Petition: Keep Mr. Maddox (Music Teacher) at Sherwood High School

We are facing a cut of our music classes and music program at Sherwood High School.  Due to low enrollment, the administration is planning to cut Mr. Maddox from the music teaching staff at Sherwood.  Please help us show Sherwood and MCPS that Mr. Maddox and the music program(s) are an important part of the Sherwood curriculum.

Encourage your children to elect to take music classes - guitar, chorus, etc., at Sherwood.  Tell MCPS and Sherwood HS how much you value the role of music in the school and in the community. 

Keep Rock-N-Roll Revival alive!

If enrollments don't increase, Mr. Maddox's position is slated to be eliminated starting this Fall 2022.  Please encourage your kids to enroll in music classes at Sherwood HS.  We must stop the termination to keep music alive at Sherwood HS.

Please sign our petition, write to the school, write to the School Board.

Christophe_Turk@mcpsmd.org

Timothy_D_Britton@mcpsmd.org

https://www.change.org/p/montgomery-county-public-schools-keep-mr-maddox-music-teacher-at-sherwood-high-school?fbclid=IwAR3k8Fr0Sh5yD7g3zL6w6HkSSZFchOSFN9LOPea9clG3TxzKYc5hHN_f7yU

Lets do lunch - and please have your boss sign a letter supporting my sewer

To be fair, its not clear whether Linda Adams had lunch with Emily Rales or whether she just got her own private tour of the mansion posing as an art museum.

But - what is clear from reading the emails provided in a request under the Maryland Public Information Act, is this:

1. Linda Adams, the MCPS Supervisor for Arts visited Glenstone with Elizabeth Stuart, another MCPS staff member (see March 16 2012 email)

2. She was so excited that she shared this information with Brian Edwards (on March 19 email from Adams)

3. The Glenston-MCPS collaboration is exciting, but

4. Could Josh Starr please help out and write a letter (March 19 email from Emily Rales)

Note that the collaboration at this time simply involves a visit between Linda Adams and Emily Rales. No student visits, no teacher visits, nothing but a promise.   Unless you count the September party Mitch Rales held to welcome Josh to the County.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if any MCPS parent could get a simple request before Dr. Starr by simply inviting him or someone from MCPS over for a cup of coffee?

Lesson to MCPS parents and staff.  Next time you have a request, invite Josh or one of his staffers to your home for a visit, and you can ask for anything.
2012 Glen Stone 4

Starr: "I am not dealing with specific issues until after the New Year,"

Gaithersburg Patch:  Starr: 'It Doesn't Have To Be Either Or'

Who will save the music at Silver Spring International Middle School?

Just a day after posting congratulations to our award-winning music programs, we learned about the following unacceptable changes to the Silver Spring International Middle School choral program for next year. We hope that it isn't too late to try to undo these decisions.

We have learned that:

* After 3 years of building up a terrific choral program, Dr. Dillon (Chorus teacher) has been involuntarily reassigned to an elementary school.

* The already part-time choral position has been downsized from 3 classes to 2 classes for next year.

* The 6th grade chorus -- which took 2 years to implement, and which just had a successful first year -- has been cut for next year.

* The remaining classes of General Chorus and 6th Grade General Music Rotation (a class every quarter) have not yet been filled by a teacher. At this date the county will most likely place someone in this position since there has not been a teacher chosen by the school. The concern is that if this position is not filled, then the remaining classes could be cut altogether. Also the person placed may or may not be a good fit.

* We will most likely also lose Chamber Singers or After School Chorus. Whoever fills the choral music position will most likely be working at more than one school, so their availability for after school activities (Chamber Singers, Musicals, Talent Show, etc) will be limited.

* Incoming 6th graders from the elementary schools are probably not aware that there will be no chorus waiting for them in the 6th grade like this year. Closing this gap at the middle school is crucial to keeping the vitality and love of singing alive and well into the high school level. [Members of the instrumental and choral music program traveled to a number of feeder elementary schools this spring, to perform for 5th graders and encourage them to sign up for music at SSI for 6th grade.]

Our Treble Choir (a mix of students from the General Chorus, 6th Grade Chorus, and Chamber Singers) took FIRST PLACE at a Nationally recognized competition. A 6th grade choral soloist from Silver Spring International Middle School won the overall Best Vocalist award.

Please help save our Chorus!

Signed,

Concerned Silver Spring International Middle School Parents

Weast bills students for 267 hours of security personnel

In an online article (see link below) from Montgomery Blair's student newspaper Silver Chips we learn that Superintendent Jerry Weast bills students for school security. 

The article details that MCPS had been holding on to "bills" for 3 years for security personnel on duty during Blair's theatrical productions. The "bills" have now appeared and are being charged to this year's students. 

Blair must do a lot of productions because the hourly rate for MCPS security is $30. An $8,000 bill equals 267 hours of security personnel. 

Apparently, Superintendent Weast has forgotten that student accounts are to be reconciled each year. That is, student fees are to go into the Independent Activity Funds at each school and be used for the students in the school that year. That is Superintendent Weast's own regulation enacted in 2008. 

At Blair, Superintendent Weast is attempting to charge current students for past years debts.  

This incident also shows how some schools are penalized. Do all MCPS high schools require 267 hours of security for theater productions? In 4 years as the parent of a thespian at Churchill High School I never saw school security at a production. 

