Howard County Public School System Changes

This is an open letter to all the Howard County (HoCo) residents especially those of you who have connections with the public school system. In this letter you will find facts, dates and at the bottom my own views about the whole situation. Also I would like to disclaim here that these are my own opinions (mother of one Elementary one middle school students and a long time active HoCo school volunteer) on the subject. Furthermore they are not written to please anyone nor will they be gentle or very forgiving as these changes involve my children’s educational future. I also didn’t use any of the teacher’s names to protect them from what may happen to those who were kind enough to inform us yet if any of them would be persecuted or prosecuted because of this I would do everything in my power to defend them, if the need be, at a tribunal. Yes, I do see how ironic and scary this statement is alone.

Let’s start from the facts;

·         We have one of the best – if not the best - music programs in the USA as a country.

·         Well-known fact we used art in education and communication for the last 40000 years and it is demonstrated to be therapeutic for those who needed it and the easiest form of communication and education for those receiving it.

·         Another well-known fact is nothing in this world works as many parts of your brain as music. Just listening to music works 10 different parts of your brain simultaneously, if you playing music this number goes much higher. (Interested?  Please search Oxford journals, AMA journals, BMJ to name but a few, or have a quick chat with neuroscientist.)

·         Our children are lucky that they go to various field trips – most probably not enough, but still - and get to LEARN about their country, their own region, learn how to travel in a group, social skills, etiquette, history, science, math and hundreds of other things during their field trips. Many educators and studies agree that these learnings stay with them for life. (For a quick test see how much of the lessons vs how much of the field trips you remember from your own school days?)

·         January 30^th: I have been approached by three music teachers telling me that there were new changes coming to the music program, and informed me about the HoCo board of education (BoE) meeting. During this meeting Dr. Foose, the current superintendent for HoCo, avoided any questions about the changes with rather rudeness and dismissiveness.  When the issue of GT classes and the rest of the current pull-out classes brought-up in this new suggested system the answer was, “Oh, school administrators will take care of this.” We are all curious if they will be given magic wands to conjure more time to implement these changes, and how any administrator can be so far from the reality going on in our schools?

·         February 3^rd I have been approached by 4 other music teachers from different schools and they have expressed their fear about losing already tight schedule they have with the children, to nothingness. Their twice-a-week classes going down to once a week as well as 45 minutes down to 30 minutes.

·         February 5^th I got calls from few Elementary GT teachers telling me about the mess they have left as with the new suggested curriculum they will not be allow to take out children from lessons – new common core (CC) doesn’t allow pull-outs - and they are NOT qualified to teach science which, new  CC would require. All of the teachers I spoke with were frustrated, furious and very concerned about this currently successful program’s future.

·         February 10th: I got to meet with 9 different teachers (from, arts, and GT departments) as well as 6 more with over the phone to talk about how we can be proactively talk to the board and let them listen to our concerns.  At this point the teacher’s union started actively worked with the Howard County parents for music education (HCPSM)

·         February 14^th I have been told that none of the teachers can talk to me – or any other parent - about the situation, as they do so their employment will be in jeopardy.

·         February 18^th HCPSM called for a meeting where things discussed at length.  The aftermath of this discussion encouraged a few of the public thinkers within us to share what is going on with the world.

·         February 20^th those people who informed us are being threatened in various stages and some of them had to make amended statements against their real will.

These are the chronological facts as I lived.

Now I shall move to the proposed changes;

 …Vision 2018: Fulfilling the Promise of Preparation a reality.  The model includes:

• Pre-Kindergarten - A full day PreK program for eligible students will be offered at each participating school.
• Departmentalization - Teachers will specialize in English Language Arts/Social Studies or Mathematics/Science/Health or Fine Arts, PE, or Media/Technology.
• World Language - Instruction in Spanish will be offered to students beginning in PreK through Grade 2.
• Strengths Development - Students will focus on developing their strengths and come to view effective effort, motivation, and persistence as the means to academic success and well-being….

And here are my questions about these changes starting from the Elementary Schools;

Pre-Kindergarten Many of the Howard County Elementary Schools already in portables - not ideal places of education as it stands, and a bit of a shame for the 4th richest county in one of the richest countries in the world. The first question comes to mind is space. Simply where will all these small children seek lessons?  Shall we add some more portables? As we seem to getting rid of the recess altogether we can fill the whole field with them I suppose. Another simple and daily question any parent or a teacher would ask, if they were kept in the portable; who will take these children to and from the bathroom? They will need a person just for that. Let’s think about security for a minute, or implementation brought on the art teachers while there is not a curriculum available to teach these students as well as in reality no arts teacher in HoCo elementary school is actually qualified to teach Pre-K?

