Video: Navarro, Elrich, Ervin and Floreen Voting to Give Away an Entire MCPS High School for Free While MCPS Students were in Overcrowded Schools

Former Md. gubernatorial hopeful hired to school post after backing county leader

Onetime Maryland gubernatorial candidate Valerie Ervin was hired into a six-figure job with the Prince George’s County school system less than three months after she dropped out of the governor’s race and threw her support behind the county’s top leader.

In the final stretch of the campaign, Ervin regularly stumped for Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, who was in a heated battle for the Democratic nomination. Baker hinted publicly that if he were elected, Ervin would join his administration.

But Baker lost the June 26 primary. In August, Ervin was hired to a $133,200-a-year position as a special assistant in the school system’s Office of Employee and Labor Relations. Officials in the state’s second-largest school system said the job was created in August to improve communication with the labor unions representing the district’s 20,000 full-time employees.

At least one school board member, David Murray, raised questions about political favoritism...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/former-md-gubernatorial-hopeful-hired-to-school-post-after-backing-county-leader/2018/09/18/682f739a-baba-11e8-a8aa-860695e7f3fc_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.72ac6becea29

Elected Officials Meeting Outside of Open Meetings Act

Here's how our elected officials have been "operating" the Kennedy Cluster Project without any public process.  By meeting in an undisclosed location, without public notice, and without a quorum of an elected body these elected officials have been able to skirt the Maryland Open Meetings Act while simultaneously spending millions and millions of County dollars.  

During the summer of 2013, the Leadership Team comprised by County Executive Ike Leggett, Superintendent Josh Starr, Council Members Navarro and Ervin, and School Board President Chris Barkley directed the operation team, made up of Department Directors, Uma Ahluwalia, Gabe Albornoz, States Attorney's representative George Simms, Police representative Assistant Chief Darryl McSwain, Team Members Don Kress and Fran Brenneman, and MCPS Staff members, to explore other options for closing the achievement gap, to explore expanding the existing project, and if the project were expanded, where would that expansion take place. 

Page Circle 37 of Council Packet.

No Election for You!

District 5 residents can sit and watch as the other county councilmembers choose their "representative," beginning tomorrow at 2 PM in the Third Floor Hearing Room, County Council Office Building in Rockville.  The interviews will also be on county cable television.  The public can observe as the first group of candidates is interviewed.  Each candidate will be asked nine questions.  The press release listing the candidates, the schedule, and the questions is here.  Democracy, Montgomery County style!

Press Release Dist5ApptProcessNextSteps

No Election for You!

Citizens of District 5 can look forward to a new County Council representative who will be vetted and appointed by the sitting County Council members.  Councilmember Valerie Ervin (D) announced her decision to vacate her seat on December 10th, saying she will step down on January 3rd.  If she had stepped down by December 1, a real election would have been required.  No need for elections, though! The new councilmember will be appointed by January 31st.  The deadline to submit your letter of interest and resume is 5 pm on Wednesday, Jan 8, 2014.  Interviews will be held beginning at 2pm on Friday, January 17th, according to this press release.

According to the press release, no need to actually live in District 5 at the time you apply! Just make sure you live there by the time of the appointment.

Each applicant must be a registered voter in Montgomery County, registered to vote as a Democrat, and, at the time of appointment, a resident of Council District 5. Each resume submitted should include the applicant’s professional and civic experience, political party affiliation, home and office telephone numbers, and home and email addresses.

From the County Charter:

SECTION 106: Vacancies

A vacancy shall occur when any member of the Council shall, prior to the expiration of the term for which elected, die, resign the office or become disqualified for membership on the Council or be removed from office. When a vacancy has occurred, a majority of the remaining members of the Council shall appoint a person to fill the vacancy within thirty days. An appointee to fill a vacancy, when succeeding a party member, shall be a member of the same political party as the person elected to such office at the time of election. If the Council has not acted within thirty days, the County Executive shall appoint a person to fill the vacancy within ten days thereafter. If a person having held the vacant position was a member of a political party at the time of election, the person appointed by the County Executive shall be the nominee of the County Central Committee of that party. An appointee shall serve for the unexpired term of the previous member. Any member appointed to fill a vacancy shall meet the same qualifications and residence requirements as the previous member.

Chair of Council's Education Committee Quits Council

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/montgomery-council-member-ervin-resigns-to-head-non-profit-for-working-families/2013/12/09/4394e740-5ec6-11e3-95c2-13623eb2b0e1_story.html

Valerie Ervin likes MCPS Charter School Contract Binding Parents to Fundraising

Montgomery County Council member Valerie Ervin likes the fact that the MCPS Charter School requires parents to sign a contract. But, has Councilmember Ervin ever seen the contract that MCPS Charter School parents are required to sign?

