The next group of Apple Ballot candidates elected to the Montgomery County Board of Education will attend "training" through the private club for BOE members.
Three new faces will grace the Montgomery County Board of Education, according to the unofficial results of Tuesday’s election. The candidates appearing headed for victory were all supported by the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA).
All Apple Ballot candidates appeared headed for victory, according to unofficial returns from the Montgomery County Board of Elections. They are Natalie Zimmerman, Laura Stewart and Rita Montoya...
Each sponsoring organization has prepared questions for the candidates and all of the candidates have received the questions in advance.
Here are the questions that the Parents' Coalition has presented to the candidates.
Questions from Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD:
1. The Appellate Court of Maryland has Ordered the Montgomery County Board of Education to review the HET MCPS, LLC electric school bus contract in light of the fact that two of the MCPS Department of Transportation Directors who were integrally involved in the electric school bus bidding process awarded the contract to an affiliate of the company they were receiving kickbacks from.
[MCPS' Todd Watkins and Charles Ewald awarded the electric school bus contract to Highland. Highland's proposal had American Truck & Bus as a subcontractor. Watkins and Ewald were engaged in an embezzlement scheme with American Truck & Bus. After the contract was awarded to Highland, MCPS allowed Highland to create a new company called HET MCPS, LLC and MCPS wrote the contract to HET MCPS, LLC, even though they never bid on the proposal. American Truck & Bus remained as a subcontractor on the contract.]
The Montgomery County Board of Education has refused to review the HET MCPS, LLC contract despite the Mandate from the Appellate Court of Maryland.
What kind of example does this set for public school students?
2. The Montgomery County Board of Education paid $168,380 for a comprehensive review of the MCPS Department of Transportation. But when the review was completed by CESO (over 80 pages) the report was shelved and never presented to the Board of Education or made public. The Parents' Coalition made the report public.
The CESO report reveals that MCPS Fleet Maintenance workers are in imminent danger of being crushed or electrocuted because the repair bays are not designed for the heavier electric school buses. Electric school bus repairs risk danger of electrocution or lift collapse if bays are not set up appropriately.
Would you support an independent, dedicated Office of Inspector General to focus exclusively on Montgomery County Public Schools so that when reports are hidden and staff are in danger of death or injury there would be someone to speak up and alert the public to fraud, waste, and abuse of public funds, and of dangers to staff and students?
Members of the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) announced they expect to file an unfair labor practice charge against the Board of Education (BOE) and will be holding a rally at 5 p.m. Tuesday to discuss what they are calling a lack of transparency and delaying tactics concerning contract negotiations.
The rally will be held outside the Carver Educational Service Center, 850 Hungerford Dr., Rockville. At 6 p.m., union officials and members of the BOE will hold their annual meeting inside.
MCEA has accused the school district of stalling and refusing to negotiate fairly...
Montgomery County Education Association President Jennifer Martin is warning the Maryland school system is facing a “great resignation” if staffing shortages aren’t addressed.
The school system currently has over 300 full-time teacher vacancies. Martin said that on any given day, half the requests for substitutes go unanswered, resulting in teachers being pulled from their lunch breaks or planning periods to cover classes. She said teachers are only being paid $15 an hour extra for class coverage.
“We are asking for $55 an hour for covering classes and other duties during our planning time. To match what Howard County public schools is doing for its educators and to demonstrate a respect for their professionalism,” Martin said at a news conference outside a Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education meeting in Rockville.
The union has a list of other demands to ease the burden on teachers, including a moratorium on new initiatives introduced into the school system, additional early release days for more planning time, and more attractive pay to recruit and keep substitute teachers...
For more than a half hour, hundreds of cars driven by Montgomery County Education Association members circled the large Montgomery County Public Schools’ (MCPS) Board of Education parking lot and drove out into the street. They were rallying to demand the hiring of additional teachers, bus drivers and other support personnel. They also urged MCPS to honor their contract which grants them periods to plan, grade and eat lunch or at least compensate them for the extra work.
