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Operating Budget → Question and Answer Archive
As we start to look at this FY 2020 Operating Budget, can you please report on the status of a plan to expand mental health supports through more psychologists, social workers and greater access to a mental health support system for our students?
Please provide an overview of how schools, specifically Barnsley Elementary School, include neighborhood students in the “Center” activities to allow for more enriched program opportunities.
Please provide information on how the 27 instructional specialist positions that were added to the budget in OSSI are deployed and how they are providing support to schools? How do we monitor the work and the impact?
Please provide turnover and vacancies data for the Watkins Mill cluster and provide actions MCPS is taking for improving permanent staffing assignments in the cluster.
How are we working to fill world and foreign language teaching positions especially in schools that have struggled keeping these positions filled? What are the plans for this work in the future to ensure that we do not have ongoing vacancies in some schools?
What is the full cost of putting a Middle Years Program in a middle school? How many middle year programs do we have and where are they? How many high schools with IB programs do not have middle schools’ programs articulating to them? Have we evaluated the programs for effectiveness?
What are we doing to address substitute teacher shortages? Are there plans in the future to use technology to address vacancies that have not been filled or teacher absences where a content substitute cannot be identified?
Please provide update on the fan issue at Richie Park Elementary School.
How much does it cost (on average) to provide an MCPS bus for one field trip? What would the budget be to provide a field trip for every student?
Please provide a report on all field trips taken last year by school.
What would it cost to provide an assistant principal position for the remaining 17 elementary schools?
Please provide a status report on the replacement of auditorium light bulbs and the flooring issues at Springbrook High School.
What is the cost to pay for Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) tests?
Please describe the credentialing requirements for school guidance counselors in the state of Maryland. In terms of mental health support to students, how is a social worker different that a school guidance counselor? Would we benefit from going to a social worker model?
What resources are available to support mental health issues, what is the pathway for assistance, and how is this assistance communicated? What mental health positions were added in this FY 2020 budget?
Please provide the course offerings in the middle school enriched programs by school.
Please provide a list of all William and Mary, Gradebooks, and Middle Years IB programs and what schools the programs are servicing.
What do we have planned for summer programs for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and students not on grade level in reading and mathematics?
Please provide an update and plans to address facility concerns at Greencastle Elementary School.
Please provide the cost of putting after school academic programs in schools for ESOL students and those students not on grade level.
Please provide a response to issues raised in the Bethesda Beat article on new curriculum.
Does MCPS have a “411” information line that parents and community can call to ask questions?
What training do we provide to lunch hour aides?
Please provide information regarding the use of recess removal at Rachel Carson Elementary School as a consequence for bad behaviors.
Please provide information on the Ride On bus program as it relates to our students.
Can you provide information regarding the work of career information coordinators?
How are repair/maintenance supplies reflected in the budget? How long is the pending work order list?
How does someone without a government-issued ID access a school as a volunteer or to visit a classroom?
How does MCPS communicate to the community the pathways that one can use to obtain assistance for students when help is needed?
What is the status of a CREA-like program for non-English Language Learners, who are aging out and are not on track to graduate?
Please provide disaggregated and school level data for 5th and 6th year seniors.
What is the cost of adding 136 elementary school counselors?
How has MCPS addressed interpreter availability, specifically for parent/teacher conferences? What barriers are there to providing communities interpretation services?
Please provide an overview of how we differentiate staffing for schools. Specifically, how does staffing look different in Title I, focus, and non-focus schools?
What are the criteria for acceptance to the Early and Middle College programs? How do we inform the community about the programs and the necessary preparation steps for the application process? What are the demographic breakdown and home school for the students participating in the Early and Middle College programs?
Please provide a list of the elementary schools that do not have an assistant principal and the enrollment for these schools (K-5). Please provide a list of the largest ten elementary schools and their administrative staffing.
Please provide the costs to date and the overall impact of Dreambox. What would it cost to put Dreambox in all focus schools and what would it cost to put Dreambox in all elementary schools?
What does “AD” as noted on page 35 of the budget book mean?
Please provide the number of students receiving English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services (by proficiency level) for the past three years for elementary, middle and high school.
Is there an administrator position budgeted for the new pre-k program?
Please provide an overview on the work MCPS is doing to provide support to students with dyslexia.
Where are the elementary Learning and Academic Disabilities (LAD) programs? Which schools do each LAD program serve?
What is the process used to identify an English Language Learners (ELLs) who also need special education services?
Please provide an overview of the special education staffing at Ashburton and the ratios of students to staff compared to guidelines.
Please provide a list of the different types of stipends that are available.
Please provide information regarding who will receive the extra school staffing when those decisions are made (Focus Schools, etc.).
Please describe what the Middle Years Programme entails. Do students take better or different classes? What do they do as students that is different than what they did when they were not part of the Middle Years Programme? How does a student in the Middle Years Programme without a high school 9-10 component look different than a middle schools Middle Years Programme with a 9-10 component?
What are the current responsibilities of the executive directors in each of the offices? What will the responsibilities be of the additional executive directors?
How much time do the instructional specialists in the Office of School Support and Improvement (OSSI) spend in the classroom co-teaching or coaching teachers? How do these instructional specialists help teachers improve instruction? How does their work differ from that of a resource teacher? Provide a breakdown of the amount of time the instructional specialists spend in schools in classroom, in schools doing other work, and not in schools?
Please provide a job description for information for the new climate specialist position including how this work is different from the work directors do in schools. What are the intended tangible outcomes for the position?
Please provide information regarding the perception survey with MCPS employees.
Please provide information regarding how OSSI receives feedback on the work and measures impact of the new structure. What is working and what is not?
How many bilingual pupil personnel workers, psychologists, and parent community coordinators are in the system?
Ms. Silvestre requested information regarding the overall number of bilingual/multilingual staff employed with MCPS.
How are we creatively using technology devices in our schools to make devices available to students in our schools?
What is OHRD doing to fill positions with bilingual employees?
Mrs. O’Neill requested information regarding the number of documents that were translated and into what languages. Also, how many translation services, and in what languages, were provided by the system?
How many Maryland Pubic Information Act requests did we receive last year? How many have we received this year? Are there requestors who submit many requests? How long does it take to fill requests?
Provide data for the level of demand for interpretation services. How many requests are we unable to fill?
Please provide the demographic and high school of assignment information for the participants for Summer RISE program for the past two years.