It’s just one element of the school district’s redistricting plan that would draw new boundaries in the state’s largest school district.
Throughout the meeting, parents held up signs and many wore tee shirts emblazoned with a large “W” featuring stars and stripes...
We are standing up as a sizable community of parents and advocates to ensure our voice is heard amid MCPS’ misguided, fast-tracked proposal to close Silver Spring International Middle School (SSIMS) and relocate Sligo Creek Elementary School (SCES).
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) announced a plan on October 13 to close Silver Spring International Middle School (SSIMS) in June 2030 and relocate Sligo Creek Elementary School (SCES) in August 2029, in order to repurpose the buildings into “holding” schools for other construction projects.
MCPS says this plan addresses a need for downcounty holding schools, that the buildings are no longer fit to be used as permanent facilities, and dropping enrollment is impacting school populations.
While there is a need for downcounty holding schools, there are alternatives to closing the only middle school in downtown Silver Spring. Further, close analysis of the plan shows that it is not data-driven, is fiscally irresponsible and counter to the principles laid out in the county’s Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan.
The timeline from MCPS proposal announcement to Board of Education vote is only five weeks—a fast-tracked schedule that severely limits community engagement. The process for this proposal and decision has been rushed without consultation with our community, contradicting MCPS’s own established policies for Facilities Planning.
We need our neighborhood schools! Our community and students deserve better.
We call on MCPS, Superintendent Taylor, County Executive Marc Elrich, and the Montgomery County Council to take all necessary steps to stop plans to convert SCES and SSIMS into holding schools, and make needed investments for our community’s students in the current facilities...
Superintendent Thomas W. Taylor has proposed massive changes to MCPS programs, boundaries, and facilities. Some of his many proposals have pushed parents all over the County to Petition the Board of Education for relief.
We will compile the current Petitions to the Board of Education in this post.
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Families in Brookeville are frustrated after recently finding out about two houses being turned into a residential treatment center next to Greenwood Elementary School.
Joy Brewington told WUSA9 she and her family have lived in the neighborhood for six years. She has five children who attend Greenwood Elementary...
...Community members created a petition to stop the opening of the facility...
Community feels blindsided by potential drug rehab center near elementary school | wusa9.com
Today we see an example of a consequence of the Board of Education delegating their authority.
According to a Tweet from the Albert Einstein High School football team, Seth Adams has made a decision to place classroom trailers on the Einstein High School tennis courts.
If true, obviously that decision wipes out the tennis team or any tennis instruction.
That's of no concern to Seth Adams. He's not an elected official and he's not accountable to anyone. His $172,885 salary is set.
The Board of Education can claim they don't know anything about this decision and ignore complaints from students.
Day 1: Hey @MCPS why are you taking away facilities from our school and community for more portables? Putting portables on tennis courts? Please provide and explanation and cite your evidence as to how this is equitable to our students
— AEHS Football (@AEHSfootball) May 17, 2023
The reason? Two simmering ballot-access cases that are scheduled to be resolved on Wednesday.
By statute, the board was supposed to approve November ballots 64 days before the election, which was Tuesday. But at an emergency meeting the panel voted unanimously to delay approval until Thursday, to give the courts time to resolve the two lawsuits.
...
The second case involves Paula Bienenfeld, a transit and education advocate who hoped to run for a seat on the Montgomery County Council as an independent...
With court cases pending, board delays approval of fall ballots by two days - Maryland Matters
Amid the recent surge of COVID cases in the country, specifically the omicron variant, it is unsafe to hold students in schools that do not mandate any social distancing and allow masks to be taken off.
A month ago, MCPS announced that if a school reached a student infection rate of 5 percent, the school would be reviewed by MCPS and the Department of Health and Human Services to go virtual for two weeks. County officials are scared now -- one day after winter break, 11 schools were above the 5% rate, and two days later, 126 schools were.
Not expecting this extreme upsurge, the county is scrambling now, trying to force us to stay in school, even though they know it is unsafe. Their justification? A social media interaction between the county and Mike Ricci, a spokesman for Governor Larry Hogan. Ricci said, “The 5% is not a metric for the suspension of in-person learning or a conversation about it, and should not be used that way by any school system.”
