The school [BCC High School] failed to fulfill one of its basic duties: keeping parents in the loop about their child’s safety. @mcps @mocoboe

What We’ve Got Here is Failure to Communicate 

That Tattler reporters set the narrative for parents and other news outlets alike is extraordinarily inappropriate. The school failed to fulfill one of its basic duties: keeping parents in the loop about their child’s safety.

...MCPS’s duties are shockingly opaque. A concerned parent or student cannot even access the “Principal’s Handbook” or their “Parent Involvement Toolkit” on the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) website. How are we supposed to understand if administrators are doing their jobs correctly if we don’t even know what they’re being instructed to do? B-CC administration can hold all the town halls it wants. The fact that these Potemkin villages pop up after every one of these incidents seems like a tacit acknowledgement of wrongdoing...

What We’ve Got Here is Failure to Communicate – The Tattler (bcctattler.org)

Exclusive: Interim Super. McKnight Secretly Hires Back Former Weast Dir. of Communications at $130 an hour [$270K a year +/-]

The Parents' Coalition has discovered that Interim Superintendent Monifa McKnight has at least one more secret hire.  McKnight has brought back former Superintendent Jerry Weast's Director of Communications, Aggie Alvez.  

Like the hiring of Eric Guerci, Alvez also does not appear in the MCPS online Staff Directory.  

Alvez's position has also not been approved by the Board of Education. There is no mention of Alvez's recent rehiring in any recent Board of Education minutes.

The Parents' Coalition has learned that Alvez has been hired at an hourly rate of $130.

Alvez began working in August of 2021 and will work at least through June of 2022. She will be using Derek Turner's former office in the MCPS Communications department and will be doing an audit of communications and reviewing a process map. 

Alvez's position is that of Special Assistant to the Superintendent  (click on images to enlarge)

 or Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for the Superintendent

and/or as a Public Information Officer

MCPS Communication App in Limbo

The future of a proposal to develop a “communication app” for the Montgomery school system is uncertain as school staff consider concerns about the legality and “technical feasibility” of the idea.

At issue is whether the school system can legally create an “opt-out” communication system that would send alerts to families about everything from weather-related closings to community meetings.

In a memo to school board members, Superintendent Jack Smith said federal regulations restrict school districts from sending automated text messages without prior consent. The school system currently allows families to “opt-in” by giving prior consent to receive emergency alerts via text message and email, while the new system would automatically enroll families while giving them the option to remove themselves from the communications list.

The federal regulation Smith cites lists two exceptions for which automated communications can be sent without consent, including “emergency purposes” and communications that “while not for emergency purposes, are closely related to the educational mission of the school, such as notification of an upcoming teacher conference or general school activity.”

A resolution introduced by District 2 school board member Rebecca Smondrowski that would direct the school system to develop and implement the app, was expected to receive a final vote at the board’s May 14 meeting, but was tabled so board members could conduct more research. It is expected to go back before the board at Thursday’s meeting...

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-communication-app-in-limbo/

What Really Motivates Parent Activists

Today's Washington Post include Letters to the Editor on "What Really Motivates Parent Activists".