The MCPS Charter School contract requires parents to sign that they will participate in the annual fundraising! 

Why does Councilmember Ervin think that requiring parents and guardians to participate in fundraising for a publicly supported school is appropriate?

  Parent Agreement by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Breaking News: Council MOLD Hearing for 1 MCPS School Thursday

You remember the County Council? The group that says:

 "The County Council's involvement with MCPS is largely limited to appropriating its funds." ~ Councilmember George Leventhal 

and does as little as possible to exert any oversight over MCPS.

Well, through some freak of nature (must be a Halloween trick) the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee has found a way to speak up.  Tomorrow, the Education Committee is holding a committee meeting devoted to ONE SCHOOL and ONE issue at that school!

Now take a look at the way the Council set up this hearing. Here was how the hearing was listed on the Committee's Agenda:

Discussion - School Facility Maintenance Policies and Practices

But, the meeting is going to be about one school's issue with mold.  Take a look at the packet that has been released for this meeting.  The Council is even permitting a parent from Rolling Terrace Elementary School to sit at the table for this discussion.

Other MCPS schools with mold issues? Where is your seat at the table?

Obviously, when the County Council wants to insert themselves into the operation of MCPS facilities they know how to do it.

BOE Stiffs Council on Information Request

On March 20, 2013, the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee asked the Board of Education for some very basic information. See pages Circle 1-3 in the document below.
Here was the question:

For each year since 2003, please provide: 

• The number of requests for privately funded facility improvements MCPS has received;

• The number approved and disapproved; and

• A list of projects approved and disapproved.

It is now July.  Did the Board of Education provide that information to the Council?

NO!  The Board of Education provided the Council with the list of approved projects only for FY 2011, FY 2012 and part of FY 2013.  What happened to 2003 through 2010?  Records lost? What about the disapproved projects? Shredded?

Even worse is that Council staff covers for the Board of Education by glossing over the failure to respond in the meeting packet (below) prepared for Councilmembers.

We are now seeing a clear pattern on the part of the Board of Education of ignoring Council Education Committee requests for information.

MCPS Surplus? Council questions go unanswered at hearing and hearing must be re-scheduled.  Charter School? Council questions can't be answered and hearing must be re-scheduled.  Facility Improvements from parents and private sources? See the packet below.

The Council's Education Committee is now in a pattern of re-scheduling hearings on MCPS topics because of the failure of the Board of Education and MCPS to show up and respond.

  20130722_ED1 by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Exclusive: Why doesn't the Council Have This Document?

On Monday, July 22, 2013, the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee claims they will be reviewing the one and only MCPS Board of Education charter school. For their meeting Council staff prepares a "packet" of information for Councilmembers.

What's in the Monday "packet" for this discussion?  Fluff from the charter school vendor.  Is that what Council review is about? Letting vendors put on a show?

Well, if the Council was really interested in providing some oversight they would start by reviewing the Charter School Agreement that was executed between the Board of Education and the charter school vendor.  But, the Council can't review that document because they don't have it.

But, we do.

Here is the Charter School Agreement for the MCPS Board of Education's one and only charter school.  Maybe its time the Council's Education Committee read this document and exercised some real oversight over the almost $700,000 in tax dollars this school will receive this year?

  CMCS Charter by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

  Crossway Charter School Application Montgomery County MD 2011 by freestategal

Charter School Needs to Raise $500,000 Annually to Stay Afloat

What kind of a public school is MCPS' one and only Charter School that it needs to raise $500,000 every year to stay open?  Is this how MCPS runs all of its public schools?  Why was a Charter School allowed to open if they didn't have sufficient funds to be sustainable?

Families at the Community Montessori Charter School have been told that $500,000 needs to be raised.  
What does this mean to those families?  What burden does it put on them now that they have enrolled their child in what they thought was a MCPS public school?

Are the Board of Education and the County Council monitoring this fundraising?  

See #5 on this document from the Community Montessori Charter School:

  Community Montessori Charter School by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

$9 MILLION for non-monitored "security" systems this year in MCPS

If you read the ‪#‎MoCo‬ County Council Ed Committee memo from July 8, 2013, a TOTAL of $8.996 (just call it $9) MILLION will be spent on non-monitored "security" systems this year.

Just $5.86 Million discussed at this specific (July 8th) meeting: $4.186 MILLION in State taxpayer funds PLUS $1.674 MILLION County borrowed (i.e., money will have to be repaid with interest so actually costing MORE) thru GO Bonds, of which $1.5 MILLION is a shifting of planned monies from FY16-18 to FY15.

Nothing like borrowing from the future!

