Tag: PGCPS

Demonstrating Purpose Through Programming

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by Dave Owens

Cross-posted with permission from Visionary Media Productions.

We recently completed production on a promotional video project for Prince George’s County Public Schools and personally, I’m really proud of what it represents. The Youth Apprenticeship Program video is 4:23 long, but the potential impact of the program can’t be measured in minutes and seconds.

Schools Aren’t Just Warehouses 

It is no longer enough for school districts to simply open its doors, shepherd kids in, teach from textbooks and send kids on their way after the final school bell rings. More and more, parents have increased educational options, and an amplified willingness to transport children outside of neighborhood school zones. School Districts have to step up or get stepped over and left behind.

Prince George’s County Public Schools is stepping up. The Youth Apprenticeship Program focuses on vocational skills and is innovative, proactive and forward-thinking in its approach.

The prominence of STEM education is understandable and must be included in curricula for a school district to be considered relevant. Just as important, however, we must avoid being blinded by the four-letter acronym believing it is a cure-all or guarantor of our children’s future.

Research and statistics tells us many things factor into employment, not just a student’s major or emphasis of study. Personal connections, as well as implicit and explicit biases often weigh just as heavy in the hiring process, if not more. Thus, a plethora of course options, combined with encouraging words supporting student choices, is the optimum strategy in my opinion.

Why PGCPS’ Program is Special

Vocational training is nothing new, however, here’s why PGCPS’ program is exemplary. Prince George’s County Public Schools is putting resources behind it! Students in their fields of study will work with school district maintenance during the summer and earn a salary. Yes, earn a salary!!

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Notes from the March 7 Board of Education Work Session

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by Lori Morrow

Newsbreak about the PGCPS Youth Apprenticeship Program: https://youtu.be/GV5fIXhvo0o?t=197

Public Comment: https://youtu.be/GV5fIXhvo0o?t=469

Two staff members spoke about compensation and work conditions. There were also multiple members of LiUNA Local 11 speaking in support of Community Workforce Agreements.

Legislative Update: https://youtu.be/GV5fIXhvo0o?t=1573

The local bill related to the Financial Literacy requirement for PGCPS high schools has moved forward favorably through the PGC Delegation and the House Ways & Means committee, with amendments to start a pilot program in at least one high school by 2021.

It was mentioned that PGCPS staff received amendments earlier in the afternoon related to local bill PG 508-19 / HB 194, which would have established the Office of Accountability and Compliance.  Ms. Tobias described the bill as “substantially changed” and said that it is “being used as vehicle to change the CEO appointment process” and role of the state and County Executive. Additional updates will be provided at the next meeting on March 21. https://youtu.be/GV5fIXhvo0o?t=1719

Board of Education members approved motions to support PG 307-19, Juvenile Law – Diversion Program (https://www.princegeorgeshousedelegation.com/legislation/bill-history?local=PG%20307-19) and HB1412/SB1030, The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future (Kirwan Commission Funding, http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&tab=subject3&id=hb1413&stab=01&ys=2019RS ).

Board Committee Structure and Ad Hoc Focus Groups: https://youtu.be/GV5fIXhvo0o?t=3079

After discussion, the vote on the updated Board Policy 8100 related to the structure of Board Committees and Focus Groups was tabled until the March 21 Board of Education Meeting. Board Committees have not been operating since prior to the November 2018 election.

2019-2020 School Calendar: https://youtu.be/GV5fIXhvo0o?t=4571

The Draft 2019-2020 School Calendar (https://www.boarddocs.com/mabe/pgcps/Board.nsf/files/BA29UJ707829/$file/DRAFT%202019-2020%20School%20Calendar%203-7-19.pdf)

was approved by the Board.  Inputs from the community and staff surveys are available on Boarddocs (https://www.boarddocs.com/mabe/pgcps/Board.nsf/Public)

The next PGCPS Board of Education is scheduled for Thursday, March 21 at 7 PM.  Anyone interested in registering to speak can do so using the online form or by phone starting four business days prior to the meeting. Information about agendas, live streaming links, and public comment registration is available at www.pgcps.org/board.

