Thanks to the Parents’ Coalition, a January 8, 2010 memorandum from Superintendent Weast to the Board of Education has come to light. In the memo, Weast answers some questions from unidentified Board members about his proposed FY 2011 Budget cuts.
I’ll leave aside the point well made by the Parents Coalition,
Pants, gifted education...not the same thing.
that the cuts to academic intervention teachers and paraeducators are not justified one way or another based on any studies or data. I’ll even leave aside the non-answer to the question: “Please break down how the special program teachers will be reduced by school and program. Describe the specific impact of these cuts on each special program and school.
No, I’m going to focus on Question 7 (page 4), which asks about the impact on “each optional regular education program and impacted school proposed for the elimination of transportation.” The answer, in a nutshell, is that transportation costs $942 per student, and yes, fewer students would attend if transport were cut but they would still have the “opportunity” to attend. They would just have to get themselves there. Oh, and yes, cutting consortia transport was considered, “but the consortia are not optional programs. The school the student selects is the assigned school and transportation must be provided.” [emphasis added]
Pardon me if I am slackjawed. Consortia programs absolutely are optional. As a commenter posted a few days ago, what really is the difference between Entrepreneurship & Business Management (Blair) and Finance, Business Management, and Marketing (Einstein)? And no matter what, students can always opt for their base schools–they’re assured a place there. They call it the Division of Consortia Choice and Application Program Services for a reason.
So can we get something straight right now? Magnets and Center Programs and yes, I’ll got out on a limb and say that even the RM IB, are not “optional.” They are part of the much vaunted MCPS “continuum of gifted services.” They are for “students whose needs cannot be met at the home school.” They are not some frill, some “extra,” some “goodie.” Here’s what Policy IOA says:
Children with special abilities and talents are part of the human mosaic in our schools and communities. They typically learn at a pace and depth that set them apart from the majority of their same-age peers. Because they have the potential to perform at high levels of accomplishment and have unique affective and learning style needs when compared with others of their age, they require instructional and curricular adjustments that can create a better match between their identified needs and the educational services they typically receive. [emphasis added] (Section B)
For students who require a markedly different programming, centers for highly
gifted and other special programs including magnet programs will continue to be provided, and new programs will be developed as needed. (Section C 3 c)
Finally there is this:
The superintendent shall direct implementation of this policy and specifically shall ensure that every school has a program that meets its requirements. Among the specific actions the superintendent will take are the following:
8. Prepare budget requests that provide adequate resources to implement the policy
Of course there is lots in Policy IOA that has never been carried out–that’s why they wanted to scrap it. However the fact remains: You take away transportation and you effectively kill the magnets, centers and immersion programs.
Don’t let it happen. Sign the petitions here and here. (Who knows if they’ll have any impact. At minimum the comments are inspiring.). And be sure to come to the Board of Education hearing on Wednesday night, 7 p.m.
Here’s a notice that’s been floating around some school listservs… Please repost.
TOMORROW: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20th at 7pm
BOE Meeting on Proposed MCPS Operating Budget
Carver Educational Services Center
850 Hungerford Drive
Rockville, MD 20850
Testimony will include Blair PTSA co-chair and others within our cluster. We need your presence. Students are especially encouraged to attend. This is Civics in action!
Wear yellow to protest cuts in transportation for special programs. Wear red to support Blair. Wear both if you can!
Whether you can make it to the meeting or not, please write to the Board to let them know that these cuts are unacceptable and damaging to the integrity of appropriate academic opportunity for all students. Then continue to write to the County Council and your representatives in Annapolis.
Free transportation *is* a luxury, one not available from any of the school districts around here (California, central coast). The only kids I see in school buses are going to private schools 40 miles away or are special-ed kids (whose busing is mandated). Of course, we don’t have any magnets or other “luxury” services either.
Believe me, schools can go a *lot* lower in providing services than the worst you are seeing. I understand you even have nurses and librarians in your schools!
Kevin, from our house to my daughter’s high school it is 8.3 miles. School starts at 7:20 am. It takes slightly over an hour using public transportation, which she does almost every day after school, because the high school activity bus goes nowhere near our house. Feasible, perhaps, for high school students. But middle schoolers?
I confess, I looked at where schools were before I bought my house, even though I was single and childless at the time. I knew I eventually wanted kids, and I was willing to pay a premium on house price to get everything I needed within walking and biking distance. (And I did pay a premium—if I’d been willing to be 8 miles from things, my house would have cost about half as much.)