Do some schools require more security personnel on hand for after school activities than other schools? Is it fair to bill the students for this staffing cost? 

Clearly, making students pay for school security puts some schools in a worse financial position than others when putting on after school theatrical productions. The schools that need more security have to do the productions that cost less to put on and have lower or zero script and music fees.  

At schools like Whitman High School some school security costs are picked up by the PTSA. Clearly an advantage to having a well endowed PTSA. 

Will any MCPS administrator stand up for this year's Blair theater students and protest this outrageous bill that is taking away from this year's production budget?

Of course not. 

Meanwhile, MCPS administrators are ordering lunch and dinner and charging their meals to taxpayers via MCPS American Express "procurement" cards.

"Let them eat cake."

*****

Silver Chips Online:

Drama department faces deep debt

County sends invoices spanning three years

The [Montgomery Blair High School] drama department is currently $8,000 in debt to Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) for play security personnel invoices that have not been paid in three years, according to Blair Financial Specialist Donna Franklin. Drama department head Kelly O'Connor was notified of the debt in the fall...

...In June 2009, MCPS began sending bills to the drama department dating back to 2006...

...Without knowledge of the security invoices, O'Connor gradually overspent on materials for stage productions...

Wasted school space - 10 years and counting

Imagine a 1,200 seat auditorium, 10,400 square feet of public school space left to rot.

That's exactly what happened in Montgomery County in 1999, the year that Blair High School moved to its new location in Silver Spring and Jerry Weast became MCPS' Superintendent. The old Blair High School was converted into two schools, but the 1,200 seat old Blair High School auditorium was shuttered and left to deteriorate.

Superintendent Jerry Weast and 10 years of Board of Education members have refused to make use of the space.  The cost? Originally it would have been closer to $1 million but now after years of neglect it would cost about the same as two artificial turf football fields.

It's easy to see what is a priority to Superintendent Weast and the Board of Education. You can read the 2006 Feasibility Report on the space, and take a look at the pictures from the report.

Remember that artificial turf is such a high priority to Superintendent Weast that MCPS is taking out a TEN YEAR LEASE to pay for the $1.2 million plastic grass at Walter Johnson High School.

But a 1,200 seat school auditorium for students? Not so much of a priority.

Here is today's update from the Gazette.

Gazette, Curtain Closing on Old Blair Auditorium Project

The Next Superintendent: The Humanities--Art and Music

Every Child is an Artist

--Pablo Picasso

In reading the Parents' Coalition’s Second Annual List of Course Fees I see that art classes are costed out and not free at the Montgomery County Public Schools. Let me repeat: our children who are artists are not allowed access to a free public education. They must pay to take their coursework, while children who are budding scientists or mathematicians receive a pass; their education is free. Our musicians too must pay a ‘dry cleaning’ fee at some schools in the county. Their education is not free either.

This discrimination against our children whose focus is on the Humanities is nothing new at MCPS. It still has the power to shock of course.

Our next superintendent must be an individual who values ALL of our children. She or he must be of some intellect, enough to recognize the humanity and value in Art and Music and the important role both play in our lives.

I am currently reading, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, by the noted physician, Oliver Sacks. His focus in this fascinating book is on the interaction of neurological conditions and music, such as musical hallucinations; amusia, the loss of the ability to ‘hear’ music as a comprehensive whole; perfect pitch; the inter-relationship between music and Parkinson ’s disease; music therapy, and the like. We know now that music is hardwired into our species, as is art. Archaeologists working in Europe have identified what appear to be the earliest musical instruments, some 40,000 years old. Similarly, art works that date to at least 30,000 years ago have been discovered throughout caves in Europe.

Stripping our public education system of art and music takes a toll on the lives of our children and our civic life; the quality of life we enjoy in Montgomery County will be lost if we continue down this path of public policy. Our next superintendent must be a person who values all our children, including the artists and musicians among them.

MCPS also stands for . . . Music Choral Programs Slashed

Another boutique program bites the dust - now its Music and Choral Programs Slashed by Dr. Weast and Co. Sorry, I just couldn't resist the irony.

Thanks to Kay Romero, MCCPTA President, and our activist friends in MCCPTA who are helping sort our the curricular fees issue, we now have insight into what curricular fees MCPS will request this September.

Big news - music and the arts have been slashed. No more fundraisers for oranges, cookies, magazines, concession stands, hot dogs, music videos, and the like because music festivals are now optional. Here is the language from the new MCPS Guidelines for curricular fees in high schools:

Please note the following for music students:

• A music festival is considered a field trip and students may be charged transportation and other associated fees but not in advance as a course fee.
• Students cannot be required to go to festivals.
• If a performance before an audience is needed to assess mastery, a concert should be held at the school.

What middle or high school music director wants to spend countless hours directing fundraisers for transportation to the county festivals? More class time for real instructional goals.

My kids middle school music director did not go willingly to the county festivals, now he can keep the kids home and only go to those festivals - Disney, Williamsburg, NY, etc, that he feels have greater benefit.

And - congrats to the high schools that can now tone down their fundraising efforts too. At least one high school that recently sent out a fundraising appeal because MCPS only provides $1000 of the $18,000 needed to run the program can now reassess its needs.

As many of us suspected all along, the value of these festivals was pretty negligible, after all, if participation had a true educational value, like the textbooks, MCPS would have found money in its budget to support participation by all students, not just the ones with the fatter checkbooks.