From her published letter:
... I am an art teacher at Wheaton High School. I also happen to teach at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. The disparity between the two facilities is shocking. It's hard to believe that both schools are funded by the same taxpayers. Am I wrong? Don't all Montgomery County high schools share resources equally? Don't the Wheaton students deserve a learning environment as safe, modern, and aesthetically pleasing as the B-CC students enjoy? Both schools have talented, hard-working, and emotionally invested teachers, counselors, support staff, and administrators. However, I see firsthand how school pride positively impacts my B-CC students' motivation to learn and achieve. I see the shame in my Wheaton students' eyes as they describe theirs as a "poor" school.
Congtatulations to Ms. Hudspeth for speaking out! We need more teachers to speak up!
ReplyDeleteI have been at Wheaton High School and agree with her. It is inexcusable that a facility is allowed to deteriorate to that condition.
Where is normal maintenance and upkeep? Why is the only option to tear the entire building down, and until that is done the buildings simply deteriorate from constant use.
Constant use, by the way, should not be a surprise for a school building. But yet, year after year, the Board of Education fails to plan for this fact of life.
In MCPS parents are free to fund facility upgrades - which is why you don't see schools with terrazo tiles in the red zone. Not equitable or fair, but parents are playing by thr rules set by the Board. Now of greater concern: with the removal of curricular fees for classes such as music, there is a widening gap that is impacting instruction. Some schools can raise $10s of thousands at the drop of a hat so their students receive the equivalent of a private school education. Others with poverty rates at/above 40% are squeezed and peddle candy bars to fund their sheet music.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the parents coalition propose to address the increasing inequities? Would it be reasonable to expect that schools that can and do fund facilities and enrichment be paired with a less affluent neighboring school? contribute 10% to fund basics in the red zone? offer grants from their education foundations?
Interested parent in the red zone
First, please do not continue to repeat the fallacy. Illegal curricular fees did NOT go into the MCPS Operating Budget. That cash stayed at the local school and was received without receipts, not accounted for, and spent on lots of non-classroom purchases/clothing/meals/trips/cell phones etc...
ReplyDeleteFor example, at Churchill HS teachers and staff received THREE pieces of Churchill logo wear every summer - polo shirts and sweatshirts. Those purchases stopped when the bulk of the illegal fees were no longer being collected.
The MCPS Operating Budget funds classroom needs and instructional materials. Each year, for virtually Weast's entire tenure here he has declared millions of dollars in textbook and instructional materials funds SURPLUS and moved those funds away from the classroom. The Parents' Coalition has documented this very clearly, and yet, PTAs and parents are silent on this. Why?
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/07/4651000-surplus-in-textbook-fund.html
How about parents start advocating for all of the funds that have been allocated to classrooms be spent ON classrooms?
Second, I would ask - Why is terrazo tile a basic? I went to MCPS from 1st to 12th grade. No terrazo tile. None needed. Why does the ELECTED Board of Education approve such perks and allow such disparities to proliferate?
If the elected Board of Education and Superintendent didn't allow these excessive perks to be added to schools we wouldn't see such a gap in modernized buildings. But these are the people who the voters have elected. Why have the voters allowed this?
Janis asked, Why have the voters allowed this? Maybe because Huxley was right: the truth is drowned in a sea of irrelevance, and we've become a trivial culture where most people don't pay attention to what is going on. The people in power thus stay in power.
ReplyDeletehttp://fatpita.net/?i=1952
The fact is that segregated schools are alive and well in MCPS, and this is happening in a county that takes pride in its progressive values. Just look at the numbers -- Whites make up 38.1% of the student body overall.
At Wheaton? 10%
Sprinbrook? 13.1%
Kennedy? 10.4%
B-CC? 61.8%
Walter Johnson? 62.3% (This number includes students who live within walking distance of Albert Einstein HS, where the student body is 22.2% white, but who are bussed to WJHS)
Churchill? 63.6%
Poolesville? 71.5%
Walt Whitman? 75.6%
Damascus? 74.6%
The students at Wheaton HS or in any other "poor" school are not the ones who should feel ashamed.
Patricia? What are you advocating? Forced busing? How is the county's fault that some schools have very few white students while others are overwhelmingly white? Poolesville, Whitman, and Damascus happen to be situated in mostly white areas. Take a drive around the Wheaton school district and tell me how many whites people you see.