Oh, if you're counting, that other $3.16 MILLION is already coming from County coffers (but who's counting).

---Great financial leadership there---

Agnes Jones Trower

Criminalizing Children at School

Last Thursday, April 18th, the MoCo County Council's Education Committee and Public Safety Committee spent time discussing the issue of placing School Resource Officers (SROs) in public schools across Montgomery County.  The staff report is here.  Coincidentally, on the same day, a Montgomery Blair HS student was tasered by an SRO, and was sent to the hospital as a result.

Do the citizens of Montgomery County want SROs in the public schools here?

Below is an excerpt from an editorial in The New York Times, from April 18th.  to read the entire editorial, go here.

The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation’s schools. But a growing body of research suggests that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal.

Stationing police in schools, while common today, was virtually unknown during the 1970s. Things began to change with the surge of juvenile crime during the ’80s, followed by an overreaction among school officials. Then came the 1999 Columbine High School shooting outside Denver, which prompted a surge in financing for specially trained police. In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1 percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent.

The belief that police officers automatically make schools safer was challenged in a 2011 study that compared federal crime data of schools that had police officers with schools that did not. It found that the presence of the officers did not drive down crime. The study — by Chongmin Na of The University of Houston, Clear Lake, and Denise Gottfredson of the University of Maryland — also found that with police in the buildings, routine disciplinary problems began to be treated as criminal justice problems, increasing the likelihood of arrests.

And:

The criminalization of misbehavior so alarmed the New York City Council that, in 2010, it passed the Student Safety Act, which requires detailed police reports on which students are arrested and why. (Data from the 2011-12 school year show that black students are being disproportionately arrested and suspended.)

Achievement Gap Questions that will not be answered on Monday, March 18th

Here is the Montgomery County Council's Staff Packet for the Council's Education Committee meeting with the BOE and MCPS staff on Monday, March 18, 2013 concerning the just released Council Report on the Achievement Gap in MCPS.  (Yes, this is the gap that Superintendent Jerry Weast has told the world he closed.  Apparently, it re-opened.)  

These are the 3 questions that Council staff have suggested that Councilmembers Valerie Ervin, Phil Andrews and Craig Rice should ask the BOE and MCPS staff.  Will the questions even be asked? If they are, will the Councilmembers take smoke and mirrors as answers?

(We know this topic won't be discussed.)

The complete Council Staff packet is shown below in Scribd.

Issue #1: Discuss with MCPS representatives how the school system establishes its funding priorities for closing the achievement gap and how MCPS' FY14 budget request reflects these priorities.


Issue #2: Ask MCPS representatives to describe the school system's explicit expectations for achieving progress in closing the achievement gap based on current trends and planned investments. 


Issue #3: Discuss with representatives of MCPS, Montgomery County Government, and community-based groups how they envision their roles working together to eliminate the achievement gap. 

  20130318_ED1 by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Lead Level Up 8 Times in New FieldTurf Artificial Turf

Today, the Montgomery County Council will unanimously approve another 120 tons of ground up rubber waste and a football sized sheet of plastic to be installed at Wootton High School.   Yes, the vote will be unanimous. Why not?  Congratulations to the Wootton High School neighbors and the folks downstream from the 120 tons of ground up rubber.  Look for little rubber pellets in your streams soon! (FieldTurf swears  the little rubber pellets never leave the field. But, we know the truth.)

In 2011, Councilmember Hans Riemer asked MCPS' James Song for the lead levels in the MCPS artificial turf that was already installed.  Now, you may think that when a Councilmember asks a question they get a response.  You would be wrong.  It's now 2013 and MCPS has never released any lead testing for it's 4 artificial turf football fields.

However, M-NCPPC has tested two of its artificial turf football fields, Blair High School (it's on park land) and the new Wheaton plastic field. 

Here's what we know:

Blair High School - Testing done by  EMSL Analytical in Westmont, New Jersey in 2009

What was tested:
Plastic Grass 

Wheaton Sports Pavillion - Testing done by Analytical Industrial Research Laboratories in Cleveland, Tennessee (no date)

What was tested:
Plastic grass
Ground up rubber infill (Nike Grind)
Underlayment
Backing

To date, M-NCPPC has only released the lead content information for the following:

Blair - Plastic grass

Wheaton - Ground up rubber infill (Nike Grind)

Therefore, we cannot compare the total lead levels of the fields.  

All we know is that the lead level for the Nike Grind ground up rubber is 8 times the lead level of the Blair plastic grass.  The lead level in FieldTurf artificial turf has gone up, not down! And, it is certainly not lead-free as one Councilmember thinks is required in California. 