 

Notes from the February 21 Board of Education Meeting

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by Lori Morrow

Board of Education meeting agendas and supporting documents are available at the PGCPS Boarddocs link: http://www.pgcps.org/board.

Newsbreak about Student Pages in the Maryland General Assembly: https://youtu.be/sNtzpTGSGq4?t=382

Public Comment, beginning with Senator Malcolm Augustine: https://youtu.be/sNtzpTGSGq4?t=1076

Registered speakers included comments about the Adelphi Area Schools Plan; the need for additional school psychologists/counselors/social workers; working conditions for PGCPS bus drivers and attendants; and members of LiUNA speaking about community benefits to hiring local.

Budget Consent Agenda: https://youtu.be/sNtzpTGSGq4?t=3943

BOE Member Ahmed asked for clarification on the change order for Francis T Evans ES.  CIP Director Shawn Matlock explained that many of the change orders have been due to changes in permitting requirements but they are working to better incorporate the new requirements into budgeting.

Annual Operating Budget: https://youtu.be/sNtzpTGSGq4?t=4201

Members voted to approve the proposed FY2020 Operating Budget with an increased $10.6M in expenditures above the CEO’s proposal, including increased psychologists and social workers. The vote to approve was unanimous.

This request will be forwarded to the county level. If less than the full amount is approved by the county, the Board of Ed will need to reconcile their final budget in June. The CEO & Board Members encouraged the community to continue to advocate for funding at the county* and state levels.

2019-2020 School Calendar: https://youtu.be/sNtzpTGSGq4?t=5300

The agenda item for the 2019-2020 School Calendar was tabled until the March 7 meeting to provide additional time to review a requested modification by PGCEA. Dr. Goldson also noted the legislation, SB0128, in the General Assembly that could reverse Gov Hogan’s 2016 Executive Order. The bill has not been voted on yet in the House. Despite the possible change to the law, the CEO requested that the BOE not change the post-Labor Day start for 2019 because of school construction projects already in planning stages for this summer.

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Conversation About Inequity in Education on Thursday, February 28

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What: Community Forum on Inequities in Maryland and Prince George’s County Public Schools

When: Thursday, February 28, 7:00 – 8:00 pm

Where: Charles H. Flowers High School, 10001 Ardwick Ardmore Rd., Springdale, MD 20774

Who: Presenter is Robert Ruffins from Ed Trust. Hosted by Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools

Addressing equity in education is an issue that public school systems across the country continue to struggle with. Providing children with an adequate and equitable education was a key factor in establishing the “Thornton Funding Formula” as part of Maryland’s Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2002, and efforts continue this year as the Kirwan Commission seeks to update the funding formula and make recommendations to advance public education.

Elected officials at the state and local level have pledged to improve access to high quality education and better outcomes for Maryland students. However, a recent report from the Ed Trust states that data on achievement and outcomes reveal “deep inequities in opportunity for certain groups of students,” and “dramatic racial gaps in student outcomes regardless of family income.”

Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Public Schools (PGCABS) invites parents, teachers, students, and members of the community to participate in an honest look at data describing educational inequities in our community, and a call-to-action.

Join us on Thursday, February 28, 7:00-8:00 PM at Charles H Flowers HS (10001 Ardwick Ardmore Rd, Springdale, MD 20774) to receive critical information from Robert Ruffins, a senior associate of national and state partnerships with the Ed Trust. School advocates will provide practical steps that everyday citizens can take to influence important policy decisions being made this spring; decisions that will impact issues such as class-size, college enrollment, and property values, for years to come.

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Your Child’s Best Teacher is Probably Quitting

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The writer is an employee of Prince George’s County Public Schools who wishes to remain anonymous. The views expressed are the author’s own.

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I am a PGCPS middle school teacher. Most of my coworkers have an exit plan. These are the reasons why.