ReplyDeleteJanis said "First, please do not continue to repeat the fallacy. Illegal curricular fees did NOT go into the MCPS Operating Budget. That cash stayed at the local school and was received without receipts, not accounted for, and spent on lots of non-classroom purchases/clothing/meals/trips/cell phones etc..."
ReplyDeleteSo please explain how the highly impacted schools that used the curricular fees as intended - to buy sheet music, make instruments available to students who cannot afford them, etc. - vs. placing them in a slush fund - are now supposed to provide access to electives to students who can least afford them. Full funding of electives is not in the operating budget, either.
Another interested parent
@ anonymous above:
ReplyDelete1. Your assumption that highly impacted schools used illegal fees only for classroom needs is false. Go read some of the Audits.
2. Full funding of electives IS in the operating budget! You bet! There was $32 PER STUDENT THIS YEAR ALONE that was NOT spent on classroom needs.
YOU SAT BY AND WERE SILENT as year after year Superintendent Jerry Weast has moved textbook and INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS money to OTHER USES! Why do parents, PTAs, and teachers sit by SILENTLY YEAR AFTER YEAR as Superintendent Weast does this?
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/07/4651000-surplus-in-textbook-fund.html
This summer he declared $4.6 MILLION dollars surplus and not needed for classrooms, last summer it was $6.6 MILLION! That was $47 per student NOT spent on classroom materials!
Imagine in a classroom of 25 and extra $47 per student for materials would be $1,175. Wouldn't that make a difference?
When are parents, PTAs, and teachers going to wake up and read the budget and demand that Superintendent Jerry Weast spend the funds that have been allocated by the County Council for textbook and instructional materials ON STUDENTS CLASSROOM NEEDS?
To Anonymous of Dec 10, 8:33 a.m.:
ReplyDeleteThe current segregation in MCPS is largely due to gerrymandering of the cluster boundaries and contributes to needless busing. As Patricia points out, "Walter Johnson? 62.3% (This number includes students who live within walking distance of Albert Einstein HS, where the student body is 22.2% white, but who are bussed to WJHS.)" If the cluster gerrymandering were eliminated, MCPS could reduce the number of bus routes.
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeletePeople buy or rent houses and apartments in areas where they can afford to do so. Call me naive, but I believe that a county with progressive values would see to it/would have seen to it long ago that housing is not so segregated. Then schools would not be so segregated either. But they are -- and it's the elephant in the room.
Now, do I advocate forced bussing? No, although bussing is forced upon taxpayers in my neighborhood. Predominantly (if not exclusively or close to it) white students are bussed to WJHS when they could walk to Einstein -- look up the stats on the MCPS school at a glance webpage.
So what to do? Think outside of the box. Forget the stats for a moment and think about THE STUDENTS who make up the stats. My daughter was in self-contained special ed. classes in MCPS from 3th grade through the age of 21. While she has had very good teachers who have done their best for her, I can assure you that *the system* was absolutely not geared towards students functioning at her level. The progressive values that supposedly animate us in Montgomery County did not include valueing ALL students for who they are.
When I read about violence in school and bathrooms being vandalized, it seems clear to me that students don't want to be where they are. Granted, school violence is a complex issue with lots of factors, but I can't help but think that there would be fewer problems if schools worked from the bottom up, not the top down.
Who says that all students want to go to college? Who says that they can? Why not ASK THEM what they want and what their interests are and create programs that meet their needs? Teach them what you want them to learn by building on what their needs and hopes for the future are. Teach them that learning is a life-long adventure, and instead of turning off to learning.
I believe that all students can learn and grow -- learn different things, grow at different paces -- and that all work has value. Because elitism is not a progressive value, it appears that we've decided in Montgomery County that we'll make everybody take AP exams and go to college.
When I came to the realization that my daughter, in her mid elementary years, would never go to college, I became determined that if her future was to clean tables at McDonald's, I would make sure she'd clean them better than anybody else. She is an extreme example because of her low cognitive skills, but she illustrates the point I am making -- recognize the value of every student. To me, that's an important progressive value.
Would such an approach solve the racial discrepancies among the schools? No. As long as housing is segregated, schools will be, too. But my approach would build pride in the schools students go to, wherever they go, and they would not have to be ashamed of going to poor schools or bad schools.
Then again, maybe I'm too progressive for Montgomery County. After all, the first president I ever voted for in a national election was a socialist -- no, not Eugene Debbs (I'm not that old!), but François Mitterrand, the first socialist president of France's Fifth Republic.