What we need is the TOTAL lead in all of the components of EACH field. Especially now that the CDC has lowered what is considered a dangerous level of lead in children.  The CDC now says there is no level of lead exposure that is considered safe for children. 

Odds of ever getting the information on the total lead level in each of the MCPS and M-NCPPC plastic football fields? 

1.1 million to 1

Guest Post: Why does FieldTurf have this unreasonable usage restriction in its warranty?

The Parents' Coalition received the following comment from a source in the artificial turf industry.  The poor person doesn't realize that here in Montgomery County our elected officials can't do math and don't like facts.  But, they are trying anyway to get across a point.  So here is their comment: 

Does everyone realize Wootton High School students will only be able to use the field for a max of 2000 hours per year?  According to the deal, the Bethesda Soccer Club is paying $900,000 of the approx. $1.1 million in return for 900-1000 hours / year of use.  The FieldTurf warranty only covers use up to 3,000 hours per year.  A copy of the warranty is part of the Towson University document package that was posted about 1 month ago on the site. 

Let's assume the field is used 300 days per year.  That leaves barely 6 hours per day of use for Wootton students when you also take the 150 hours / year use promised for community use.  If you base the usage on 365 days that leaves 5 hours / day for Wootton students.  Same for Walter Johnson HS students since this "deal" was modeled after that one.  Is this even more than the existing grass field??  Clearly, the actual use will exceed the maximum usage allowed by the FieldTurf and the warranty will be as useless as a screen door on a submarine... 

Why does FieldTurf have this unreasonable usage restriction in its warranty?  Why wouldn't Montgomery County consider other less expensive synthetic turf vendors that do not have this restrictive language in their warranties?  What happens in 8 yrs (if it lasts that long) when the field will need to be removed, disposed and replaced?  Who assumes that very significant cost?  I doubt the Bethesda Soccer Club will be picking up the 500k tab to remove, dispose and replace the turf.  How can the members of the Board of Education neglect to take these very high future costs into consideration?

...given fully rational fund managers reasons to jump off the proverbial cliff...

City AM:  Don’t scare away signs of life in City flotations market

...When it comes to the experiences of UK investors in new issues, though, foreign-owned companies aren’t the only ones to have given fully rational fund managers reasons to jump off the proverbial cliff. 

Those who bought shares at the time of the flotations of Ocado, the internet grocer, Promethean World, the whiteboard maker, and Betfair, the internet gaming group, for example, all have reason to rue the new issues market without having gone anywhere near a company owned or controlled by a foreign tycoon...

Love Fest: MCPS and County Council Education Committee

Here's video of the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee November 5, 2012 hearing where they "grilled" MCPS about the proposal to spend $14.5 million dollars of taxpayer funds without any contracts or documentation.
It's your money, here's how the County Councilmembers treat requests by MCPS to spend without documentation.

Superintendent recommends against planning board that county council change policy

Gazette:  Montgomery school facility payments back up for debate

...Starr will recommend to the Montgomery County Board of Education on Thursday that it ask the County Council to change its policy that restricts the way the school system spends money it gets from developers that build in crowded areas.
Starr wrote in a memo to the board that he wants the school system to be able to spend the money, known as school facility payments, “more broadly” in the county, and not just in the area, or school cluster, they are collected.
Some of those who were opposed to the change before still say they are not budging, including County Councilwoman Valerie Ervin (D) of Silver Spring.
Ervin said she hadn’t yet reviewed Starr’s recommendations, but it did not sound like a workable solution.
“It gives the school system full authority and full responsibility to determine in a subjective way where the funds get spent,” Ervin said. “I think that would be very difficult for the council to agree on that.”...

Guest Post: LTISD pays Fieldturf $779k / MCPS pays Fieldturf $1.1mil for same thing

...The field turf is a separate project and was $779,307, with a total of five bids coming in for the project with FieldTurf winning the bidding...

http://laketravisview.com/2012/08/01/new-turf-baseball-lights-press-box-projects-complete-at-lake-travis/

Note - the 779k is a turnkey price.  Includes the sub-base and turf field.  It is also for FieldTurf's new upgraded "Revolution" product...

Where did the extra $300k go?  This is what happens when you circumvent a proper competitive bid process.

Here's a closer example!   

...As per the motion, the board entered into contracts with Field Turf to install the artificial surface ($699,000)...

http://www.tnonline.com/2012/feb/14/turf-field 

just 187 miles north of Montgomery County but they pay $400k less...

--------------

The Parents' Coalition received this Guest Post on the issue of MCPS' sole source arrangement for purchases of artificial turf.  The Montgomery County Council has already held their "hearing" on artificial turf procurement. Cost is not an issue for the Montgomery County Council.