From teachers not receiving needed support and supplies to school safety and overcrowding, members of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) community raised their operational and academic concerns at a listening session Wednesday night with Superintendent Thomas Taylor.
The mid-week session at Rockville High School was the second of the week for Taylor, who started as superintendent on July 1. The first was held at Poolesville High School on Monday and a third is scheduled for next Monday at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring from 7 to 8 p.m.
The listening sessions, open to those in the MCPS community, are part of Taylor’s entry plan to “build positive relationships with educators, leaders, students, parents [and] key stakeholders,” according to the entry plan website.
While Taylor mostly listened during the 90-minute session, he also shared his insights on some questions community members asked, explained where he wanted to see improvements or apologized when he heard their experience with the school system wasn’t up to par.
He noted that one issue is that after experiencing challenging times as MCPS has recently — whether that be from the pandemic or leadership changes — is that emphasis ends up on the wrong issue or topic.
“I’m hoping to bring some stability,” Taylor said.
Several MCPS teachers raised concerns during the session about the resources provided to them, especially when it came to special education.
Joslyn Stewart, a teacher in the homeschool model program at Flower Valley Elementary in Rockville, said the district promised a new English Language Arts curriculum with scaffolded lessons and specialized material to close literacy gaps for Black and brown students or students who receive special education. Stewart said teachers still haven’t received the materials.
“Without these tools, we’re failing to provide equitable access to this critical instruction, and our students are waiting for the education that they were promised,” Stewart said.
Hilary Jacobsohn, a fifth-grade special education teacher at Burning Tree Elementary School in Bethesda, said special education teachers were told they needed to train general education teachers after special education students were moved into their classrooms.
“I cannot train my general ed teammates while also planning and instructing my special education lesson,” Jacobsohn said.
Taylor said teachers deserve what they needed to be successful in the classroom, and while he wasn’t the textbook company, he did have a role in ensuring teachers get what they need and there was “no excuse” for teachers not having needed materials.
Some parents also raised concerns about Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and specialized education.
Rachel Alarid, a parent with a Rockville student who has an IEP, said that while the process for her student has been “amazing,” her student was not diagnosed with a vision processing disorder until second grade. That meant she didn’t have access to accommodations for the first two years of elementary school.
“We felt like our child ended up losing two years of education because the teacher was like ‘Oh, all kids until about [age] 8 write their letters backwards,’” Alarid said. “I felt like we were always in the deep end of the pool treading.”
Alarid proposed holding screening tests for younger students so they can receive the help they need earlier. She also recounted one teacher not wanting to use her child’s accommodations because it didn’t fit the teacher’s classroom aesthetic. She said teachers should have a better understanding of what accommodations are and why they’re needed.
While Alarid said the IEP process for her student has been helpful, other parents raised concerns about IEPs. Andrea McDonald, a parent of three MCPS students with special needs, said her family moved to Montgomery County due to the school system, but the experiences her family has faced in the IEP process have been disappointing.
“They have forgotten the ‘I’ in that acronym,” McDonald said. “They have missed opportunities to meet every child where they are.”
Hilary Swab, parent of a first-grade student at Ashburton Elementary School in Bethesda, highlighted overcrowding in the elementary school. Swab said the area has been growing, but there hasn’t been planning, money and construction for a new elementary school.
“We keep asking the school to do more and more with less and less,” Swab said. “It is time that MCPS and the Board of Education put money in for a new elementary school … or at least look at the boundaries.”
Parents and community members also highlighted wanting more class choice and more community involvement from MCPS central office employees and Board of Education members.
Taylor told MoCo360 after the meeting that the listening sessions have shown him how “in-sync” the community is.
“They really want great things to happen, and they have high expectations for their school system and that came through at this meeting,” Taylor said.
He said more listening sessions will be scheduled in the coming weeks.
