January 13, 1999
The Rockville Cluster fully supports the last operating budget to be proposed by Dr. Vance especially the proposal to accelerate the program to reduce class size. We desire the expansion of the reading initiative from the two elementary schools in the Rockville Cluster that have this program, Maryvale and Meadow Hall, to all the elementary schools in the cluster. This wealth of academic effort and striving for achievement should be shared within the rest of the cluster. The cluster also supports additional efforts to reduce class size in the pre-algebra and algebra classes in the cluster. The seventh grade pre-algebra class has often been crowded, occasionally with up to 30 students. We would welcome any additional support that would reduce this class size to a level which will allow more individual attention in this critical course. And, of course, the Rockville Cluster will support any measure to reduce class size generally to the levels of five years ago. Dr. Vance's budget includes funding for development of additional high school signature programs. Rockville High School has plans for part of that money. At this time, Ms. Durinda Yates, the principal of Rockville High School, and her staff are preparing to propose a signature program in writing at Rockville High School, building on the strengths of the high school English department and the award-winning student newspaper. No matter what media will be used in the future, the fundamental basis for communication will always be good writing. Rockville High School will need approximately $66,000 for development and full implementation of this signature program, $50,000 of which will be salaries for a coordinator and a composition assistant.. We therefore eagerly support this provision for funding development of signature programs because we will be near the head of the line to benefit from it.
There are three items that concern the Rockville Cluster that should be addressed by the staff of Montgomery County Public Schools and the Board of Education. One concern is the French Immersion magnet program currently based at Maryvale Elementary School. Next year the elementary program is to be split between the Rockville Cluster and the Montgomery Blair cluster. In the years that the programs has been located at Maryvale, more students from the upper part of Montgomery County had enrolled in the program until now, in the lower grades, almost 50 percent of the students come from the upcounty area. However, there currently is no provision for expansion of the French Immersion program in the Rockville Cluster beyond Maryvale. The only existing middle school French Immersion program exists in the Montgomery Blair Cluster. Students from Germantown, Poolsville, Damascus and Clarksburg are already spending over an hour on the bus each way to participate in the French Immersion program at Maryvale. The time it would take to get these students to the Montgomery Blair Cluster to continue in this program would be prevent these students from pursuing the French Immersion program through middle school. Attached to this testimony is an open letter to the Board of Education from the parents of Maryvale who indicate why it is important to allow their children to continue the French Immersion program into middle school. Therefore, it would make eminent sense to allow the French Immersion program to grow in the Rockville Cluster, providing for French Immersion classes next year for sixth graders at Earle B. Wood Middle School and gradually allowing the program to expand to all grades at Wood Middle School and Rockville High School.
One important aspect of teaching students is making sure they get to school safely. However, in the Rockville Cluster, some of our high school students must face a dangerous route each morning when they walk down Baltimore Road. On Monday Mona Signer accepted the invitation of the Rockville High School PTSA and walked this route. After that walk, MCPS has actively engaged in a review of the situation to see whether the safety of the route can be improved or whether the students involved should be bused. While the Rockville Cluster community will be pleased with this activity, it is sad that it took this walk to call attention to the problem despite all the concerns expressed by the parents of Rockville High students. Some report that MCPS staff in the transportation department responded rudely and inhospitably when questioned by concerned parents. MCPS must take steps to review dangerous routes such as Baltimore Road at an earlier point in the process without the need for special walks to call attention to potential dangers to students. It wouldn't hurt for the Board to set aside some money to train the transportation staff to be more courteous and respectful when talking to and responding to concerned parents. I'm sure this problem is not unique to the Rockville Cluster.
Parents in the Rockville Cluster have also expressed some dissatisfaction with the limited opportunity and programs for gifted and talented students in the cluster. We wish to see more done to provide challenging curricula for these students. For instance, the William and Mary reading program should be ftinded to that it will become the standard elementary reading program for gifted and talented students in all elementary schools, not just some. Also, the limitation of only four elementary centers for the highly gifted and talented is too restrictive. MCPS should expand such programs until there is one highly gifted and talented elementary center in each cluster. Programs at the middle school and high school levels for the highly gifted and talented should also be expanded so that there is at least one center in each area, if not in each cluster. The curriculum should be strengthened throughout MCPS. We should strive for ambitious goals. For example, MCPS should start planning now to make algebra an eighth grade subject for 80 to 100 percent of those students, not just 40 percent. The state of California is already taking this step. The curriculum used in gifted and talented courses should become the standard curriculum. The information about gifted and talented programs on the elementary level, particularly the qualification requirements, should be widely disseminated, not just kept to be viewed only within the offices of MCPS. Ideally, this information should be placed on the MCPS website, a step that has been taken by other school systems in the country. Montgomery County has always prided itself on an excellent public school system. However, we cannot rest on our laurels and polish our medals while the rest of the country passes us by. We can only stay ahead by moving ahead, not by standing still. If we want to be among the best in the United States, we must do all we can to bring a better, more challenging curriculum, with well-trained and motivated teachers and principals to our children so that they can reach higher in the new millennium than we have reached in this one.