Janis said:
ReplyDelete1. Your assumption that highly impacted schools used illegal fees only for classroom needs is false. Go read some of the Audits.
SCHOOLS THAT USED FUNDS APPROPRIATELY ARE LUMPED IN WITH THOSE THAT DID NOT, AND MUST NOW FIND OTHER WAYS TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE ACTUAL NEEDS. STAFF/PTAs MAY BE ABLE TO RAISE $10Ks UPON REQUEST IN THE CHURCHILL CLUSTER, BUT HERE IN THE DCC THE BURDEN HAS BEEN SHIFTED BACK TO THE PARENTS WHO CAN LEAST AFFORD IT. SO STUDENTS SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO EQUAL PROGRAMS.
2. Full funding of electives IS in the operating budget! You bet! There
was $32 PER STUDENT THIS YEAR ALONE that was NOT spent on classroom
needs.
IF YOU HAVE A BUDGET THAT INDICATES WHAT FUNDING IS PROVIDED FOR ELECTIVES AT THE MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS, PLEASE SHARE IT AND/OR POINT OUT WHAT SUPPORT IS AVAILABLE FOR SHEET MUSIC, STUDENTS WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO PURCHASE INSTRUMENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE MUSIC ELECTIVE, ETC.
YOU SAT BY AND WERE SILENT as year after year Superintendent Jerry
Weast has moved textbook and INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS money to OTHER
USES! Why do parents, PTAs, and teachers sit by SILENTLY YEAR AFTER
YEAR as Superintendent Weast does this?
YOU HAVE PROUDLY STATED THAT YOU ATTENDED MONTGOMERY KNOLLS/EASTERN/BLAIR BUT YOU CLEARLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT CURRENT PARENTS AND PTAS AT THESE AND SIMILARLY IMPACTED SCHOOLS HAVE OR HAVE NOT BEEN DOING. READ OUR PTA AND CLUSTER TESTIMONIES AND YOU WILL SEE THAT ALL EFFORTS ARE FOCUSED ON HELPING PROVIDE STUDENTS WITH EQUIVALENT OPPORTUNITIES TO THOSE IN THE GREEN ZONE. SIGNING ON TO THE LATEST PARENTS COALITION ASSAULT ON FELLOW PARENTS OR THE BOARD IS NEITHER A PRACTICAL USE OF SCARCE RESOURCES NOR AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO HELP MEET THE IMMEDIATE NEEDS OF OUR STUDENTS. SOLUTIONS ARE WELCOME; ATTACKS ARE NOT.
Still interested in solutions
@ anonymous w/ 3 points:
ReplyDelete1. Did you read the audits? Misuse of student fees was not just a green zone issue. It was/is an issue in the red zone too. Here is how Einstein and Blair were spending student funds:
From the Examiner article 10/16/08 "At Silver Spring's Albert Einstein High School, more than $4,300 from student funds was spent on "recognition items such as movie passes,
gift cards, meals and T-shirts." Nearly $1,400 of that amount was used
for teacher gifts, though district policy specifically prohibits such
expenditures.
At Silver Spring's Montgomery Blair High School, staff ate and drank
nearly $10,000 more than its annual $4,000 allotment for refreshments."
2. Already showed you where the money was in the budget. But if you don't want to advocate for it to be spent on your students, that's your choice.
The Board of Education and Superintendent are very clear on the fact that they don't need to spend all of the money allocated by the County Council to Instructional Materials on students. Year after year they surplus these funds.
3. According to Superintendent Weast he spends MORE money on the red zone. Isn't that true? So what "equivalent opportunity" is missing?
Have you requested the Audit for your school? Have you requested the annual financial accounting?
What resources are scarce? Today the Board of Education is having a catered breakfast and lunch while they talk over the Academic Priorities of the school system at a "retreat". They may even be having a dinner after the "retreat".
MCPS administrators take themselves out to lunch and dinner all the time on the taxpayers money. How can you ignore that when you claim that your students need resources?
It's called oversight and "letting the sun shine" on the Board and administrators elected to be the fiduciaries of our tax dollars. Every citizen has the choice of participating or ignoring.
To better understand the MCPS budget process read what Board member Laura Berthiaume said earlier this year.
