In 1986, the Montgomery County Board of Education enacted a comprehensive Long Range Planning Process. The Policy, listed as Policy FAA, was crafted after extensive community input over an extended period of time. The late Councilmember Marilyn Praisner was on the Board of Education when that 1986 Policy was passed.
But when Superintendent Jerry Weast rode into town, he wasn't so keen on following those 21 pages of Board Policy. And so in 2005 the Board of Education, including current President Patricia O'Neill, gutted the Policy and reduced the 21 pages to 5.
Councilmember Marilyn Praisner was not pleased and wrote a letter to the Board of Education. From the April 20, 2005 Gazette article on the Policy change:
County Councilwoman Marilyn J. Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton was a school board member when the current policy was adopted in 1986 after a series of meetings with the community and the council of PTAs. "It was a real concerted effort on the part of the board to place a great deal of clarity and transparency into the facility planning process," she said.
Praisner said the "overarching implications" of the policy -- which can affect issues from land use to budgets -- prompted her to write a letter to the board.
"I don't think the board appreciates the history of the policy," she said.
The policy was written when the county was closing schools and community input was just as important as it is now, as the county builds new schools and reopens some of the very same schools it closed in the 1970s and 1980s, Praisner said.
What did Montgomery County citizens, parents and students lose when Policy FAA was gutted in 2005? Take a look. Below is what the Policy looked like up until 2005. Then you can read today's 5 page version here.
The bottom line is that the bulk of school facility planning has been turned over to the Superintendent. Many school facility decisions are now made out of the public view.
Maybe someday the original 21 page Policy FAA, with all of its community input and transparency will be revived, and MCPS school construction projects will stop "surprising" parents, students, teachers, neighbors, and communities.
*see comment below
@ Arizona
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip. We will get the MCPS documents that show EXACTLY how much taxpayers had to pay to repair the damage done to the Bells Mill Elementary School neighbors properties.
We will post what we find. But maybe we can just wait for your friends in the MCPS PR Department to put out a Fact Check and produce the documents themselves?
We can also get the documents that show how much the failure of MCPS to reveal the 14 foot cement wall at Cabin John Middle School has cost taxpayers. The wall has now been cut down to a lower height. That didn't happen for free.
While we wait for MCPS to produce the invoices and checks that will substantiate these costs, remember this story in the Examiner? Legal fees count toward the cost of these construction disputes too.
The Examiner: Legal fees swell cost of school construction
WASHINGTON — An ongoing dispute over a newly constructed Montgomery County school has contributed to $546,085 in legal fees spent by the school system in the first half of the fiscal year, up 13 percent from $484,521 over the same time period last year.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/legal_fees_swell_cost_of_school_construction2008-03-18T08_00_00.html