Thursday, January 17, 2013
Winter sessions cover topics from cyber safety to summer opportunities.
Winter sessions of the Montgomery County Public Schools’ Parent Academy are underway, offering classes exploring school curriculum, college and career readiness and cyber safety. The free workshops are held across the county through March and feature MCPS staff, community partners and outside experts. “The MCPS Parent Academy is a great resource for parents that seek to stay engaged and involved in their child’s education,” county schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr said in a news release. “Parents will receive great information and strategies they can use to help their children succeed in school and in life.” More than 2,000 people attended sessions last year, according to the school system. Upcoming academy sessions include: Click …
Notable outcomes include passing a resolution on tighter gun restrictions, delaying funding for county transportation projects, and a denied school board request for additional funding.
The Montgomery County Council met Tuesday for its first session of 2013. Notable outcomes from the meeting include: Council Introduces Resolution To Promote Tighter Gun Restrictions The Montgomery County Council introduced a resolution Tuesday urging Gov. Martin O'Malley and state lawmakers to tighten restrictions on gun and ammunition sales. The resolution, Germantown Patch reported, asks state leaders to: "The proposals, introduced by Council President Nancy Navarro (D-East County), mirror many of the laws that Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and others in the state legislature will attempt to pass during the General Assembly" since the county lacks authority to regulate the sale or possession of firearms under state law, BethesdaNow.com …
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The hearing on Superintendent Starr's $2.2 billion plan will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The Montgomery County Board of Education will hold a public hearing Thursday on Superintendent Joshua P. Starr’s $2.2 billion operating budget request for the 2013-2014 school year. The hearing, the first of two before the board, will be held at 7 p.m. at the Carver Educational Services Center, at 850 Hungerford Drive in Rockville. The hearing also will be broadcast live on the web and on MCPS TV (Comcast channel 34, Verizon FIOS channel 36, and RCN channel 88). A second hearing will be held at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at the Carver Center. Click here for more information, including how to testify. The proposed spending plan for fiscal 2014, which begins July 1, is a $48.95 million increase (2.3 percent) over the current budget. Starr’s plan aims…
Monday, January 7, 2013
The MCPS superintendent will host a panel discussion of 'How Children Succeed.'
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough, will be the focus of Montgomery County schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr’s first Book Club discussion of the school year Tuesday. Starr will host a discussion of the book at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Carver Educational Services Center, at 850 Hungerford Drive, in Rockville. The discussion will include questions from Montgomery County Public Schools parents, staff and students and community members for a panel of researchers and educators. In How Children Succeed, “Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control,” according to…
39.095565
-77.153332
Carver Educational Services Center
850 Hungerford Dr, Rockville, MD
/articles/superintendent-starr-to-host-school-year-s-first-book-club
1854919
/locations/8546541
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
A rundown of what MCPS is serving to students this week.
What's for lunch? This week's menu for Montgomery County Public Schools' elementary school cafeterias is listed below. Visit the full menu for calorie information. The menu for Head Start and pre-kindergarten students varies slightly from the elementary school menu. Visit the MCPS website for middle school lunch, high school lunch and middle and high school breakfast offerings.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Superintendent Starr is critical of the purpose of the index.
Montgomery County's public schools fared well in the state's most recently released School Progress Index—a new accountability measure whose purpose has been criticized by Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr. The School Progress Index—which uses a formula, based mostly on state test scores, to determine how schools are progressing toward academic goals—was released on Monday. Sixty-four percent of the county's public schools made it into the top two (of five) strands—the two strands requiring the least amount of monitoring and support, according to a county schools statement. Overall, the county school system received an index score of 1.014. A score of 1.0 or higher means that the school or school system has met …
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
An online petition to start county public high schools at 8:15 a.m. already had collected more than 10,000 signatures by Wednesday morning, Dec. 12.
Montgomery County public school parents and students are speaking up about school start times, and the county's school superintendent is responding. An online petition, "Changing Montgomery County, MD's High School Start Times to 8:15 AM or Later," has asked the county school board to "officially recognize the large and compelling body of research regarding teen sleep and academic achievement," and "to start high schools in Montgomery County, MD, after 8:15 [a.m.]." On Tuesday, Superintendent of Schools Joshua P. Starr announced that a work group has been established to study the issue. That will come as good news to the petition's signers, who already numbered more than 10,000 by 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12. "Sleep deprivation, with such …
Superintendent remains confident that he can win over the County Council.
Superintendent Joshua P. Starr’s proposed $2.2 billion fiscal 2014 budget for Montgomery County schools could face a familiar challenge—how to comply with a state law on school funding minimums while winning approval from a County Council determined to rein in spending on schools. Starr's spending plan, unveiled Tuesday, is $10 million—less than half a percent—above the funding floor mandated by the state’s maintenance of effort law, which requires counties’ per-pupil spending to remain the same or increase from year to year. But the half percent increase could have major implications. County school budgets that dip below the funding level can have the difference withheld by the state comptroller when passing through income tax revenues to…
The $2.2 billion budget adds teachers and targets middle school instruction.
A $2.2 billion county schools operating budget proposed Tuesday by Superintendent Joshua P. Starr increases spending to manage growing enrollment, seeks to address persistent achievement gaps and invests in a curriculum aimed at meeting new state and national standards. It also sets the school system up for yet another debate with the Montgomery County Council over spending on K-12 education. “This is a responsible budget that allows us to keep up with growing enrollment, while making strategic investments that will benefit our students today and in the future,” Starr said in a statement. “A budget is a reflection of our values and I know that Montgomery County understands the direct connections between the quality of our schools and …
Friday, November 16, 2012
A University of Chicago professor said a change in culture, not curriculum, was key.
Montgomery County Public Schools were singled out at a recent national conference on high school reform for taking steps to close the achievement gap between races, according to US News and World Report. A professor at the University of Chicago noted the system had succeeded in lifting up scores for black and Hispanic students. Charles Payne, professor and affiliate of the university's Urban Education Institute, said MCPS narrowed the achievement gap—lower test scores among black and Latino students when compared to white and Asian students—at all grade levels by moving the best teachers to underserved schools. "There are some groups of African-American and Hispanic students who, when they get a different caliber of teachers, can turn …
Joe Thomas
9:03 am on Saturday, December 15, 2012
Parents lock up the Iphones at 7pm and there will be plenty of time for study and homework. more ›