Tag: PGCPS

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

Leave a comment

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:

Continue reading →

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

Leave a comment

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.

chartPrint.v002bottom

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.

Continue reading →

Parent Asks Board of Education for Longer Recess

Leave a comment
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.

Continue reading →

A Local Parent Raises Questions about Cell Tower Deal

Leave a comment

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?

Continue reading →

Board of Education Meeting Minutes Available Online

1 Comment

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.

Continue reading →

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

Leave a comment

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.

Styrofoam Trays on the Way Out for PGCPS Cafeterias

Leave a comment

by Genevieve Demos Kelley

This post has been updated to reflect current information on the phasing in of new five-compartment lunch trays.

IMG_6485Products made from polystyrene (the material we typically refer to as Styrofoam) will be phased out of use in PGCPS cafeterias during the 2015-2016 school year. A recent Washington Post article noted the efforts of Montgomery County and D.C. schools to use more sustainable cafeteria products: Montgomery County has already abandoned the use of polystyrene lunch trays and D.C. uses reusable trays as well as compostable trays. While PGCPS was not mentioned in the Post article, according to the school system’s Department of Food and Nutrition Services, we will see a shift away from polystyrene products used in cafeterias in the coming months.

Continue reading →

2014 Maryland State Audit Calls for Better Use of Transportation Funds

Leave a comment

by Genevieve Demos Kelley

A Financial Management Practices Audit Report dated February 2014 identified 23 areas of needed improvement in the internal controls and cost-effective processes and policies of Prince George’s County Public Schools. The audit was performed by the Office of Legislative Services of the Maryland General Assembly, with field work being conducted in 2011 and 2012.

Highlighted in the report were recommendations for improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of bus transportation services. From page one of the report:

We found that PGCPS did not use its automated bus routing software to ensure the efficient use of its fleet of 1,146 buses. Furthermore, since the data contained in the routing system appeared to be unreliable and other manual processes were not effective, PGCPS was unable to assess bus utilization.

Continue reading →

Buses Running Up to 40 Minutes Late at Prince George’s County Middle School

2 Comments
A middle school teacher reports that at her school a significant number of school buses have been arriving late for the afternoon pick-up.

busesSince my planning period (preparation period with no students in the classroom) happens to be the last class of the day, I am automatically assigned to afternoon bus duty. For most of the school  year, there were usually only one or two late buses at my school on any given day. On days with bad weather, perhaps that number would jump to four or five buses.

However, in the past few weeks, these numbers have drastically changed. Of the seventeen buses that service my middle school, only four to eight are on time any given day. Some buses consistently arrive at 4:30 pm, a full 40 minutes after school has ended. In fact, one bus’s new schedule is it to arrive at 4:05 pm (already fifteen minutes after school has ended), run its route, and then come back at around 4:30 pm to run another route.

Continue reading →

School Mistakenly Sends Email to Mother Concerned about Mold in the Classrooms

Leave a comment
From ABC 7, by Chris Papst, Published on May 29, 2015. Go here for the full story.

TEMPLE HILLS, Md. (WJLA) — A Prince George’s County mom who pulled her child out of school because she said mold in the building was making her daughter sick may be onto something. The 7 On Your Side I-Team obtained a document the district accidentally released explaining how mold could possibly have been in the school.

In this age of spreadsheets and word documents it’s easy to see how someone could send the wrong attachment in an email. But in this case that wrong attachment included information the Prince George’s County School District apparently did not want public.