Thursday, February 7, 2013
Tell us what you think.
It’s budget season in Montgomery County, and at least one local parent wants to know what county leadership is doing to protect students—protection that can’t come from armed guards and locked doors. Football season is recently concluded, hockey season is underway and sporting concussions continue to pose health risks to high school, college and pro athletes across the country. While state and county lawmakers have made strides in requiring concussion-training for high school coaches, local advocate and Patch blogger Tom Hearn says it’s not enough. Hearn, whose own son sustained a concussion playing JV football at Whitman High School in 2011, urges the county school board to include $500,000 in funding for high school athletic trainers in…
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Parent and civic groups to take a 'chapter-by-chapter' look at the $2.2 billion proposal.
With the Montgomery County School Board’s budget hearings complete, parent and civics groups are hosting their own forum on the proposed budget for the 2013-2014 school year. The forum, dubbed a “Book Club Budgetpalooza”—a name borrowing from the “book club” discussions hosted by MCPS Superintendent Joshua P. Starr and calling to mind the alternative rock festival founded by Perry Farrell—will be held 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in the first floor meeting room of Rockville Memorial Library, at 21 Maryland Ave. in Rockville Town Square. It is hosted by the Montgomery County Civic Federation, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD, and the Montgomery County Taxpayers League. “We will go chapter by chapter through the proposed MCPS FY14 …
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
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 …
Darla Tagrin
9:42 am on Sunday, February 10, 2013
I think that athletes are not the only students who deserve health care, but they seem to be the only ones who count. more ›