My average class size is 34, but only because I teach in a smaller classroom. I have coworkers with as many as 42 students in a class. When class sizes are that big teachers do not have enough time to give each child the attention they deserve. We do not have enough time to calm the anxious, charm the shy, engage the advanced, and keep up with parent contact logs. We do not have enough space to provide preferential seating to the easily distracted, to separate the bickering, or to allow the fidgety to dance in a corner. We do not have enough co-teachers, para-professionals, or one-to-one aides.

We do not have enough guidance counselors or psychologists to support the students who need it. We do not have enough time to plan engaging lessons that are differentiated to meet the needs of every student, to grade every student’s work thoughtfully, or to give parents the detailed replies they deserve when they have questions or concerns unless we come to work hours before our contract time begins and stay hours after it ends. We don’t have enough support staff to keep student bathrooms clean, shovel snowy sidewalks, or get students through the lunch line in a timely manner. We don’t have enough pencils, enough tissues, or enough paper.

With all the things we don’t have, the majority of good teachers I know do have an exit plan. They are leaving high-poverty schools to teach in affluent neighborhoods where active parents’ groups mean gaps in resources get filled. They are applying to neighboring districts, charter schools, and private schools. Or they are leaving teaching entirely. The more experienced teachers are weighing the cost of retiring before they have a full pension. The newer teachers know how many years of experience the neighboring districts will accept when calculating their salary.

Teachers across the country are walking out to get better conditions for their students: West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Denver, Oakland. Teachers in L.A. went on strike for smaller class sizes, more guidance counselors, and full time nurses and librarians in every school. I hear the same wish list from PGCPS teachers. Some teachers are pinning their hopes on the next round of contract negotiations as the union moves toward Bargaining for the Common Good, but others are simply choosing to exit the system.

These are not the bitter teachers you imagine cursing the day they became teachers as they sneak a smoke by the cafeteria dumpsters. These conversations happen as teachers set out supplies for the day, as they stand in line to make copies, as they share tips on classroom management and grading strategies, as they share the stories of their students who need help that they cannot give because there simply is no time. These are women and men who love their students and work hard at their jobs, but are frustrated because they don’t get the support they need.

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Why I am Working for the Teachers This Year

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The opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools.

by Lori Morrow

Last summer, I accepted a part-time position as a Parent Organizer with the Prince George’s County Educators’ Association (PGCEA). I am not an educator. I am not a union member. But I am in my 11th year as a parent in PGCPS, and I value public education. Supporting PGCEA teachers, counselors, psychologists, and media specialists is a natural extension of the public school advocacy I’ve done for the past decade.

PGCEA is “Bargaining for the Common Good” this year. It is a movement that is growing across this country, recognizing that organized labor movements can serve a greater purpose in our communities. The strike in Los Angeles Unified School District is the latest example of educators negotiating for more than just their own pay. The movement for quality public education is also about facilities and testing and evaluation systems and workload. Classroom teachers are the most basic connection children have to education from ages 5-18 and TEACHER working conditions are STUDENT learning conditions.

These past six months, my role has been working on outreach to parents and community members, sharing information about Bargaining for the Common Good, and building a network within our community. In a county as large as Prince George’s, it is not an easy task. Everyone brings their own bias and a single encounter can shape the way parents feel about teachers, or teachers feel about parents, or community members feel about a union. This movement must be bigger than any of us as individuals. In this year of discussions about the Kirwan Commission and equitable education funding in Maryland, we need to use our experiences to collaborate and work together. Ultimately, we must all share the same goal: a high-quality education for the students of Prince George’s County. I am proud to work for teachers because I know that if they succeed, our children will be the true winners.

For more information, visit https://www.pgcea.org/bargaining-for-the-common-good-2/ and join educators, parents, students and community members in Annapolis on March 11 to March for Our Schools, https://marchforourschools.com.

