Tag: PGCPS

Your Questions Answered: Board Member Addresses School Breakfasts, Special Education, Literacy, and Other Topics

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On June 15, Board of Education member Lupi Grady hosted a listening session at Greenbelt Middle School for parents in District Two. Parents used index cards to jot down questions and comments covering a variety of topics. The cards were collected at the end of the meeting.
Attendees recently received a compilation of questions from the meeting (more than two dozen in all), along with answers gathered from multiple administrative departments. The questions and answers are posted here with permission. Scroll to the bottom of the post to see additional comments from parents.

Family & Community Engagement

  • Can the PGCPS Family Engagement committees publicize their plan (calendar) for engaging communities?

All Board committee meetings are publicly announced. As the dates are determined for the upcoming school year, those dates will be placed on the Board calendar, which is posted on the PGCPS website.

  • I would like to know how to become involved with the Parent Advisory Council.

Any interested parties should contact Sheila Jackson, Director of the Department of Family and Community Engagement.

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Consulting Firm’s Report Recommends Specific Facilities Improvements for Area Schools

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

What renovations does your child’s school need? Precisely how overcrowded or underutilized is your school building? Which facility improvement projects in the county should have highest priority?

IMG_6353The Master Plan Support Project (MPSP) final report, now available online, details an in-depth facilities assessment conducted during the 2014-2015 school year by the consulting firm Brailsford and Dunlavey. The document reports on the educational adequacy and overall condition of school facilities across the county and includes detailed recommendations for capital improvement projects. Each school is assigned a priority ranking, so that the most urgent needs will be addressed first. The report also recommends 29 school closures and eight new school construction projects1. In all, $8.5 billion of capital improvements projects are recommended over the next 20 years.

Find the Report for Your School

Volume Two of the report contains an Educational Adequacy Field Report for each school built before 1999. Each school’s report contains several pages of notes, scores, and charts evaluating the adequacy of facilities to support learning. In addition, each school’s capacity, enrollment, and projected enrollment are analyzed. (The capacity data is provided for newly built schools as well as those built before 1999.)

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How to Find an Official PGCPS Policy or Procedure on Anything You Want

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by Genevieve Demos Kelley

Prince George’s County schools have an official administrative procedure on nearly everything — from employee use of social media, to homecoming IMG_6358bonfires, to controlling head lice  — and you can find them all at the Office of General Counsel’s web page. More than one hundred Administrative Procedures (each is usually at least two pages long) are detailed on the website, as well as dozens of separate Board Policies that tend to be shorter and deal with governing principles rather than procedural minutiae.

The policies and procedures make for fascinating reading. For example, here are a few interesting details:

  • The guidelines for selecting read-aloud books for the elementary classroom include prohibitions against books that promote stereotypes (e.g. racial, gender, etc.), books with reference to sex education issues, and books “with reference to the supernatural (i.e., devils).”  Administrative Procedure 6180.4, Guidelines for Selecting Read-Aloud Books
  • Bonfires are permitted at homecoming athletic events but at no other time during the school year. The bonfires are heavily regulated to ensure safety and must be supervised by the Fire Department. Administrative Procedure 6146, Bonfires for Homecoming Athletic Event
  • Under certain conditions, teachers and other school personnel may use exclusion to address a student’s behavior, but each period of exclusion may not exceed 30 minutes. “Exclusion” is defined as “removal of a student to a supervised area for a limited period of time during which the student has an opportunity to regain self-control and is not receiving instruction including special education, related services, or support.” Administrative Procedure 5062, Student Behavior Interventions
  • Students found to have lice are excluded from school at the end of the day and may be readmitted with proof of treatment (e.g. note from medical provider or “empty package or box top from an over the counter medication and receipt of recent purchase.” The school nurse should re-screen affected children 7-14 days after treatment. Administrative Procedure 5162, Pediculosis (Head Lice) Control in Schools

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Moving the Needle: Six Low-Cost Suggestions for Improving Our Schools

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Tommi Makila, a PGCPS parent and community activist, offers his suggestions for improving the school system. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools.

