Sharon W. Cox: AASA Executive Consultant

Former Montgomery County Board of Education Member Sharon W. Cox is highlighted as a consultant with the American Association of School Administrators "Executive Consultant" program.

Thanks to the biography provided by AASA, we now know that Ms. Cox was the only Board of Education member who attended the Harvard Public Education Leadership Project for four years, at the Superintendent's request. (See Frieda Lacey's Testimonial about PELP HERE).
Ms. Cox's areas of expertise are listed as Board/Superintendent/Community Relations, Managing Change, Planning/Facilitating Board Retreats, and Systems Thinking.

Just a few questions:

1. Did MCPS pay the airfare, hotel, and tuition for Ms. Cox to attend Harvard's PELP all four years?

2. Is Ms. Cox using the "Secondary Learning Centers Closings" as an example of what not to do with regard to Community Relations?

3. Does "Facilitating Board Retreats" include making minutes of Board retreats available for the public to review?

Praisner: "I don't think the board appreciates the history of the policy"

Here is an article from the April 20, 2005 Gazette about the MCPS Board of Education's plan to gut their long standing Policy on long-range facilities planning, also known as Policy FAA.
  
Councilmember Marilyn Praisner had been involved in the creation of the policy in 1986 when she was on the MCPS Board of Education.  She was concerned enough about the 2005 changes to write to the Board of Education.  The changes made to Policy FAA in 2005 are now going to impact the families that are about to lose a neighborhood school in 2010.

School board plans to address criticism

A proposed change to the school system's long-range facilities
planning policy could stifle the public's voice in the planning
process, county PTAs and civic leaders charged this week.

But school officials said they are working to address community
concerns.

Cluster coordinators from the county council of PTAs and civic
leaders are expected to attend a meeting Thursday to discuss the
policy.

Sharon W. Cox (At large) of Germantown, who heads the board's policy
committee, said the committee would offer a new version of the
policy change that was proposed earlier this year.

The policy guides the planning process for school facilities, taking
into account enrollment trends and academic needs.

The new version will identify when the board will seek community
involvement, such as in drawing boundaries, closing schools and the
school system's six-year construction plan, Cox said. It also will
identify groups that could provide input, including PTAs, homeowners
associations and civic groups. That level of specificity was lacking
in the original revision.

PTA and Civic Federation members said they are concerned that the
earlier changes would limit parents' and taxpayers' opportunity to
weigh in on school planning issues.

The changes being considered by the board would change the policy
into a regulation.

Regulations do not require the same public input as policies, so
they can be amended to react quickly to specific needs, said George
Margolies, the board's staff director.

But it is precisely that lack of public comment that worries some
PTA and civic leaders.

It would leave no guarantee that community members could be
consulted, said Mark R. Adelman, chairman of the Civic Federation's
education committee.

"When you put stuff on the regulatory side, you put it in a place
where the superintendent decides," he said. "We don't elect the
superintendent."

"There's a fear that there would be less accountability"
and "shortcut" planning decisions, said Cindy Kerr, president of the
county council of PTAs. "Quick decisions are what lead to the most
major headaches in the community."

County Councilwoman Marilyn J. Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton was
a school board member when the current policy was adopted in 1986
after a series of meetings with the community and the council of
PTAs.

"It was a real concerted effort on the part of the board to place a
great deal of clarity and transparency into the facility planning
process," she said.

Praisner said the "overarching implications" of the policy -- which
can affect issues from land use to budgets -- prompted her to write
a letter to the board.

"I don't think the board appreciates the history of the policy," she
said.

The policy was written when the county was closing schools and
community input was just as important as it is now, as the county
builds new schools and reopens some of the very same schools it
closed in the 1970s and 1980s, Praisner said.

The council of PTAs has called on the board to establish an advisory
committee to consider any changes to the planning policy and asked
that the board not make any changes before autumn.

The board's policy committee set out to revise the planning process
to address changes in the way the state calculates school capacity
and the creation of consortium middle and high schools, which
require the board to consider boundaries and capacity in order to
balance enrollment, Cox said.

Thursday's meeting will give people a chance to see how the board
uses their input, she said. "If you are not involved in the process,
it is not easy to see how your input is utilized."

Community members wonder if their input is heeded at all, Adelman
said.

"Right now, there's not a great deal of trust in the civic community
and the PTA that the Board of Education will listen to comments of
the community," he said.

Valerie Ervin (Dist. 4) of Silver Spring acknowledged the mistrust.

"From what I can see, as one of the new board members, is that the
board is struggling very hard to change that perception," said
Ervin, a member of the policy committee.

It can do that by listening to the public on the proposed policy,
she said.