Claudia Gargiulo, a seventh and eight grade Spanish teacher at Cabin John Middle School, called her workload “suffocating.”
Gargiulo, who has taught at MCPS for 10 years, said she feels bad standing at the microwave for two minutes to warm up her lunch. Besides her normal five classes, she now is being asked to take on a sixth class. Add that to her morning duties and after school meetings on Mondays, and “our pace in working is frenetic,” she said...
The Board of Education did not have to authorize a NEW lease. The Board of Education could have decided that public school land should be used for building classrooms for students instead of for commercial uses of private companies.
The Board of Education could have voted to not approve a NEW lease.
But they didn't.
The Board was fed a series of falsehoods, fell for them, and voted for the NEW lease.
To date, none of the 12 cell towers existing on Montgomery County Public School land were ever approved by the Board of Education. They were all approved by former Superintendent Jerry Weast without notification or approval of the Board of Education. The Board of Education is the landowner. It is up to the landowner to decide what part of their land is to be leased.
Below is the video from the August 24, 2021, Montgomery County Board of Education meeting where the unanimous Board of Education voted to approve a NEW lease for the Woodwards Road Future School site.
In the discussion, MCPS staff (not under oath and not legal counsel) told the Board of Education members:
That the Board has delegated their authority to the superintendent (False. They have not).
MCPS staff called this vote the "renewal of the entire lease" (False. It's a NEW lease.)
MCPS staff claimed that bringing this lease to the Board was for transparency (False. It is legally required.)
MCPS staff told Board members they were not turning over land to another company. (FALSE. It is a lease for PUBLIC SCHOOL LAND.)
We checked to see if the Montgomery County Board of Education was going to take this opportunity to provide a free public education for all Montgomery County Public School students, or if they were still going to charge students illegal curricular fees to attend public school classes.
We looked at just one school.
Just one and we immediately saw that the Board of Education illegal practice of charging students fees to attend public school classes is continuing. Even during a Global Pandemic where students are learning online from home, the Board of Education is happy to deny students their right to a free public education.
The illegal curricular fees are clearly labeled as fees for "at home during virtual learning."
The Maryland Attorney General's statement on these fees is reproduced, once again, below a sample of Board of Education "at home during virtual learning" illegal curricular fees from the MCPS website.
As a reminder, the Montgomery County Board of Education owns a dedicated, paid for, elementary school site right down the road from the City of Gaithersburg Kelley Park. But, instead of using the land that they own, the Board of Education is going to build an elementary school on a City of Gaithersburg Park. This plan has the Board of Education paying over $1.5 MILLION Operating Budget (teacher salary) dollars to the City of Gaithersburg for an artificial turf football field, bleachers, lights and a tot lot.
The Board of Education could build a school on their own land and they wouldn't have to pay a thing to the City of Gaithersburg. But this plan provides a way for the City of Gaithersburg to take in $1.5 MILLION dollars from the MCPS Operating Budget.
And this Plan is going forward, even during a Global Pandemic where MCPS students are struggling to learn through virtual platforms. The Board of Education does not have any problem handing over $1.5 MILLION to the City of Gaithersburg, even during a Global Pandemic.
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On Saturday, October 17, 2020, the residents of the Kelley Park neighborhoods will say good-bye to the 55 TREES that the Montgomery County Board of Education will be taking from the local park.
LOVE A TREE
We anticipate that MCPS will do whatever it takes to start construction in January, even despite our appeal. Save Kelley Park wants to help Gaithersburg residents appreciate the impact that the construction will have on just the trees in the park. Every tree within the 7.1 acres that composes the Level of Development is scheduled to be removed. We are working hard to prevent 55 trees from coming down, especially two amazing Bald Cypress tree located near the tot lot.
We invite you to RSVP and join us on October 17th (rain date October 18th) where you can “adopt” your tree.
You will be given a time slot.
Bring a love note to your tree or create a drawing.
We’ll help you safely place it on your tree
Have a picture taken with YOUR tree
Then take some time to visit the park….while we still have it.
