Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland: athletic fields

Showing posts with label athletic fields. Show all posts

Monday, December 29, 2014

City of Rockville to Lose 8.5 Acre Athletic Fields .@mocoboe .@mcpssuper .@Rockville411


Mark Twain Athletic Park at Ewing Center

Time to say good-bye to the 8.5 acre recreation area in the City of Rockville that is known as the Mark Twain Athletic Park. The Park is located at 14501 Avery Road in Rockville.

The City of Rockville constructed this park and maintains the facilities on Board of Education land.

The Board of Education and Superintendent Joshua Starr now have other plans for this Program Open Space land. They are going to park over 400 MCPS buses on these fields.

The Mark Twain Athletic Park is at the Blair Ewing Center school that the Superintendent and Board of Education want for bus parking because Montgomery County wants to put 2,200 housing units on the property that houses the current MCPS bus lot at Shady Grove.

County wants public land for developer, kicks MCPS bus depot off leased County land.

BOE and Superintendent move bus depot to athletic fields, kick kids off athletic fields.

Tell the kids this is called "Smart Growth."

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

BOE to Move Away From Modernizations, Back to Renovation and Maintenance of Existing Buildings

At today's Board of Education (BOE) meeting, the BOE will take up a revision to their Long Range Planning Policy. In the revised policy, the word "modernization" has been crossed out. In the place of the word "moderization" are the words "revitalization/expansion."

Also included in the proposed policy revision is this shocking paragraph that inserts a new goal for the MCPS Capital Budget:

Funds for systemic maintenance and replacement projects to sustain schools in good condition and extend their useful life

Parents have known for years that MCPS did not "sustain schools in good condition", but it is amazing to see that the BOE has to actually put that goal in print.

Shouldn't it have been an obvious goal of our public school system to sustain schools in good condition? Apparently it wasn't.

6 1 Policy FAA by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

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Principles

Formed in 2002, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.

E-mail: parentscoalitionmc AT outlook.com

What The Washington Post said about the Parents' Coalition

The coalition might be the best-known parent advocacy group in the region. Its members represent several constituencies, including parents of special education and gifted education students and fiscal watchdogs. The group's defining victory came this school year when the school system scaled back the fees charged to families for course materials.

Coalition leaders have drawn attention to the misuse of funds collected from students for activities, the broadcast of a commercial radio service on school buses and, with their "Weast Watch" blog, the travel habits of Weast and his lieutenants.

The Washington Post, June 4, 2009

Jerry Weast on the Parents' Coalition

"Along the way, you’ve had a challenging relationship with the Parents’ Coalition, the network of citizen activists who use the political process and other means to hold MCPS accountable.

The thing people accuse me of is listening, but not hearing. I hear, but I do not always agree. I am sorry that the world is faster than it was 10 years ago. I did not do that. [But] if we do not keep up, then our kids will be behind. We have to stop whining and get real."

Bethesda Magazine, March-April 2011