Charter Schools coming to MontGoCo?

Charter Schools have long been thought of as an alternative to failing schools. So why would someone try to establish a charter school in well-regarded Montgomery County? Well, because when it comes to education, one size doesn't fit all.

Crossway Community, which has been in Kensington for 20 years, operates a preschool Montessori program and a residential program for single mothers and their children. As research has shown, the longer those programs continue, the greater the benefit for low-income children, Guinan said. That made adding an elementary school more attractive.

"We've talked about it for many, many years," she said.

The other proposal, Global Gardens, is being spearheaded by two Montgomery educators who want a school with small class sizes and an IB curriculum, which emphasizes cross-cultural connections.

[Washington Post]

Summer School impact begins

Yesterday morning, WAMU aired a brief story about this year's loss of High School summer school in Loudoun.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, some parents who weren't keeping a close eye on the school district's budget process are finding out that summer school won't be an option for high-schoolers this year. Last year in Loudoun, about 70 seniors relied on summer school to graduate. Hughes says the district is still exploring whether other counties will have room for seniors and other students who need summer school this year.

[WAMU] [Audio]

Lunch Ladies in the News

I'm in the cafeteria once a week, so the Cafeteria Hostesses are familiar faces to me. They're not visible to most parents, which is a shame because they do set the tone for a key part of every kid's day.

Many thanks to the Loudoun Times Mirror for its profiling of this under-appreciated troupe, though I do believe the reporter was more taken aback by the chaos of the cafeteria than most parents would be.

How would you like to have 890 elementary school kids over for lunch every day? Is “dumpster diving” your thing? Do you mind getting food and unidentifiable goo in your hair? Can you deal with sneezes and coughs right in the face? Can you cater to every culinary whim or request in a boisterous, stuffy room?

[Loudoun Times Mirror]

Earth Day @ Loudoun 2010

Interview with Barry Lee on WINC 92.5FM, Earth Day, April 22nd 2010.

LCPS Furlough FAQ

LCPS has posted an LCPS Furlough FAQ on its website.

For the record, and in response to many emails and comments, I oppose furloughs on principle. Neither I nor any of my colleagues are happy with the budget outcome. None of us, given the opportunity to craft a budget individually, would have come up with this one. But that's the consequence of having nine independent voices, as was described in the Loudoun Independent:

Members wrestled all evening in their support for restoration of an item but opposition to the item that offset the restoration and/or opposed the item targeted for restoration but agreed to eliminate the identified item which provide the funding but in the end they just could not connect all the dots.

Further, I'd like to point out the following, from the same story:

With midnight fast approaching School Board Chairman John Stevens (Potomac) sought to recess the meeting and allow more time for budget reconciliation at a reconvened meeting another day. Stevens indicated he had several options he wished to bring forth and it was evident Sugarland School Board member Dr. Joseph Guzman had not given up on his fight to restore summer school, and School Board member Robert Ohneiser (Broad Run) had more motions to offer. But before members commented on Stevens notion to recess to a date to be determined Sterling School Board member Warren Geurin called for a vote on the original motion to adopt Hatrick’s revised list of budget cuts and approved amendments.

Parents Have Power: Course Selection

Third quarter grades are pending, students and their parents are looking ahead to next year. In secondary schools, initial course selection has been underway for a while, and with it recommendations from teachers and guidance counselors about what level of challenge each child is ready for in the next year. These aren't easy choices, and parents take these recommendations very seriously.

My family has found a troubling practice with our middle school kids over time: the consistent recommendation that our kids repeat any course in which they earn less than a 'B.' (I hope my kids will forgive me for revealing that they haven't yet achieved straight-As). This has happened for more than one child, and at more than one middle school. A child told to repeat a class is being told that she has failed. Lori & I feel very strongly that while a 'C' leaves much to be desired, it is not failure. We feel that a child who earns a 'C' in a class the first time will be terribly bored in the class the second time around.

When we ask where these recommendations come from, we are rarely told "this is my recommendation." We are usually told various forms of "this is what we do", "this is what is done," "this is our practice," "this is policy." That last one always gets my attention.