This event is going to be conducted in accordance with current Montgomery County COVID-19 safety guidance. As a result, no more than 50 people can be on site at one time. You and your party will be given a time slot. You will be expected to wear a mask at all times, except during your picture with YOUR tree if you so choose. Your time slot allows time for you to make a drawing or write a letter to your tree--materials will be available, however we encourage you to prepare your item in advance and bring it with you. Should you have questions, please reach out to Lynn (202 236-6776) or Steve (240 671-5072). In the event of rain, we will send an email and post to our website SAVEKELLEYPARK.com.
The board did not, however, vote on the fall plan as a whole, instead delaying the vote until Aug. 25. The 2020-21 academic year is slated to begin on Aug. 31, and teachers are set to return for a week of in-service activities on Aug. 24.
The school board has not approved day-to-day student and staff schedules, whether there should be any adjustments to the grading system and whether students who need specialized interventions can have some face-to-face instruction...
The Baltimore Teachers Union has filed a complaint over a decision by the school system’s top leaders to require them to work four additional days at the end of June, days they say the contract does not require.
The fierce tug of war is over whether the teachers had already worked the 190 days their contract required by June 16 when school ended. The BTU contends that it worked four days in March — the 16th through 19th — when schools were first shut down because of coronavirus, but the school system disagrees...
March 5, 2015 ...Members of the Calvert board of education claim they were unaware of the executive team contracts held between the employees and Smith and said because the contracts were signed with Smith and not the board, the provisions stated in the contract were not to be extended past the June 30, 2013, date...
SoMdNewsOnlineSeptember 2, 2015 ...At the end of the 2013 school year, Smith announced his resignation as Calvert’s superintendent of schools to become chief academic officer for the state. In the following months, some Calvert County Board of Education members uncovered the amount of money Smith was permitted to take from the school system in comprehensive benefits.While Smith’s contracts paid him an annual base salary of $169,000, his total compensation was upward of $300,000 in his last year as superintendent. Smith said the additional income was due to benefits, including life and health insurance coverage that will continue for life for him and his wife, paid by the Calvert school system and approved by the previous school board.Smith also was permitted to cash in annual sick leave he hadn’t used. Though Smith’s salary remained at $169,000, his take-home amounts increased each year.Smith also had granted similar contracts to his executive team members. Many Calvert school board members, including current board member Kelly McConkey, were not aware of these contracts.“I couldn’t believe somebody could do what they did and be promoted to a position of importance like that,”.. Now, here we are in 2020, in the beginning of a global pandemic where schools are closed and the public is not allowed to attend public meetings.
**************** Now let's look at what is happening this week in Montgomery County Public Schools.
Tomorrow the Montgomery County Board of Education will be given a MEMORANDUM that purports to detail a CONTRACT.
The Board of Education is to vote on the CONTRACT without ever actually seeing it.
Based on the years of litigation generated in Calvert County by then Superintendent Jack Smith's signing of contracts one would think that Superintendent Smith would be providing Montgomery County Board of Education members with the actual CONTRACTS that they are voting on. But that won't happen tomorrow, April 21, 2020.
On April 21, 2020, the Montgomery County Board of Education will vote to spend up to $800,000 for an artificial turf football field for the City of Gaithersburg without even knowing it.
Here is the MEMORANDUM that Superintendent Jack R. Smith is presenting to the Montgomery County Board of Education:
But here is the ACTUAL CONTRACT that Superintendent Jack Smith has sent to the City of Gaithersburg. The Parents' Coalition has obtained the actual document and made it public.
In the actual Contract it says that the City of Gaithersburg shall construct a field of THEIR choice, either artificial turf or natural grass. The Contract says that if the City of Gaithersburg builds an artificial turf field then the Board of Education shall reimburse the City for up to $800,000for the design and construction of an artificial turf field.
On April 21, 2020, the Montgomery County Board of Education will unknowingly vote to spend $800,000 on a luxury item for the City of Gaithersburg, meanwhile children in Montgomery County are out of school, missing meals and families are in crisis.
