Showing my age here. If you don't get it, you don't get it.
Eastern Middle School parents met with their school’s principal, Community Superintendent Dr. Heath Morrison, and Mr. Marty Creel from the Department of Enriched and Innovative Programs on Monday night to discuss the “flex” schedule option being put forward by MCPS as a sop to parents.
Dr. Morrison led off by repeating that a change from the 8 period block schedule is “a done deal.” The principal also said it was “a done deal” and if there wasn’t enough interest in this “flex” option, then “a lot of work will have been done for nothing.” Cue the “these magnet parents are just ungrateful” spin.
While many may have appreciated the attempt to find a solution, MCPS should never have devoted a lot of time to it in the first place, as I’m not sure how anyone ever thought this was a viable alternative.
And the parents had the data to back up their position. Late last week the 80+ members of the EMS Schedule Decision Reversal Workgroup pulled together a survey on SurveyMonkey.com, translated it into Spanish and posted it to the school’s listservs, urging families and students at Eastern to complete it.
The survey was sent out late Saturday afternoon; by midday Monday there were a total of 219 responses to the survey, mostly from magnet families. Of these, 56% were from parents and 44% from students. (Keep in mind there are approximately 300 incoming 6th grade, 7th grade and 8th grade families in the magnet. So an incredible response in such a short time, especially over a beautiful spring weekend.) There were 13 responses from neighborhood parents/children, combined. Survey results, along with 33 pages of comments, were delivered to county/school administration present at Monday’s meeting.
Key findings:
“What schedule do you prefer for / at Eastern MS?”
- 95.8% for 8 period block – Overall
- 98.1% for 8 period block – Parent, Humunities
- 94.4% for 8 period block – Child, Humunities
- 90.9% for 8 period block – Parent/Child, Neighborhood
Reaction to late 8th period:
- 1.3% Strongly Like, 3.8% Like, 11.3% Maybe, 23.6% Dislike, 59.7% Strongly Dislike (Overall)
- 0.0% Strongly Like, 1.9% Like, 15.5% Maybe, 31.1% Dislike, 51.5% Strongly Dislike (Parent, Humunities)
- 2.3% Strongly Like, 6.8% Like, 4.5% Maybe, 13.6% Dislike, 72.7% Strongly Dislike (Child, Humanities)
- 0.0% Strongly Like, 0.0% Like, 27.2% Maybe, 36.4% Dislike, 36.4% Strongly Dislike (Parent/Child, Neighborhood)
Full survey results, along with all free response answers (and they worth reading! Just click on the “view” button), can be seen here. Two responses were deleted due inappropriate content and one because the child wrote their name on the response.