Notes from PGCPS Budget Q&A Session

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by Llew Brown

Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools (PGCABS), in collaboration with PGCPS staff, hosted an interactive Q&A session on the proposed operating budget on Wednesday, January 16, 2019, at Ernest Everett Just Middle School. Participants listened to a presentation from Mike Herbstman, Chief Financial Officer for PGCPS, and discussed proposed funding for various items including class size reduction, language immersion, transportation, and more. We captured several questions and as many responses as we could during the discussion. We will also post additional materials provided by PGCPS when available. UPDATE: Additional questions and answers from the PGCPS Budget Office have been posted here.

Questions addressed during the discussion

Q. Security staffing – how will that money be used?

  • Classroom door upgrades, and overtime
  • Second assignment (SA) – money to cover gaps in staffing. For example, an officer or teacher may be asked to provide extra coverage at another school. This is cheaper than hiring an additional person

Q. Explain funding for Community schools

  • If the pilot goes well, PGCPS will identify a school and implement the model at a school

Q. Special Education – please explain in more detail, how that funding will be used to address the various needs of special education students

Q. Is there a plan to increase positions of school nurses?

  • PGCPS has a long standing nursing shortage (10 years)

Q. Please be more creative with the way K-8’s are budgeted. Doesn’t feel equitable because the needs across grades are very different

Q. Immersion programs – what is the plan for expansion?

  • Expansion from 4th grade to 5th grade in this budget

Q. Buses are chronically late. Do we need more bus drivers to get buses to arrive on time?

  • PGCPS recently hired 95 drivers within the past two months
  • Problem is keeping drivers, PGCPS is working on retention incentives
  • About 10% of drivers don’t show up each day. Also working on attendance incentives
  • PGCPS has 4,000 buses. PGCPS will examine effect of incentives and continue to discuss interventions this spring.

Q. Charter school – How can we make it more affordable to parents? Having no transportation, cost of uniforms, fees to pay sports, means a lot of money for parents out of pocket

  • Line item for charter schools accounts for enrollment. To fund charters, PGCPS examines Per pupil allocation for regular schools, then that cost per pupil is provided to fund the charter school
  • To understand a charter school’s budget, or to advocate for changes to the way funds are used, it’s most appropriate to talk to the board governing the charter school

Questions for future follow up from PGCPS

  • Special Education – How will th $718K be allocated?
  • Lead remediation (page 24) – is the goal for this line item amount to achieve 100% remediation next year? If not, what is the goal for the funding?
  • Page 24, what is the difference btw AC upgrades and Healthy schools HVAC?
  • Page 25, Under Maintenance of Plant, does this mean no change in the number of staff performing Maintenance?
  • Page 43, Chief Executive Officer, looks like a reduction of $380K, please explain the reduction. Is it a reduction in CEO salary, a reduction of an FTE on the CEO Staff? Etc.
  • We lost head start funding a few years ago. I believe $5mill/year, does PGCPS plan to apply for that grant again?

Note, PGCPS will host three public hearings on the proposed budget. The first will be Tue Jan 29th, 7pm, at Fairmont Heights

The PGCPS Budget Office has provided additional answers to these questions and other questions about the budget here.

PGCABS to Co-Host Budget Q & A Session with PGCPS Budget Office

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by Tommi MakilaPrint

Budget season for Prince George’s County Public Schools is in full swing. The CEO’s proposed operating budget for Fiscal Year 2020 is now available on the PGCPS website. If you don’t have time to read the whole budget, consider reading the introduction, which includes specific changes in expenditures compared with last year’s budget (p. 16-19), as well as information on capital improvement projects (p. 20-25).  A less-detailed Budget in Brief document is also available.

Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools (PGCABS) is hosting, in collaboration with PGCPS staff, a question and answer session about the proposed operating budget on Wednesday, January 16 at 7:00 pm at Ernest Everett Just Middle School. This will be an excellent opportunity for interested residents to pose questions to the PGCPS budget office staff about the proposed operating budget. PGCABS hosted a similar Q&A session on the budget two years ago.

The Board of Education will host three public hearings during which residents will have an opportunity to comment on the CEO’s proposed budget. These hearings will be held on January 29 at Fairmont Heights HS, February 5 at Friendly HS, and February 11 at High Point HS, all at 7 pm. To sign up to speak at the hearings, call the BOE office at 301-952-6115, or sign up online. Each speaker will have three minutes to make his/her comments.