The case did not go to a trial, instead the Board of Education reached an out of court settlement with MSI Soccer that gave MSI Soccer the use of 3 school fields in exchange for MSI Soccer paying for the installation of artificial turf at each of those schools.
On May 2, 2017, the Montgomery County Council approved the appropriation of a $4.9 million contribution from MSI Soccer to pay for the 3 artificial turf fields.
On April 24, 2018, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a contract for the installation of the artificial turf football field at Whitman High School.
Now do the MCPS math: $1,344,000 + $3,717,579 = $4,900,000 If that doesn't add up then that means that the Board of Education had to kick in $161,579 to pay the difference between what MSI Soccer contributed to these fields and the actual cost of installing these 3 plastic fields.
On Richard Montgomery High School’s Artificial Turf
Good evening members of the Board of Education and Superintendent Smith. You may remember at the CIP hearings in November a student from Richard
Montgomery who plays on the soccer team as a goalie, Molly Winchenbach. She
testified about the unusual abrasiveness of RM’s new artificial turf field and the
resulting injuries suffered by student athletes. She is my daughter. She would be
here tonight to give you this update and make this plea herself, but she is at practice. High school athletes never seem to have a season off these days.
To MCPS’s credit, after Molly’s testimony, they sent out samples of RM’s and Whitman’s artificial turf for independent testing to a lab in Canada. Both
fields had been installed at the same time using the same organic Zeofill rock/sand mix but their effect on the athletes was drastically different with RM’s field causing substantially more serious abrasion injuries. That different experience of
the athletes was confirmed by the objective tests. Although in my meeting with the Director of Construction and Director of Athletics back in February to go over the results of the tests, I was not permitted to keep a copy, I wrote down the pertinent
results right after the meeting, so my numbers are within a few points. There was agreement in the room that the results were shocking. The abrasiveness of the field
was measured against FIFA’s standard of 30.
Old crumb rubber fields tested a 3.
Whitman’s field tested a 20. RM’s field tested 128! Four times the FIFA standard! The lab tests also figured out why – the volcanic rock particles used in the RM field Zeofill were much larger than those used at Whitman, and at RM, the rock was layered with the sand like a cake, rather than all mixed together, as it was at Whitman.
Now that MCPS has verified what we have been saying all along – there is
something very wrong with the RM turf – it is so abrasive, it is tearing the skin off the athletes, what are you going to do about it? MCPS thought that perhaps they
had solved the problem for this spring. They had removed some of the fill and
tried to mix up the layers more by deep tining it. The plan then was to just replace
the offending larger particle fill with the smaller particle fill gradually with regular
monthly maintenance. But, I’m here to tell you, on behalf of my daughter and the
other student athletes who are using and will be using this field in the fall
regularly, that MCPS’s remediation plan is not aggressive enough. I’ve provided
you with a picture of what happened to Molly’s leg the first time she slid on the
turf this spring to stop a ball coming into the goal. The RM turf scraped off the top layer of about 6 inches of her skin. This cannot be the conditions under which you
expect student athletes to play. While all athletes may not experience the
abrasiveness of the RM field the same, it is particularly damaging to the students,
like Molly in positions, like goalie, who have to slide on the turf all the time. She
plays on turf all over the county, both indoor and outdoor, and only receives
serious injuries like this from the RM turf.
I understand that MCPS is in the process of asking the manufacturer of the
turf how much it will cost to replace all or most of the fill in RM’s turf all at once
over the summer. I am asking you to ensure this remediation gets done
immediately. (And any cost should not come out of CIP funds already allocated
to capital expenditures for RM, which needs substantial expansion over the
summer just to keep up with its ever growing student population.) You owe it to
the students whose health and safety you say are your top priority. You now know this turf is 4x the standard for abrasiveness, you know the reasons why it is so abrasive, and you know what you need to do to fix it. Don’t waste anymore time while more students get hurt. Do it now.
Thank you.
As we reported on February 15, 2019, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) did not revoke MCPS teacher John Vigna's teaching license even though State Regulations call for the license of a teacher after notice of an allegation of child sexual abuse to be revoked.