Lori & I are so alarmed by this that I asked whether this was indeed LCPS policy or practice. I got an unequivocal "no" from the very highest authorities, Superintendent Ed Hatrick and Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Sharon Ackerman. Repeating a course simply on the basis of a 'C' average is not considered best practice. This is not endorsed by LCPS. I quote Mrs. Ackerman's response to me below:

"This is absolutely not the official position of the school system. Please
encourage any parent being told this to contact me."

How's that for certainty? Mrs. Ackerman is working now to ensure that teachers, principals and guidance counselors are fully aware of this. With this, I am working to ensure that parents are fully aware.

Each time Lori & I have received a recommendation to repeat a class due to a 'C' average, we have protested and insisted on placement at the next higher level. But I have to tell you that pushing back against those recommendations wasn't easy. And I have to think that if rejecting those recommendations is difficult for us, it will be even more difficult for most parents and impossible for some. So I want you to know that you have every right to determine what courses are best for your child.

As a parent, you make the decisions about what courses your child will take next year. You are the best judge of whether your child is ready for the next level or not. You have the right to change your child's course selections for several weeks still, even if you have already submitted your course selections.

If you encounter resistance to your choice of courses for your student because of a 'C' average, contact Sharon Ackerman, Assitant Superintendent for Instruction, and let her know. And then make your own decision with confidence, knowing that you are the most important educator in your childs life.

The Mythical Days of Savings

There have been a number of speakers and commenters who think the School Board overlooked an opportunity to save millions of dollars without impacting anyone by simply closing schools a week early next year. It is a key bit of misinformation spread by the local anti-education conspiracy theorists, and is approaching the point of urban legend among the many education supporters who have followed the budget debate closely.

It is true that there are some costs associated simply with having schools open... fuel for bus routes, electricity to turn the lights on. But LCPS doesn't spend millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a day on diesel fuel and electricity. The vast majority of the cost of running the school system is in the salaries of the people who work there, and that is no different on a day-to-day level than it is annually. The option to close school for five days and thereby save lots of money is the option to not pay any LCPS employees for those five days.

Day of Silence

Many LCPS students, including two of my daughters, are observing the National Day of Silence today.

On the National Day of Silence hundreds of thousands of students nationwide take a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools.

I fully support them.

Monroe Tech offers MS Career Camp

Monroe Technology Center is pleased to offer its 5th annual Career Camp for rising 6, 7, and 8 graders. The camp dates are June 21-25, 2010 from 9:30 AM -1:00 PM. Transportation is provided through LCPS. Career Camp is an enrichment program within a variety of career cluster areas. The Career Camp allows students the opportunity for exploration and project-based learning including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum.

Forms with payment are due by June 4, 2010.

If you have additional questions, please direct them to Katharine Warehime, camp director.

katharine.warehime@loudoun.k12.va.us or 571-252-2080.

School Board passes FY2011 budget

The school board passed its FY2011 budget last night at midnight. The Board started with a proposal by the Superintendent and made three changes.

Notable from this year's budget:

• Increased average class size at all grade levels
  
• Eliminated 28 central office positions
• Eliminated two principal positions from the four smallest elementary schools
• Reduced funds for activity buses, field trips and competitions by one third
• Eliminated assistant athletic trainers
• Instituted two furlough days for all employees
• Eliminated proposed 1% cost of living adjustment for all employees
• Eliminated six high school librarian positions
• Set funding for instructional materials, supplies & equipment to last year's levels, so that they will be shared by over 3,000 more students and among two new high schools and a new elementary school.

There are many other items on the list, but these will be the most visible to parents. All will affect students.

Changes made by the board to the Superintendent's proposal:

• Restored freshman sports by changing the painting maintenance cycle for schools from once every 8 years to once every 11 years
  
• Restored Middle School Summer School with unspecified reductions in the instructional budget
• Restored High School Deans and the Assistant Athletic Directors at Woodgrove & Tuscarora High Schools

The JV lacrosse program was originally proposed for cut but was proposed for funding by the Superintendent prior as part of his final budget proposal.

Building bridges

[Leesburg Today]

Budget Survey

At Large Representative Tom Reed has set up an online survey regarding the budget:

http://bit.ly/as8E4R

The Paintbrush and the Pen

I tweeted recently that my inbox was full of thousand-dollar solutions to million-dollar problems. Some folks have reasonably reminded me that the little things add up. This is true, and LCPS employees have worked hard to find those little things to achieve savings in the past few years. Those efforts have resulted in a reduced need for property taxes during these difficult times.