ReplyDeletehttp://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/02/berthiaume-im-sorry.html
The MCPS budget is crafted by a secret committee (does not include Board of Education members) that includes the MCCPTA President. Current President Kay Romero and past President Jane de Winter have both participated in drawing up the MCPS budgets. When the MCPS budgets are made public it is with the full support of MCCPTA's President standing side by side with the union Presidents and Superintendent Weast.
PTA testimony is rather futile as the MCCPTA President has already participated in drafting the budget that is released.
Here's an example of how "tight" the MCPS budget is from yesterday: The Board of Education had a retreat with a catered breakfast and lunch. They had two outside consultants to "facilitate" the meeting and each Board member was given a copy of a book from Harvard to read. The book goes for between $25 - $45, we don't know how much they paid for the 8 copies.
ReplyDeleteSo if your child's class isn't getting the instructional materials it needs, exactly WHY is that?
Why should PTAs have to supplement what should already be available for students? And yes, I am very aware of what is going on in schools all over the county. The question is, why aren't parents advocating for the funding that exists IN the budget to be spent on their students? Why do parents tolerate textbook and instructional funding that is diverted away from the classrooms?
Janis said:
ReplyDelete3. According to Superintendent Weast he spends MORE money on the red zone. Isn't that true? So what "equivalent opportunity" is missing?
Red zone/higher-needs schools receive additional staffing targeted to reduced class size in K-2 and may also receive academic intervention positions that are allocated year-to-year throughout the county by the community supts. But these are not embedded in the budget and can change. In fact staffing formulas for grades 3 to 5 and secondary school do not care if you teach in the red or green zone - they are based on 25 students 3-5, or in grades 8 to 12: 28 students in language arts, 32 in all other classes, across the board.
Funding for classroom materials does not differ across the county. So with fees for music classes for high school science lab classes deemed "illegal" this year, the DCC PTAs are being asked to raise $1,000s more to fill the gaps. Or, more likely, do less with less. And that means that educational opportunity and experience differ greatly between Potomac and Wheaton. You bet.
So I really don't care if the Board has catered meetings as long as its in the budget. What I and, I hope, everyone should care about is that core programs reflect educational load and fully support instruction are in the budget. Currently, they are not. Add that piece to your argument and you'll be talking about something that is very real to many parents/PTAs.
Curricular fees were not "deemed illegal" this year, they have ALWAYS been illegal in Maryland. Nothing new.
ReplyDeleteAgain, read the audits that have been obtained on the Parents' Coalition website. The fees weren't being used just for classroom needs - lots of staff functions, travel, gifts, loans to staff, logo clothing for staff and PTA, cell phones and even a golf cart.
If the curricular fees weren't going to the classroom, how is there absence changing the educational opportuntity? It isn't. Any changes at your local school are the result of a choice by your Principal to use Operating Budget funds for students or for other uses. And note that the current list of fees varies widely from school to school - makes no difference what "zone" the school is in. How can that be that some Principals can run a school without charging illegal curricular fees?
Catered lunches in the budget? Nope. In fact, MCPS staff is specifically prohibited from using AMEX credit cards for food purchases. But they do it anyway. Why? Because Montgomery County parents & citizens don't care and are silent on this unauthorized use of MCPS Operating Budget funds.
There is a finite amount in any budget and the MCPS budget is no different. If unauthorized expenses are being charged the money has to come from somewhere! And apparently, in Montgomery County parents are fine with making up the difference out of their own pockets, on top of what they already pay in taxes for their children to receive a free public education.
Because that is what you are doing. You are paying out of pocket for the unauthorized spending of MCPS staff.
With regard to per school spending, if the allocation per school is the same - where is the gap?
And yes, textbooks and instructional materials ARE in the budget. But year after year parents sit by and watch $4 to $6 million of these funds NOT be spent on classrooms. So it's in the budget, but if it doesn't get used on the classroom then it isn't getting to students, right? Again, the silence of the PTAs, parents and citizens allows this surplusing of dedicated funds to continue.
There is no point in asking for a "bigger" budget for classrooms if the Superintendent and Board of Education will NOT spend the money on classrooms. They will just keep surplusing a large chunk of that budget category and using it for non-classroom purposes.
The community has a choice, either learn about the MCPS budget and how the funds are spent, or be content to make a supplemental donation to your local school every year on top of your taxes.
Here's another red zone school with audit problems.
ReplyDeletehttp://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/12/spotlight-on-wheaton-high-school.html