Year: 2015

Weekend News Roundup: Budget, International Schools, Purple Line

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The Board of Education adopted a reconciled budget for fiscal year 2016, but not without some tense discussion about the new international schools. (Washington Post)

The Office of Communications has confirmed that two International High Schools for English Language Learners will open this fall, one at Largo High School and the other at the Annapolis Road Academy. (PGCPS)

A county teenager was shot multiple times in an Oxon Hill park. He survived the attack and was listed in good condition at the hospital yesterday. (WUSA 9)

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Consulting Firm Recommends 29 School Closures and $8.5 Billion Over 20 Years in Capital Improvements

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

Prince George’s County Public Schools should spend $8.5 billion over 20 years on capital improvement projects — including school construction, modernization, and renovation — according to recommendations made by the consulting firm Brailsford and Dunlavey. Recommendations also included 29 school closures.

What is the Master Plan Support Project?

In the fall of 2014, PGCPS began its Master Plan Support Project (MPSP), as part of an effort to optimize its capital improvements. The facilities planning and program management firm Brailsford and Dunlavey was hired to study facility conditions and make recommendations on prioritizing school construction and renovation projects.

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PGCPS Administration Suspends MUST Exams for Coming School Year

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Teachers who have complained about too much standardized testing received a welcome announcement today. In a memorandum dated June 23, Deputy Superintendent Shawn Joseph announced that students would no longer be required to take Mandatory Unit Systemic 100_3401Tests (MUST) assessments. (See the full memorandum at the end of the post.)

Previously, both reading and mathematics MUST exams were administered at least twice during the school year to students, beginning in third grade and continuing through high school. (See one local middle school’s testing calendar here.) The recommendation to eliminate MUST tests came from the Assessment Cross-Functional Team, a team that was established by PGCPS to find ways to  reduce the amount of county-mandated standardized testing.

This announcement comes on the heels of last month’s decision by the PARCC Governing Board to reduce test time and consolidate testing windows. In the last legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly approved a commission to review Maryland’s standardized testing system.

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What Does Your Child’s School Breakfast Look Like?

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by Li’l Dan Celdran and Genevieve Demos Kelley

Maryland Meals for Achievement (MMFA) is a program that offers breakfast in the classroom to all students at participating schools, regardless of family income. During the 2014-2015 school year, 78 schools in Prince George’s county and 473 schools in Maryland participated. Harvard University researchers have found that classroom breakfast has a positive impact on academics and behavior. (Read more about MMFA here.)

Here are photographs of three breakfasts served in a PGCPS kindergarten classroom during the week of May 18-22, 2015.

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May 21, 2015: Golden Grahams, cinnamon crisps, fresh apple, juice, milk

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The Evolving FY 2016 Budget: The Requested Budget is Not Fully Funded, So What Happens Now?

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

Confused about PGCPS’s evolving FY 2016 budget? Here’s a summary of the budget’s trajectory — and what happens next — with links to the relevant documents and news articles:

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Few Students Needing Special Services Attend Prince George’s Charter Schools and Specialty Programs

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

Data from the 2014 Maryland Report Card suggest that Prince George’s County’s public charter schools and specialty programs do not fully reflect the demographics of the county school system, serving significantly fewer elementary school1 students who qualify for special services than the PGCPS average.

As of 2014, about 70% of Prince George’s County elementary school students qualified for free and reduced meals (FARMs). Students with limited English proficiency and students receiving special education made up 20.9% and 10.4%, respectively, of the county’s elementary school students. But the demographics of the county’s public charter schools and lottery specialty programs look substantially different.

In the charts below, both generated from the long table at the end of the post, each of PGCPS’s elementary and K-8 schools is represented by a single point. Points colored in red represent public charter schools, while points colored in black represent the lottery specialty programs: French immersion schools, Montessori schools, and schools for the performing arts2. In the first chart, points farther to the right indicate schools with a higher percentage of FARMs qualifying elementary students. Points closer to the top of the chart indicate a higher percentage of limited English proficient students.

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Scatter plot showing the percentages of FARMs and LEP elementary students for all of PGCPS’s elementary and K-8 schools. Points in red represent charter schools; black represents specialty programs.

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Parent Asks Board of Education for Longer Recess

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The following opinion was presented by Genevieve Demos Kelley, a member of Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools, in the public comment portion of the May 14, 2015 Board of Education meeting. Much of the content here is sourced from a post published on this blog that Kelley had written previously.

Good evening. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about an issue that has been the topic of countless playground conversations, PTA meetings, and gripe sessions among the parents in my community: the length of recess for elementary school students. According to PGCPS policy, elementary students may have as little as 15 minutes of recess per day. Among my circle of friends, this is a favorite complaint. One of my friends has even decided to start home-schooling her son, in part because he was not getting enough unstructured time in his kindergarten year.

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A Local Parent Raises Questions about Cell Tower Deal

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This piece is contributed by Theodora Scarato, a Prince George’s County parent who has helped to organize Safe Schools for Prince George’s County, an advocacy group that opposes cell towers on school grounds. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of Prince George’s County Advcoates for Better Schools.

The Prince George’s County School Cell Tower Deal

Seventy-three Prince George’s County Schools are now available as cell tower sites by the Board of Education. Several towers are in the process of permitting and construction. Many parents hear about this plan and instinctively think that it’s a bad idea.

Over the last year, I have worked with parents, homeowner asociations, and community organizations that are opposed to these towers. Here is what I learned. I have more questions than answers.

The cell tower agreement is a no-bid deal. A Virginia-based company (not minority-owned), Milestone Communications, is the only company that has a leasing deal for towers with Prince George’s County Schools. This agreement was made without bids or RfPs for the best price. There was no competition considered. Why does only Milestone get the leases? How was this no-bid deal hatched?

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Board of Education Meeting Minutes Available Online

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

The online location for minutes of past Board of Education meetings isn’t exactly intuitive. Try scrolling through BoardDocs, or try entering the phrase “minutes of board of education meetings” into the search bar at pgcps.org (with or without specifying a meeting date), and see if you can figure out where to find them.

The minutes, however, are easily accessible if you know precisely where to look. Go to the Board of Education page, and open BoardDocs. Scroll through to find the next Board of Education meeting after the one that you’re interested in. Open the agenda for that meeting, and scroll through to find the item, “Approval of Board Meeting Minutes.” Click on the icon to open the document.

For example, find the minutes for the April 16, 2015 System Oversight Board Meeting by looking in the May 14 Board Meeting agenda.

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Teen Who Stabbed Classmate at Frederick Douglass HS was Bullied, Student Says

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From NBC 4, Tracee Wilkins and Andrea Swalec, June 3, 2015. For the full story, go here.

The 14-year-old boy accused of stabbing a 16-year-old classmate at a Maryland high school Tuesday morning was fed up with relentless bullying, a student who witnessed the incident said.

The student who reportedly stabbed another teen tried to avoid a fight but defended himself when the other youth refused to back down, a student at Frederick Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro told NBC4.

Continue reading and watch the video at NBC 4.