Larry Hogan: the governor who announced that Maryland is in a “state of emergency,” with COVID hospitalizations increasing by 500% due to omicron. We need to resist this hypocrisy and keep students and MCPS staff members safe, not to mention possibly immunocompromised family members.
https://www.change.org/p/mcps-board-of-education-we-need-virtual-learning-right-now
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Second Petition has 1,841 names:
MCPS has added yet another barrier to Black and Brown students, furthering economic and racial inequity across Montgomery County during a global health pandemic and economic crisis.
Parents are now being told that our children, as young as 5 and 6 years old, don't have the right to a public education if we don't have the financial means to replace faulty technology provided by the school system in the richest county in Maryland.
According to MCPS, Students and their families are now financially responsible for any intentional or accidental damage of any Chromebook loaned out to our children:
Petition:
We the undersigned are asking the Maryland PTA to:
1. Sever its sponsorship links with McDonald’s if those links require it to in any way promote the McDonald's brand or materials from McDonald's to children, teachers, parents or PTA members.
2. Send a statement to local PTAs in Maryland acknowledging the error of including these materials on the web site and stating that the fundamental mission of McDonald’s runs counter to the fundamental mission of schools, which includes educating children about good nutrition. In addition, this statement should clearly state that the Maryland PTA does not recommend the use of materials or speakers from McDonald’s for discussions of nutrition, nor fundraisers that promote foods of minimal nutritional value, such as teacher’s nights at McDonald’s.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/maryland-pta-end-your-partnership-with-mcdonalds.html
Those of us who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the Johnson land tract (26 acres near the corner of 124 and 28 in Gaithersburg, MD) have serious concerns about the latest development plan. The land currently sits in Montgomery County but Gaithersburg City is being petitioned by the owner and developers to annex the land to Gaithersburg City so that ground breaking could occur much sooner.
The plan would add HUNDREDS of additional houses, townhouses and condos (up to six stories high) to our neighborhood as well as add mixed use space for additional retail. The zoning change would allow bigger retail to take over that space increasing traffic to and through our neighborhoods. We do not want another Downtown Crown near our homes and schools.
We are already dealing with increasing amounts of traffic in this area, especially during the morning and evening commutes and after Quince Orchard HS school hours and events.
Many of us moved to Montgomery County --even though the price of homes were higher-- because it supposedly had top notch schools for our children. Now, our schools are already over capacity and our children are learning in portable classrooms. They have to walk outside--no matter the weather-- to get to the school's common areas. This already should be seen as a security concern in today's world. Class sizes keep rising while budgets remain flat or get cut.. We are supposed to be one of the best school districts in the country but with this level of growth, that will not continue.
Please help us keep this community enjoyable, safe for our drivers, and able to sustain quality education.
I urge you deny the annexation of this property and keep our neighborhoods from becoming overcrowded, over commercialized, and traffic ridden.
https://www.change.org/p/planning-gaithersburgmd-gov-20878-don-t-let-our-neighborhood-and-schools-become-overdeveloped-over-commercialized-and-traffic-ridden
We, the undersigned, request that efforts be made to provide high school students with a later bell time, but it should be accomplished in such a way that no elementary school should end later than 3:30pm.
Montgomery County's Curriculum 2.0 puts children who are at very different math achievement levels into the same classroom. All children learn the same math concepts at the same pace.
This one-size-fits-all programming fails all children, whether their achievement level is below-grade, on-grade or above-grade, for the simple reason that their teacher is expected to divide her time among each group. No child gets a full math period of instruction when the teacher divides the class into groups then teaches one group at a time while leaving the rest of the students to do self-guided worksheets or fill free-time.
Students at below-grade achievement levels need a full period of math instruction to improve as quickly as possible. Curriculum 2.0 does not provide it. A full period of math instruction enables children at on-grade achievement to master more material. Curriculum 2.0 slows them down. Students at above-grade achievement need above-grade instruction. Curriculum 2.0 provides only "enrichment" of on-grade concepts they have already mastered.
Our children deserve better. Tell the Board of Education that it must reform Curriculum 2.0 by signing the petition letter below.
Contact improvecurriculum2.0@gmail.com for more information.
http://www.change.org/petitions/no-time-to-waste-3
