists of class-specific teacher presentations. Just show up 10 minutes late if the video presentations bother you so much.

We had our BTSN last night. No prerecorded video, and we had in-class sessions with the teachers. It went really well. We learned how homework will be handled this year, when the kids have electives, and what positive behaviour stuff they are doing in the classroom.

I think the older grades did team presentations, but that's because the older kids switch classrooms.

We got the pre recorded video message from FCPS last year, with very minimal time to hear from teachers. The video was about the potential budget cuts. Haven't had BTS yet this year, but will not be surprised if it's the same this year perhaps with the addition of a meals tax campaign. Our school is bursting at the seams just due to growth in the past 5 years. It's unsustainable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who else feels this way? At back to school night, Parents were lectured on inclusiveness in a prerecorded message by the Superintendent. But not a word about curriculum advances, or new technology or what MCPS is doing to better the learning environment for children. Not a word about excellence, acheivement, goals or EDUCATION. All Montco cares about is closing the acheivement gap which is impossible with an exploding immigrant class to the area. We moved here for the schools before curriculum 2.0. No way MCPS keeps its repuation as the best. It is all down hill when the goal for a school system is no longer about actual education and learning for all children but is instead about social justice.

What school was this? We didn't hear any prerecorded message. I think my elementary school is outstanding. When your kids go to college, you will think MCPS schools are the best. Your child will notice this right away.

I haven't been to our back to school nights yet this year, but I've absolutely experienced what the OP described at the ES in recent years. Instead of a presentation in the classroom by the teacher, there is either a power point from the entire grade level team or worse videos produced by MCPS. I've never been on the brink of leaving the school system over this, but I have left feeling an entire room full of parents rearranged their schedules for nothing. The presentations are nearly completely vacuous and often condescending, too. And it is a shame, because I still remember how helpful my oldest DC's 1st grade teacher was when she gave us a quick rundown of the school year. She demonstrated a thorough knowledge of development, gave us some quick tips to help at home and left us feeling we were in very good hands. That's exactly what I'm looking for in the short time back to school offers. The slick back to school presentation seem to be about preventing parents from asking questions or having any quality interaction with the teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who else feels this way? At back to school night, Parents were lectured on inclusiveness in a prerecorded message by the Superintendent. But not a word about curriculum advances, or new technology or what MCPS is doing to better the learning environment for children. Not a word about excellence, acheivement, goals or EDUCATION. All Montco cares about is closing the acheivement gap which is impossible with an exploding immigrant class to the area. We moved here for the schools before curriculum 2.0. No way MCPS keeps its repuation as the best. It is all down hill when the goal for a school system is no longer about actual education and learning for all children but is instead about social justice.

What school was this? We didn't hear any prerecorded message. I think my elementary school is outstanding. When your kids go to college, you will think MCPS schools are the best. Your child will notice this right away.

Same here. And this year DC got a really good teacher who -- can you believe it?? -- actually promised to look at and grade kids' homework.

OP, if you're loaded, go ahead and blow 40K a year so that your precious snowflake can learn to read and write in a class of 10 equally precious snowflakes. Since we can't afford that, we're sticking with our public, and supplement/enrich at home.

Let's compare notes in 8 years to see who gets into a better college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, there is nothing wrong with saying my best friends are black.

I agree that MoCo as a whole focuses too much on issues pertaining to the immigration community. Just look at your local county libraries. ESL classes, computer training classes and I'm like #250 on hold for a new fiction book. The schools here are not focus on improving academic achievement..

FWIW, I'm an immigrant myself..

WTF? What does being #250 for a library book have to do with immigrants? And I don't know if you realize this but the achievement gap exists for the black American-born student group as well. FWIW, I'm an immigrant, too, educated in the US, and we go to the library often, too. Sorry, we are adding to your long wait. This was one of the oddest posts.

It's yet another example of how your tax dollars are redirected to bringing up the bottom instead of providing basic services to all (enough books). You can forget about the county challenging any of the other populaces here adequately.

PP here... my one kid was in HGC and in compacted math and was sufficiently challenged. The other DC, not yet old enough for HGC, is also sufficiently challenged, reading above grade level. They go to the school library and check out books once a week.

That other PP mentioned books in relation to the public library which has nothing to do with not enough books in school. Again, that was a very odd post.

Anonymous wrote:Who else feels this way? At back to school night, Parents were lectured on inclusiveness in a prerecorded message by the Superintendent. But not a word about curriculum advances, or new technology or what MCPS is doing to better the learning environment for children. Not a word about excellence, acheivement, goals or EDUCATION. All Montco cares about is closing the acheivement gap which is impossible with an exploding immigrant class to the area. We moved here for the schools before curriculum 2.0. No way MCPS keeps its repuation as the best. It is all down hill when the goal for a school system is no longer about actual education and learning for all children but is instead about social justice.

What school was this? We didn't hear any prerecorded message. I think my elementary school is outstanding. When your kids go to college, you will think MCPS schools are the best. Your child will notice this right away.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immigrants and their children do very well in school.

Yes I'm an immigrant, a very high achieving one and my kids are too. RACIST (to the original poster).

OP here. That word has absolutely lost it's meaning and does not hurt me one bit. It says way more about you that you would resort low ball name calling. My best friends are black, asian hispanic. A dinner party at my house looks like the UN. Guess what? They also wwant the public schools to focus on a quality education for the children, acheivement, excellence. But they aren't small minded like you.

it's not racist. it's bigot.

Actually its unfair discrimination, which applies to both racism and bigotry. They are not mutually exclusive.

Many private schools in the area are social justice-centric, and do an excellent job teaching students critical thinking in this arena. I am an educator who left public schools, but not because of the system"s agenda to close the achievement gap. I left because the system actively thwarted my efforts to do good and creative work with children. I was a cog in a wheel, and I felt the kids suffered as a result. I didn't lose my passion, but left because I felt it waning. I never wanted to leave public Ed, and I was so sad to do so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immigrants and their children do very well in school.

Yes I'm an immigrant, a very high achieving one and my kids are too. RACIST (to the original poster).

OP here. That word has absolutely lost it's meaning and does not hurt me one bit. It says way more about you that you would resort low ball name calling. My best friends are black, asian hispanic. A dinner party at my house looks like the UN. Guess what? They also wwant the public schools to focus on a quality education for the children, acheivement, excellence. But they aren't small minded like you.

it's not racist. it's bigot.

Anonymous wrote:Back to School isn't typically until a few weeks in... either a troll or someone trying to start a conversation of another hot topic - illegals.

Several schools had theirs already.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what Democratic voters wanted and they voted for in this County. They wanted sanctuary city, well how was that going to be accommodated? Bring in the immigrants, bring in the refugees, keep them coming, but, eventually the tax base shrinks and the schools as a whole suffer. Sadly the social experiment failed and is probably not reversible at this point. Private school here I come.

Perfectly said.

Well, Hogan (a Republican) has withheld school funding, so I'd say Repubs are part of the problem. In the state I came from, Repubs were constantly raiding and cutting school funding.

when half the country's budget is unsustainable teacher Union peninsula and budgets I'd order that to be cleaned up too!