On Twitter, we asked MSDE for an explanation of why John Vigna's teaching license was not revoked. MSDE responded that John Vigna "voluntarily surrendered" his license.
The Maryland Regulations do not state that a "voluntary surrender" can bypass the mandatory revocation of a teaching license.
We have again asked MSDE for an explanation of why John Vigna's name is not listed on their public list of teachers who have had their licenses revoked.
The Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR) states that if a teacher is convicted of a crime of child abuse or resigns after an allegation of child sexual abuse that teacher's license to teach shall be revoked.
The Maryland State Superintendent is well aware of this Regulation as she wrote about it in a May 23, 2017, memorandum.
On June 9, 2017, Former MCPS elementary school teacher John Vigna was convicted of four counts of sex abuse of a minor and five counts of third-degree sex offense.
That means that his name has not been reported to the National Database for the reporting and dissemination of the names of teachers who have had their licenses revoked. It also means that if John Vigna were to have his sentence reduced or completed he would be released from prison without notification to other jurisdictions that his Maryland teaching license should have been revoked.
How many other Maryland teachers have not had their licenses automatically revoked as required by COMAR? Where are those teachers today? Are they in classrooms or activities where they have direct contact with children?
Author: Jeanne Taylor, Treasurer, Friends of Julie Reiley
While I was volunteering at a polling place during the general election early voting, an individual who was handing out the Apple ballot scoffed at my assertion that Board of Education candidates who are endorsed by the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) have a distinct - and in my opinion unfair - advantage over their opponents. I put forth the following reasons: Candidates receive free advertising because the Apple ballot is widely disseminated across the county; Apple ballots may be “mistakenly” placed in all school mailboxes, even in the mailboxes of non-MCEA members; politicians are often reluctant to endorse their preferred non-Apple ballot candidates for fear that their own endorsement will be in jeopardy, and some may even endorse Apple ballot candidates because of political pressure.
Perhaps the greatest advantage can be seen at the polls. Because MCEA has more than 14,000 members, it is able to staff polling places to hand out literature in far greater numbers than candidates who need to recruit volunteers. At the polling place where I worked, at times there were as many as five people handing out Apple ballots. This included MCEA members and poll workers who were handing out Apple ballots for their candidates. In summary, the teacher's union endorsement equals an enormous "in kind" contribution of free publicity and volunteer hours. As of October 21, 2018, the union reported spending more than $1,000,000 on production and distribution costs.
Unfortunately, the endorsement advantage doesn’t stop there. At various polling places, Democratic precinct chairs were seen handing out Apple Ballots, while standing at Democratic tables. This activity improperly indicated a Democratic Party endorsement of the candidates on the Apple ballot which include nonpartisan Board of Education members. Lastly, an overwhelming number of voters grab the Apple ballot on their way in to vote, thinking that the “Teacher’s Recommended” list is all they need to know about how qualified a candidate is for the job. This imbalance of power held by a special interest group undermines a fair election and it does not always result in placing the best and the brightest in a position to oversee the Montgomery County public school system.
In 2009, FieldTurf produced the letter below stating that the Richard Montgomery High School (RMHS) plastic football field and 120 tons of ground up tires (crumb rubber) would be 100% recycled and would not end up in a landfill.
In 2018, the RMHS plastic football field was removed and sent to a landfill in Southern Virginia and to a paint ball field in Baltimore County.
The RMHS plastic grass football field was not "100% recycled" and did end up in a landfill.
The Montgomery County Board of Education failed to have the RMHS plastic grass replaced under warranty when the field failed. Instead, they diverted MCPS Operating Budget funds meant for public school classrooms to pay for the replacement of the RMHS plastic grass football field. The Montgomery County Board of Education failed to have FieldTurf honor their commitment to 100% recycle the RMHS plastic grass field. They are polluting Southern Virginia and Baltimore County.
These are the Board of Education members that are continually endorsed by major organizations, unions, other elected officials, and news organizations and elected and re-elected into office. The dumping and pollution from the removal of the RMHS plastic grass is their actual record in office. This is what Montgomery County voters support.
