The Blair Gym Towel Fee - Alive and Still Illegal

Imagine my surprise when I went to check the Blair HS PE website this afternoon.

Remember - the Blair gym towel fee was the public face of the curricular fee issue last fall.

We thought the fee had disappeared. Its in the MCPS policy. We cheered.

Oops, MCPS fooled us again.

The Blair towel fee is alive and well, and still on the Blair website. Its a new website from last year, so claims of the fee being old just doesn't cut it with this writer.

From the website as of 5 PM today (9/17/2009):

Physical Education at Blair Information

(en español)

Due to the nature of physical education courses, there are some special policies, expectations, and items-of-note regarding Blair's physical education courses. If you or your child is enrolled in Blair P.E., please take a moment to examine the information below.

I. Mission —

Physical Education will provide an individualized, developmentally appropriate, and personally challenging instructional program that advances the student's knowledge, confidence, skills and motivation to engage in a lifelong, healthy, active lifestyle.

The benefits derived from the physical education program depend upon the amount of effort and positive attitude which a student displays. In order to provide for a variety of student needs and interests, the program is divided into two main components: General Physical Education and Specialized Physical Education.

. . .

IV. To begin each semester, students will need to —

• pay a $4.00 towel fee,
• bring an appropriate change of clothing,
• bring appropriate athletic shoes,
• bring a water bottle,
• be issued a personal, Physical Education locker.

Its also still illegal, and now its contrary to MCPS policy too.

Wake up, Mr. Williams and the PE department. Stop charging the students.

Watch this space for additional developments. We hope you don't have to wait long for a resolution.

*****

UPDATE 9/18/09 at 3:30 P.M.: Blair High School deleted Towel Fee from website.
Here is what the website used to look like:



And if you click this link you will see the revised webpage without the $4 towel fee.

Fees waived if you know who to ask

You might remember my article from about five weeks ago, where I described how I stumbled upon a way to get illegal curricular fees removed my daughter's account so that she will be able to attend graduation and participate in other school activities.

If you don't have time to read (or reread) the article now, the short story is that I received a demand letter for a curricular fee for one of daughter's classes and was eventually able to have the fee rescinded with help from Maryland State Delegate Saqib Ali. The fee was rescinded because, according to Superintendent Jerry Weast, the demand letter that I received was a "mistake".

A question that has never been answered is: Does the decision to rescind the curricular fee apply just to my child -- presumably because of Delegate Ali's involvement -- or to all MCPS students? To get an answer, I repeatedly called and emailed MCPS Director of School Performance Mr. Stephen Bedford (since he is handling the fees issues), but Mr. Bedford refused to answer my question.

Even after repeated calls, Mr. Bedford continued to be nonresponsive, so I contacted my elected BOE representative, Ms. Nancy Navarro. Here is my email to Ms. Navarro. (Again, I recommend that you read my previous article about the situation for background information.)

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work Study Guides, Notes, weast mcps

Initially, Ms. Navarro did not respond to the email message shown above. I wasn't too surprised, though, since she did not respond to any of the other three emails that I sent her during the past two years, even though I'm her constituent. (In comparison, my county councilmember, Mike Knapp, has been responsive and effective when I have contacted him. Now I'm not saying that Mr. Knapp has supported all of my positions, but he has always replied and provided an explanation for whatever action he decided to take.)

After waiting about three weeks for Ms. Navarro to respond to my email, I left her a voicemail message. About a week later, Ms. Navarro finally returned my call and I reiterated my request to get an answer to my question about the fee policy. Ms. Navarro told me that she would work to get an answer, but as of now -- five weeks after asking for her assistance -- I still don't have an answer from Ms. Navarro or from anyone in MCPS.

At this point, I doubt that I'll get an answer from Mr. Bedford or Ms. Navarro before the end of the school year. If things change, I'll certainly give an update.

Open School/Eat Ham

On Tuesday, March 17, 2009, the MCPS Board of Education Fiscal Management Committee is slated to discuss the State Audit of MCPS at 9 AM. It's about time!

The Maryland Office of Legislative Audits Fiscal Management Practices Performance Audit Report for MCPS was released January 23, 2009, and is chock full of cost saving recommendations! The Board approved the FY 2010 Budget without taking into consideration the results of this extensive State Audit of MCPS finances.

The State Audit reported in general terms about the financial practices of MCPS. But let's take a look at a specific example of how MCPS is spending our taxpayer dollars.

While most of the rest of us are out getting shoes, haircuts, and the "supply list" for the first week of school, Montgomery County Public Schools Central Office staff at 850 Hungerford Drive in Rockville is busy too - eating! Let's look at one department's AMEX charge card records that have been attributed to "Executive Staff-Opening Week" 2007.

Date ordered: 8/24/07 Date Delivered: 8/27/07 $252.24 Chesapeake Catering. Executive Staff, Opening Week.

Date ordered: 8/24/07 Date Delivered: 8/29/07 $222.34 Chesapeake Catering. Executive Staff, Opening Week.

Date ordered: 8/28/07 Date Delivered: 8/28/07 $142.30 Gelico's. Executive Staff, Opening Week.
Date ordered: 9/5/07 Date Delivered:9/5/07 $160.00 Gelico's. Executive Staff, Opening Week.

Date ordered: 8/30/07 Date Delivered: 8/30/07 $211.86 Honey Baked Ham. Executive Staff, Opening Week.

The source of these charges are AMEX card logs obtained by the Parents' Coalition via Maryland Public Information Act requests. The actual credit card logs are available for viewing on our website. We have obtained credit card log information for 15 MCPS central office staff and 1 principal. This is just a very small sample of the use of the 1,400 AMEX Credit Cards in use in Montgomery County Public Schools. See the list of AMEX credit card holders here.

Please note the MCPS Purchasing Card Users Guide does not permit the use of AMEX cards for restaurant purchases. So if you have the food catered is that an exception to the rule?