Often times you’re told that what you fear the most is a
creation of your own imagination. I had hoped that this was true of Montgomery
County Public Schools. Then I heard these words from Associate Superintendent
Myra Smith: “Superintendent (Josh) Starr doesn’t have to speak to black parents
if he doesn’t want to. That’s not how things work here.”
A stunning admission from a county official to a parent new
to the school system.
After a stint in Catholic schools where using the Bible for
fundraising and principal-of-the-year campaigns was considered trendy, the
vision of MCPS that friends and colleagues had given me made it seem as if it was
a viable option. Free education – and in Bethesda – it was like private school without
the price tag, they said.
I’ve been a journalist and an editor for 20 years, and
covered MCPS for the Gazette in the mid-1990s, so I had no illusions that
public school was different. I did, however, fall for the line that schools in
areas with money and a more engaged parents fared better. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I was opening my digital agency and needed to be closer to
clients so I moved my family back to Bethesda for new school year. In August I
met with Sandra Reece, principal at
Bradley Hills Elementary School. She seemed
overly eager to please and spoke in well-rehearsed marketing blurbs, “Best in
the country” “world class education” “no child left behind.” Beyond that the
discussion was about her shiny new building and the cafeteria’s salad bar.
I made it clear to her that I would not accept any loss of
academic progress in my son’s education; he’d had a plan in place to address
his learning issues that worked. She assured me that no child had ever come to
the school and regressed. On the first day of school, I handed over my son’s
psycho-educational testing that I paid for out of pocket when MCPS failed to do
it two years earlier because he was in Catholic school. It had recommendations
and insight on how he learned with his attention deficit disorder diagnosis and
executive functioning issues. Reece said she’d put it in his file and it would
be retrieved if needed.
Then I discovered, at Bradley Hills, there was barely any
homework, no textbooks and parents aren’t allowed to see where the information
students were being taught came from. No good. I pressed for answers and got
virtually nothing.
After the school refused to allow me to leave his asthma
inhaler on a day he was having issues with the problem, I kept him home. Then I
asked for his teacher, Mrs. Woodfork to send me his work so he could complete
it at home. What I received was a jpeg image of the worksheets sitting on a
desk. So I went to the school and retrieved hard copies. I was told the school
didn’t have a scanner so she couldn’t create jpgs. Ironically, however I
noticed the front desk personnel were all wearing matching t-shirts that read “Bradley
Hills Elementary.” Price of a new
scanner from Staples: $100. Cost of matching t-shirts for staff: more than $100.
I made my first visit to MCPS offices on Hungerford Drive that same day. I ultimately received a call from associate superintendent Pat Abrunzo who assured me I was not asking for anything unreasonable.
Over the next week, I met with my son’s teachers (ever
notice how every meeting starts with “your son is a delightful, lovely boy and
we like him a lot?”…as if they would say “your kid sucks” at the start of a
meeting) and they turned over some out-of-date textbooks as the source
material, patted me on the head and sent me on my way. Reece promised to
transcribe the notes from the meeting and email them to everyone. What she
returned were a litany of cryptic, indiscernible short-hand phrases she’d written
down; certainly not a polish report you’d expect from someone in a leadership
position.
The next weeks were no better. My son would come home with
virtually no homework, or not understanding the one worksheet he did get out of
math class.
So I returned to the MCPS offices on Hungerford Drive and
demanded to either speak to the Associate Superintendent…or Josh Starr. I got Associate
Superintendent Myra Smith and her damning comment - “Superintendent Starr doesn’t have to speak to
black parents if he doesn’t want to. That’s not how things work here.”
During something called an Educational Management Team
meeting I was chastised for teaching my son at home, having him read outside of
class and do book reports, and working with him on math facts and other
concepts. “It’s like you’re home schooling,” I was told. I was also told I
should just “trust” the teachers to do the teaching. Again, I was denied access
to the source material that the teachers were using to teach my son. Then came
a disheartening admission: most of the lessons my son was being taught was just
information the teachers were finding on the Internet.
So my son was a student of Wikipedia now?
After my son came home Monday with piece of graph paper with
an equation on the top and an email note from his math teacher that said, “if
your child can’t figure it out, just initial it and return it to school.” The
assignment came with no examples or directions. I called the school and
complained to Reece said a copy of the Power Point lesson from the Promethean
board would be coming home with him. It didn’t.
Reece was fairly complacent that this was business as usual
for her school. She also remarked that she didn’t think it was even important
for the students to learn to write. I guess they don’t have to sign her
paycheck so it’s just not a priority.
She attempted to make a case that the new 2.0 curriculum was
limiting what teachers could do. I pointed out that the buck stops with her.
Learning to integrate interesting and informative lessons into a curriculum
structure is possible; she just lacked the will to do it. Ironically, she didn’t
disagree with that.
MCPS does a great job at marketing. Nearly every teacher and
principal can mutter the “world class education” line with a straight face. But basic inbound marketing principals dictate that a business - and MCPS is that, with a billion-dollar budget - learns to attract visitors, convert them into customers and then delight them with exceptional service. The marketing department forgot the last third of that formula.
Josh Starr has walked into and continues to cultivate a
culture where the parents are outside of the educational process. It’s a racist
process because those with little-to-no socio-economic power who tend to be black or Hispanic will be loathe to
complain; and apparently, according to his own associate superintendent, he won’t
talk to them anyway. And it’s exclusionary – when was the last time you saw Starr
with special needs children or talking with their parents about making sure they get what they
need when they need it?
Starr refuses to meet with one-on-one with parents – especially black
parents – who have issues with MCPS because it will cloud the rosy picture the
county has painted for decades of the school system. What it really means is
that he has little to say to them because he can’t or won’t fix the problems
that are systemic. And what would a white, upper middle class man have to say
anyway to a single, Hispanic mom with a special needs child? Chances are, he is
either fearful that MCPS has indeed missed something…or he will realize how
much he just doesn’t care. Not his kid, after all.
I invite parents who have had issues with MCPS, (and MCPS teachers
with a backbone and a conscience) to reach out to me on my Twitter
feed
@kathyagambrell. Share this blog with your friends. And let’s keep the
unvarnished conversation going.
