Annie Tulkin is very concerned that when her daughter starts attending Oak View Elementary in September, it will no longer be a Title 1 school next year, thereby losing extra funds and educational supports.
Besides the extra paraeducators and other support staff, the school also may lose teachers. The federal government allows teachers at Title 1 schools not to have to repay their federal and state college loans.
“There is a question of whether teachers would want to teach there,” Tulkin said. Also, she noted, some of the state grants obtained by the school will no longer be awarded if the school is not designated as a Title 1 school.
“The real loss to students is the targeted support,” but there will be a downward ripple effect, she said.
Oliver Torres Garcia, PTA president at New Hampshire Estates and Oakview elementary schools, also is upset.
The loss of about $400,000 worth of educational extras “is devastating,” he told MCM through an interpreter.
He estimated that students would lose hours of additional support, literacy and math programs, summer camps and even pencils and notebooks.
Garcia wrote a letter to New Hampshire and Oakview elementary school families urging them to contact Interim Superintendent Dr. Monique Felder, Board of Education and County Council members as well as Executive Marc Elrich and ask them to provide the roughly $400,000 Oak View would lose.
“There are always students in need,” he said.
In a social media post, Tulkin wrote, “100s of letters have been sent, but not a peep from @MCPS or @mocoboe on their plan to address this HUGE inequity that is impacting the most economically disadvantage students in the county who are coming from NHE and going to Oak View.”
Three other Montgomery County elementary schools also will lose their Title 1 designation next year. Brookhaven, Veirs Mill and Strathmore elementary schools did not meet the criteria to remain as Title 1 schools.
Previously, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) used the number of students qualifying for free and reduced meals to calculate the poverty levels of a school’s study body. Now, the criteria is how many students receive direct aid from the federal government.
In part, MCPS changed the criteria, because students attending certain schools automatically receive free meals even if their families do not fill out the proper forms. When MCPS moved to only include students receiving federal aid, like SNAP benefits, many undocumented students were no longer counted.
Tulkin noted that New Hampshire Elementary School, which is a kindergarten through second grade school, feeds into Oak View, which has third through fifth graders. If the two schools were considered one elementary school, it would be eligible to remain under Title 1 she said.
“They need to reassess the formula, she said.
MCM sent emails to BOE President Karla Silvestre and an MCPS spokesperson but did not hear back.
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