"I don't see this as a problem," she said. "I think it's an
opportunity."

Weast to close elementary school

Those that watched in 2005 as Superintendent Jerry Weast pushed the Board of Education to gut MCPS Policy FAA: Long Range Educational Facilities Planning knew that this day was coming.

Superintendent Weast has been on a quest for years to super-size elementary schools. In order to secure his goal in 2005 he had the Board of Education turn over to him the decision making for determining what size elementary, middle and high schools should be in Montgomery County.

Prior to 2005, the size of elementary, middle and high schools were laid out in a 22 page policy.  In 2005, that policy was gutted to 5 pages and turned over most major school facility decisions to the Superintendent.  Thus, taking the decisionmaking away from the Board of Education, and more importantly, eliminating the ability of parents to appeal a school size decision to the State Board of Education.

Here is today's news:

Washington Post:  Montgomery elementary to close*

A small elementary school in rural northwestern Montgomery County would be closed under a plan presented by Superintendent Jerry D. Weast to the Board of Education, school officials said Friday.

Citing declining enrollment and the need to save money, the plan would send Monocacy Elementary School's students eight miles south to Poolesville Elementary School for the beginning of the next school year. That would be the first school closure in Montgomery County in more than 20 years...

*Updated link to Washington Post. Original article here.


Full recommendation from Superintendent Weast here.

Monocacy Elementary School's long term enrollment projections have changed to support Superintendent Weast's recommendation to close the school. 

All Parents' Coalition blog posts on the closing of Monocacy Elementary School here. 

Navarro Board to U.S. citizen & county resident: No school for you.

"I want to go to school...Why me? Why are they trying so hard NOT to let me go to school?" asks child* in response to denial of Board of Education to enroll him in Montgomery County Public Schools.

The Examiner, Russia Today, WUSA9, USAToday, and Gazette (red indicates update to original blog article) have reported on the plight of a 14 year old Montgomery County resident unable to receive a free public education. That denial of a free public education has kept him out of school for the last two years.

Here are the facts:

• The child is a U.S. citizen - born in California.
  
• The child lives with his court appointed legal guardian.
• The legal guardian is a resident of Montgomery County.
• On August 25, 2008, Superintendent Weast wrote a memorandum to the Board of Education explaining his basis for denying this child a free public education.
  
• On September 22, 2008, the Board of Education (President Nancy Navarro) in an unanimous decision voted to affirm the decision of the Superintendent.

Why is this U.S. citizen, living in Montgomery County with his legal guardian, being denied a free public education? In the words of Superintendent Weast:

"It is my belief that the documents forwarded, as best as I can read them, do not document a crisis that would prevent J- from living with his mother and attending school in Thailand. J- father's monthly salary of 4700 baht is about average in Bangkok, according to the Thai National Statistical Office."

Note that child's parents are divorced. 4700 baht's converts to $136 U.S. dollars. The full text of Superintendent Weast's decision is here. The MCPS Board of Education affirmed the decision of Superintendent Weast and "concluded that the matter could be decided without the conduct of an evidentiary hearing, referral to a hearing examiner, or oral argument." The Decision and Order are below.

Section 7-101 of Maryland's Education Article states that:

"...each child shall attend a public school in the county where the child is domiciled with the child’s parent, guardian, or relative providing informal kinship care..."

When contacted for a comment on this matter, District 16 Delegate Susan C. Lee and her colleagues Senator Brian E. Frosh, Delegate William A. Bronrott, and Delegate C. William Frick sent a letter dated May 13, 2009, to Superintendent Weast asking him to "please look into this matter and provide us with a complete report."

As of today, this is a Montgomery County child without a school.

UPDATE: Join the new Facebook Group - already over 700 members, to Support this child's right to a free public education!

UPDATE 6/18/09: Press Kit - relevant documents include child's US birth certificate, passport and documents detailing two year struggle to enroll in Montgomery County Public Schools.

UPDATE 6/25/09: Maryland State Board of Education decision in Armour v. Board of Education of Montgomery County, Maryland said,

...we reiterate that it is the educational policy in Maryland, consistent with the constitutional and statutory provisions for free public education, that all children within the borders of this State who are bona fide residents, are entitled to free public school privileges. Only such a policy will assure in this age of great mobility that all children, regardless of the income of their families, will be provided an uninterrupted opportunity for public education.

UPDATE 6/26/09: Governor Martin O'Malley's office inquires about this child's inability to enroll in Montgomery County Public School.

UPDATE 6/29/09: BREAKING NEWS - MCPS RELENTS! STUDENT WINS!

*The child's name is not being released by the Parents' Coalition and the documents have been redacted to protect the identity of the child.
Board Denial

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