Departmentalization Remember,  there will be neither pull-outs nor any elementary GT teachers qualified to teach science the future of our successful GT program’s future is rather bleak.

Moving to day-to-day lessons; we have usually have over 20 kids in any given classroom with rather different levels. Let’s put them all in one class and watch. Will the teacher adjust her curricula for the lower level children therefore the higher level children on that subject will be bored and not learn much, or will the teacher design the lessons to higher levels consequently those who are not so good on that subject will be left behind. How about keeping things in the middle? This way neither of the spectrum children will learn much at all.

Music program: This is where it hurts me most. We have music program to be proud of. Yes, even if your children are not playing an instrument at the moment with the new program all the children have to choose either chorus, strings, or band. Not a bad thing you may say. But let me remind you that instead of twice a week lessons there will be only one and that is mere 30 minutes.  So there will be about 30-40 kids in one room. You really don’t have to be a music teacher nor even have anything to do with music to realise that in that short time you CANNOT even tune the instruments never mind teaching them to play. Besides, I am really curious where all these instruments will be coming? As it stands even with 10- 15 kids in each class quite a few of the students have to share an instrument. Yes, during a concert they take turns to play. Remember most of the title one school children borrow their instrument from the school system. So according to this new proposed system those who can afford will take their children to private lessons with privately rented/bought instruments those who cannot just sit there and ponder. Again you don’t have to be a Superintendent to see the huge unfairness this will create between children. Of course the effects of this will directly upset our music programs in middle and high school programs. But I shall talk about that later.

World Language: As a mother who speaks 5 languages I support this program whole-heartedly but not by sacrificing the others. I wonder if this can be addressed by making the school day for Elementary schools say starting at 8am and going until 4pm.  Or why we are trying to reinvent the wheel? Within our own state there are foreign language immersion programs that are rather successfully being run for years. How about opening some of those for our own county? Also it surprises me the choice of languages Spanish –one would hope that BoE knows that majority of our children’s first language is Spanish so don’t you think this would be little redundant? - The second language chosen is Chinese. I would love to hear the reasons behind this, too.

Strengths Development: Again it is rather important point I do support whole-heartedly. Yet we all noticed that neither by MSA’s or most “standardized” testing is far from evaluating this. It is also known by many of us they are nowhere near to help the teachers or the students to achieve any of the suggested topics.

The rest of my thoughts are about the changes that will affect Pre-K to 12^th grade;

Extended Day Field Trip

…POLICY 8100-PR IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURES

These are some of the  proposed changes;

2 b. Extended Day Field Trip – the duration of the trip is no longer than 12 hours. The planned return time should be no later than 9:00 p.m. when school is in session the next day. A planned return time no later than 5:00 p.m. is strongly advised for grades 4 and below.

3. The amount of time spent traveling to and from the destination shall not exceed one-half of the total time planned for the field trip. …

What this means to our children; this change has the potential to impact a number of band trips. Please let the BOE know how these changes could negatively impact our instrumental music programs. If this is approved events like middle school bands playing at High-school matches will be only but a distant memory. Spring and winter Concerts for elementary schools as well as String-a-pooloza concerts, music in the park or similar programs will be discarded if this will be approved.

Here let’s take another point; Even if your child isn’t in band or strings program, please think this for a moment; although I do not have a child in high school I go to see my child or their friends from middle school to play during the games. Get to meet with the high school parents that I haven’t met before; I go out and about much later than I usually would, so there are people in the neighborhood. Kids, coaches, teachers, and the parents acquainted with each other.  This is called building a community, creating a safe environment for us all. I promise you this is cheaper, more effective, and much more desirable than having police cars patrolling our streets all the time.

Needless to say, when the time comes and our children apply to enter a university or for scholarship I would be very surprise to hear if they would ever asked “let’s see how was your reading and math?” –I want to assure you I am not denying the importance of having a strong basis, just pointing out how important to have it all- to give you a place or scholarship. I would think they would be more interested how rounded an individual you are and what you can bring to their faculty as a good student as well as good musician, artist, sportsman, etc

Change and growth are good and necessary things for survival, yet growth or change for the sake of growth or change only happens in cancer in the organic matter and is NEVER a useful thing.

In a nutshell

Now do pardon my skepticism if I look like I do not trust the BoE to represent us. After all, aren’t these people chosen by us to represent us?  Yet it worries me that they don’t seem to know their powers in the political hierarchy. They are feeling helpless against the new implementations of the Superintendent.  As a board they come above the Superintendent. Their first job is to protect or improve my children’s educational future.  Thus far, they seem to have failed us on this front. The Superintendent herself since day one - seemed to me- more interested in proving herself than working with the community she is appointed and improving things for that community.  She is –least to say- arrogant towards the public she is supposed to be serving.

Yes, not RULING but SERVING!