SHIRLEY TO SHEBRA TO SHRUTI—PRINCIPLED BUS MARSHAL

by Frederick Stichnoth, 

February 10, 2014

            On Saturday, MCCPTA President Janette Gilman announced her appointment of Shruti Bhatnagar, Blair Cluster Coordinator, to succeed Shebra Evans as VP for Educational Issues. Shebra resigned to run for Shirley Brandman’s BOE at-large seat.              

Janette says that Shebra “was in many ways my right hand;” she took on lots of tasks; especially in a previous job where she put together “pertinent, informative, well-organized programs.” Shebra cites those programs as her qualification for the BOE: “In my previous role with the county PTA , I devised a series of programs that supported the academic, health, and social needs of our students and families. The speakers and panelists ranged from….”   http://www.shebraevans.com/index-2.html              

Shruti has been prepared for the VP position by various previous MCCPTA jobs. She’s the Annapolis Bus Marshall. I guess she’ll be getting people on the bus in the fervid community rally for State bond money.              

No need for bond money to finance the capital costs of unpairing Oak View and New Hampshire Estates, though. They won’t be unpaired. But that’s a bit of Shruti and MCCPTA handiwork too. Janette obliquely recognizes Shruti’s OVES/NHEES “leadership” role in her Saturday message: “For MCCPTA, Shruti has been an effective cluster coordinator; being effective, however, doesn’t always mean being universally loved. Shruti has taken principled, difficult stands at times in an effort to respect process, default to collaboration, and get fair and equitable results.”                   

Dr. Starr recognized Shruti’s work in his recommendation against unpairing: said that “The cluster coordinators [Shruti and Kathy Larin] urge MCPS to prioritize the potential academic consequences and the capital and disruption costs of unpairing the schools over the desires of parents for continuous pre-K–5 schools. They also raised concerns about the highly organized and strident advocacy of the PK5NSI community coalition and whether the members, many of whom do not have children in MCPS, have the best interest of all students at both schools in mind.” 

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/planning/NewHampshireEstatesOakView_FinalApprovedSupRecommendation10142013.pdf              

Unpairing was advocated by 600 petitioner signers, four civic associations, and the resolution (with 72 votes) of the NHEES/OVES PTA.              

Shruti took a “principled…stand,” but we don’t find the principle. She “respected process,” but not the petition, civic association, PTA process. She “defaulted to collaboration,” perhaps with Dr. Starr, but not with the people and PTAs we thought she represented. She condemns “the highly organized and aggressive advocacy of members of the Oak View community who do not have children in MCPS and in some cases have never had children in MCPS. It is not at all clear that these community members have the best interests of all of the students at both school in mind as they advocate for unpairing (Bhatnagar and Larin Evaluation 5; bold in orginal).”http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/planning/NewHampshireEstatesOakView_RoundtableReportFInal.pdf. It’s ironic that the MCCPTA machine and our Bus Marshal take offense at “highly organized” advocacy. It seems self-defeating to disparage community input when, if the community mattered, MCPS and MCCPTA would want community support for our schools, state funding of school construction, and County funding of the budget. The Bus Marshall puts MCCPTA on the bus but throws her community under it.