Student Learning Objectives: Making Sense of SLOs

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by Natalie Barnes

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What are SLOs?

In accordance with grant programs such as Race to the Top, states are developing teacher evaluation systems to determine teacher-effectiveness. Students’ standardized test scores are often used to measure teacher effectiveness. However, standardized test scores are not “available or appropriate for all teachers and subjects,” according to a document put out by the U.S. Department of Education describing how states use student learning objectives in teacher evaluation systems. States can choose their own ways to evaluate teachers and Maryland has chosen to use Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) as part of their evaluation.

According to the Prince George’s County Public Schools Student Learning Objective Handbook, the state of Maryland has defined a Student Learning Objective (SLO) as “A specific, rigorous, long-term goal for groups of students that educators create to guide their instruction and administrative efforts.” The handbook continues, stating “Although SLOs contribute to the Student Growth component of the overall evaluation in Prince George’s County Public Schools, they are best utilized as an instructional tool. SLOs are a meaningful approach to measuring student learning because they enable teachers to determine the focus of instruction and how student learning will be measured. SLOs are not an “additional” task, but SLOs are designed for teachers to ‘formally’ monitor what they are already doing in the classroom on a daily basis.”

Essentially, two SLOs are created by each teacher and administrator. (A third district SLO is drafted by the Office of Curriculum and Instruction for high school teachers who are responsible for Biology, English 10, Algebra I, Algebra II, and Government (HSSA) courses in the previous year.) Each SLO states the goal that teacher or administrator has for his or her students during the year. The results are a portion of the teacher’s final evaluation score. Student growth measures are 50% of teacher evaluations. For teachers who teach content areas with state assessment data, the SLOs are 30% of the student growth measures while for teachers without state assessment data, the SLOs are 35% of their final evaluations score.

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Know Your Rights: How to Advocate for Suspended Students

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by J. Parker

The Prince George’s County school system has been in a state of educational change and growth over the past few months with the new interim CEO. Now, with the addition of new incoming school board members, there is a renewed sense of hope for a change within our school system that will continue to push our system towards new educational heights. However there is still much work to be done, with many concerns surrounding the policies and procedures of disciplinary practices within the county.

In the 2016- 2017 school year, a quarter of all elementary school children suspended in Maryland were from Prince George’s County despite current state legislation prohibiting suspension for grades 2 and under. In the 2017-2018 school year, 48 percent of out-of-school suspensions in Prince George’s county were for disruption and disrespect and 1 in 4 children with out-of-school suspensions in Prince George’s county were students with disabilities.

On November 14, 2018, Delegate Erek L. Barron and former School Board Vice Chair Carolyn Boston, hosted a workshop at G. James Gholson Middle School in Landover, Maryland. The presentation by the Maryland Suspension Representation Project (MSRP) focused on informing the public on their rights during the disciplinary process within Maryland, specifically Prince George’s county. The MSRP is a partnership between Disability Rights Maryland, Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the Public Justice Center, and the Youth, Education and Justice Clinic at the Maryland School of Law.  They are “committed to protecting the due process rights of Maryland students who face school push out.”

There were several key points and takeaways from the workshop, the first being that you and your child should be fully aware of various circumstances where your child has been suspended. If your child was physically removed for breaking school rules, kicked out of a regular classroom, told to go to the front office or the in-school-suspension (ISS) room for the rest of the day, told to go home for the day, or told you cannot enter the building, chances are they have been suspended or possibly expelled.

Parents must be notified in writing of all suspensions prior to the suspension start date. If you receive a call from the school or administration asking you to, “Just come pick your child up,” immediately clarify with the school whether or not your child is being suspended. If they are not, there is no requirement for you to pick your child up at that time and they should be allowed to finish the school day. If they are being suspended, then the administrator must provide you with documentation stating as such at or before you pick up your child that day.

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