This spring we heard that our County Executive, PGCPS CEO, and Board of Education members all wanted to “move the needle” when it comes to our schools and their performance. The prescription offered to achieve this boost was clear: more money and new programs.IMG_6404

I beg to differ with this view. Funding increases alone will not make PGCPS great. In fact, if we don’t change the way we run the school system, no amount of new funding will make a meaningful difference. I believe we could make significant strides just by focusing on what we already do, but doing it better, with minimal additional expenditures.

Of course, it is easy to say that we should run the system better. If we want real improvements, we must be specific in our suggestions. I want to open the conversation by sharing a few no-cost and low-cost ideas to improve our schools:

  • Back-to-school event at every school before school starts: This is all about preparedness from day one and catching parents and students when they are most excited about the upcoming school year. Most PGCPS schools have their only back-to-school event several weeks into the school year. The system-wide Back-to-School Fair at the Show Place Arena may be nice, but it attracts only a fraction of our student and parent population. What we need is an event before the school starts at every single school, as school-specific information is what parents and students want and need the most. Thanks to parent advocacy, for the last few years my son’s school has organized its own Back-to-School Fair right before school starts. According to the principal, it is the school’s best attended event.
  • Timely electronic communications: All schools should have good, up-to-date websites and they should utilize other forms of electronic communications. For example, I have heard from numerous parents that their schools collect email addresses from parents, but never use them. All teachers should have websites or use other electronic communication methods. Improvements in these areas will help both students and parents. How can you expect true parental engagement if parents don’t know what is happening at the school?
     
    This is an area where my son’s school, Accokeek Academy, has made great strides. When my son started at the school, its website was completely static and had badly outdated information. Now the site is informative and updated nearly daily during the school year, and important notices go out through email, text alerts, and social media. Any principal wanting to learn how to do electronic communications should talk to the crew at Accokeek Academy.

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Weekly News Roundup: Free Summer Lunches, Bitter Budget Debate at Board Meeting, Future of Forestville High, MUST Tests Suspended

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Free summer lunches for children 18 years and younger will be provided at several county schools from June 29 though August 7. No proof of income is required. See flyer for details. (PGCPS) News channel NBC Washington reports that the meals will also be available at a handful of libraries and provides a map. (NBC 4)

“The Prince George’s County Board of Education engaged in one of its most bitter battles in recent memory while giving approval to changes to the school system’s 2016 budget.” (Sentinel)

“To fill the vacancy created by the expiration of the term of Dr. Daniel Kaufman, County Executive Rushern L. Baker, III is now accepting applications from residents who are interested in serving as an At-Large appointed member of the Prince George’s County Board of Education.” (Prince George’s County Executive)

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Facilities Operations Fared Worst in Most Recent School Climate Survey

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Today is the last day to take the 2015 School Climate Survey. Parents received an email in June from the Department of Research and Evaluation with an invitation to participate in the survey and an individualized survey code. Parents cannot take the survey without the code, but students may use their student identification numbers and access the survey here.

The most recent survey, given in 2013, paints a picture of stakeholders’ satisfaction in several areas (called “subscales” in the analysis) such as relevant curriculum, safety and discipline, effective teaching, and amount of parental involvement that affect their schools’ overall climate. According to the Department of Research and Evaluation, as of 2013 a “substantial majority of the district’s key stakeholder groups has a positive perception of their schools’ climate.”

Source: PGCPS Dept. of Research and Evaluation, 2013

Source: PGCPS Dept. of Research and Evaluation, 2013

For students, “Effective Plant Operations” (i.e. facilities and equipment) was the area that was least favorably perceived, with only about half expressing a positive perception. (For example, at Greenbelt Elementary School, the single survey item that had the smallest percentage of favorable responses at 23.4% was, “The bathroom at my school is clean.”) In contrast, parents in the district, who spend less time in school buildings, had a much more favorable view of facilities, with 83% expressing a positive perception. About 64% of teachers expressed a positive perception.

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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.

breakfastCombo21May2015

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

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