In the 23 years I’ve owned my house, they’ve moved school district boundaries twice, with my house going from district a to b and back to a, so not all my planning was successful. It turned out that though I wanted to be in the high-performance district a, when my son was in public school we were in the lower-performance district b. This actually turned out to be a good thing, as they had a bilingual program that my son learned Spanish literacy (to 3rd grade level) in.
I don’t know whether the rural districts in our county provide buses for students, but I suspect not. California does not provide much money for educating students, preferring to spend it on keeping them in jail.
We have one car and I drive my child to school. When I need to go out of town, my daughter hops on a Metro bus. Not the school bus. She attends a magnet and while there is bus service, it’s a costly joke. She’d have to leave the house at 6:30, ride to her base high school (in the other direction) and then board the magnet bus from there. A two hour trip for a school six minutes away. Like going to the Giant via Delaware.
School is still too far to walk to, though, and make it on time (she has trouble falling asleep so waking up with the roosters is not an option. It’s why we moved so close).
I have to pay for my daughter to ride the city bus. So I called Central and proposed this: scrap the school bus service which is no service to us and give me money for the city bus. It’s the deal my husband had when he attended Stuyvesant in New York. He commuted from Brooklyn and got subway fare.
I read almost everything Jay Mathews writes (or did until I couldn’t take it any more). I disagree with almost everything he writes. Except on this count. He has been advocating for scrapping school bus service wherever the metro bus or train is available. I agree. Think of the cost savings. I’d even be willing to pay out of pocket. In my county, we have this huge fleet, and the middle school buses are half empty because the rest of the crowd is being driven to school.
I’ve watched two very dedicated people in my county fight for years for later high school start times. I got pretty involved myself. And all we ever heard was: no can do because of the BUSES. We seem to be held hostage by the bus fleet. Bus schedules drive everything (excuse the pun). Could we finally have the dog wagging the tail again, for a change?
We’ve been lucky that until middle school my son was able to walk to school (2/3 mile to 3/4 mile). In middle school he has to cycle (2 miles). It gets a little dicey when we have 30 mph winds and heavy rain, but at least we don’t get ice and snow. When he enters high school, it could be the same school as middle school, or 2 miles in the opposite direction, or a 3/4 mile walk, depending whether we can continue to afford the private school, win the lottery to get into the charter school (about a 5% chance), or end up at the big public high school.
Ooops, I left off the punch line. Add “And they laughed at me” to the end of this paragraph:
I have to pay for my daughter to ride the city bus. So I called Central and proposed this: scrap the school bus service which is no service to us and give me money for the city bus. It’s the deal my husband had when he attended Stuyvesant in New York. He commuted from Brooklyn and got subway fare.
@ Kevin, The reality here is that our Superintendent is asking for a budget increase! The cuts he is threatening are if he doesn’t get the increase that he wants. He’s going to get the budget he got last year, the only question is how much more. If he doesn’t get all of what he wants in the increase, he will cut from classrooms over central administration.
The good news is that from listening to parent comments at budget hearings, the parents get it this year and have been pointing to non-classroom cuts, if cuts are needed!
Kevin, we considered biking to school too. We’re over two miles away. I love the idea! We’re very outdoorsy and I fret my daughter’s homework overload prevents her from getting anywhere near sufficient exercise and fresh air. Remind me again, why do we overload gifted kids like this? Whose idea is this? Oh, never mind…that’s for another post.
In the end, I eschewed the biking because her backpack is just too darn big and stuffed. And she’d have to bike on a very busy street. But we still yearn for her to get to school this way.
No solution for the busy streets (other than taking street skill s classes from the League of American Bicyclists), but the backpak problem can be solved with a rack and a pair of panniers. I like the Ortlieb “classic rollers” which are waterproof, last for decades, and have adequate capacity for middle-school backpacks (which are indeed enormous).
Janis writes: “If he doesn’t get all of what he wants in the increase, he will cut from classrooms over central administration.”
Our county has a two million dollar PR budget. Yet cuts will be implemented directly where they hurt children the most: much larger class sizes, elimination of music programs, fewer teachers, fewer electives, foreign language. Despite all that, we have a bloated bureaucracy. Does our county really need seventeen deputy superintendents? Does every high school need five assistant principals? I’m glad we have our priorities straight.
And while we’re at the subject, I’ve read all the articles in the Post about our extremely well paid area school chiefs and why it’s necessary, in order to attract the top. Prudence would dictate that it is no longer necessary and the cuts should start at the top.
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