LCPS employees have in fact found millions more in savings than the School Board has in so many small ways. Unfortunately a corporate board, in this case the School Board, makes changes with an broad paintbrush, not a fine-tipped pen. To do otherwise isn't management, it is micro-management, and everyone who has worked in an organization of any size knows that micro-management leads to waste and actions that make no sense... something government is well known for.

So the thousand-dollar suggestions, while important, must be heard and implemented by teachers and custodians and principals and bus drivers. Not by School Board members. Thankfully they are doing just that, every day, and they are a key reason why LCPS is recognized nationally as an efficient and effective school system.

Central Office Reductions

Many have asked where the Central Office cuts are in the Option #1 List.

1. 3 personnel in Administrative Technology: $208,000
2. 7 personnel in Instructional Technology: $446,000
3. 8 personnel in Support Services: $524,000

Per an email to a constituent from the Public Information Office:

This follows a year during which no administrators were added and several jobs were left vacant (despite adding more than 3,000 students). LCPS has only 7.9 percent of its employees in non-school-based positions, the second-lowest ratio in the Washington area.

Other Central Office reductions were included and remain in the original base budget, and in the previous year's budget.

LTM Video Interviews on SB Budget

Right off the bat D'Onofrio gets his facts wrong. He says that LCPS gets $714M in operating appropriation from the county, with debt service on top of that. The actual local tax funding for LCPS operating budget this year is $452M.

At the 1:40 mark he gives Del. Greason and Sen. Herring the lion's share of the credit for the LCI change. The entire Loudoun delegation deserves full credit for this.

Catoctin SB Member Jen Bergel is very candid with some of her budget positions in this interview.

Budget Hearings

The School Board held a public hearing tonight on the proposed cuts to the school budget. We used a modified format, spending the first hour off the dais listening to and responding to the people who had come to speak. I got very good feedback from Board members afterwards, and one speaker who thanked us for the time spent in dialogue received wide applause from the audience.

Before we began, I spoke on behalf of the Board:

Many of you are here tonight in defense of a program or a position that you hold dear. We want you to know that we hold them dear too. While each board member has individual views about individual matters, as a board we hold that every job and every employee and every program at LCPS is important to kids. If it we felt something wasn’t important to kids, we wouldn’t have it to begin with. We agree
that cutting them will affect kids.

There are a few facts we want you to know:

• The entire central office budget is less than the size of the cut we need to make
• There are no white boards in the budget, and very little technology spending at all
• There are no new initiatives in the budget
• There is no $20M reserve fund

None of us are enthusiastic about the choices we face. We do not have good options, easy answers or painless solutions. Our choices range from bad to worse. This is not a budget that we can balance by tinkering around the edges. We know how important your schools are to you, we appreciate that you have taken the time to be with us and to write to us, and we are here to listen.

We hold another public hearing on Monday April 12th, I have asked the Board whether they want to repeat the new format. We will vote on the final budget on Tuesday April 13th.

Belmont Ridge High School?

[Loudoun Independent]

Your thoughts?

Hearing the Public

Public hearings are notoriously frustrating experiences. They go on forever as each person speaks one at a time. Board members sit stone faced, unable to respond. Speakers repeat themselves ad nauseum because they can't know if we "get it." We cannot ask a follow-up question, express support for their point of view, or disabuse them of a poorly informed notion.

So on Thursday April 8th we will try something more interactive. For the first hour of the public hearing, from 6:30-7:30, we will come down from the dais and dialogue with the people who have come to talk us. Each board member can sit in a different corner of the conference room, or in different rooms on the first floor. Board members may sit in pairs but must not sit in groups of three or more.

This is an opportunity to hear from multiple speakers simultaneously, an opportunity for two-way communication, an opportunity for people who aren’t comfortable speaking on microphone to the whole room, an opportunity for questions and answers that public hearings don't typically allow. The public hearing at the podium will follow but I suspect that many people, having already been heard on a more individual level, will pass. I hope that this will lead to a shorter and more productive public hearing.