Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor apologized Tuesday for how families with students attending the district’s online learning academy were treated as the school board deliberated this spring over whether to close the program due to budget cuts.
“You should have been talked to, consulted and respected in a different way, and I’m sorry that that didn’t happen,” Taylor told the crowd of roughly 50 gathered in the Rockville High School auditorium for a listening session with the superintendent focused on the now-closed Montgomery Virtual Academy. “Looking at how this all played out in the sequence of events, that’s not what I would like MCPS to be known for.”
The academy, a program opened in the 2021-2022 school year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for students with prolonged health concerns or who thrived with at-home learning, was shut down by the school board at the end of the school year in June due to budget constraints.
The County Council adopted a $3.3 billion fiscal operating budget for the school district, which was roughly $30 million less than the county school board requested. To close the spending gap, the school board made several budget cuts, including the academy.
Though the program has ended, families, students and teachers involved in the academy continue to advocate for its reopening and shared their experiences and concerns with Taylor during a session that stretched from its scheduled timeframe of one hour to more than two and a half hours.
Taylor said that although he wasn’t superintendent when the board made its decision, he is responsible for what happens moving forward. The goal of the listening session, Taylor said, was to better understand students’ needs.
During the session held in person and over Zoom, parents, students and teachers shared how they were impacted by the academy and their concerns about what will happen to them in the fall.
One MCPS student with epilepsy who attended the listening session in person said that when she was attending school, she wasn’t present enough to learn.
“So, when the virtual academy opened, it solved all my academic problems,” the student said.
Other students said they attended the academy instead of attending school in person due to bullying or health concerns and conditions.
One parent said the academy “saved” her neurodivergent high schooler, who often refused to attend school. The academy allowed her child to not miss the entire school day when she was overwhelmed and gave her child a “middle ground” of attending school online while still participating in after-school activities such as football games.
“[The closure] is devastating for my family,” she said. “We’re very, very scared about this fall and what we’re going to do.”
This isn’t the first time families have advocated against closing the academy. Some protested before and after the announcement of the program closure or spoke at school board meetings.
Sterling High, a parent of an academy student and member of the program’s PTA, said hearing an apology from the superintendent during the listening session made him hopeful, especially because he felt like the school board wouldn’t listen to families impacted by the decision.
“To hear that from him gives me hope. He seems like a genuine guy,” High told MoCo360. “I’m hoping that action follows along the words.”
Moving forward, High said the options for reinstituting the academy for the coming school year were dwindling. In May, High told MoCo360 that academy families hoped the school board would ask for supplemental funding from the County Council to keep the virtual school open.
“At this point, more money isn’t going to transition fast enough into saving it for this year,” High said.
High and others are now advocating for re-appropriating budget funding to have state funds that must follow students to their schools go toward running the academy. According to the website Maryland Matters, the state board overseeing the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan required 75% of per-pupil funding to follow students to the school they attend as of July 1.
At the listening session, Taylor said the district would consider all its options, but there was no single or easy solution. Taylor noted the money that must now follow students was only state funding and didn’t include local money allotted to MCPS.
From his understanding, Taylor said closing the academy was a “business decision, and it was based on fiscal constraints.” He said that, generally, superintendents can’t overturn board decisions or overrule an adopted budget, so he didn’t want to give anyone false hope.
High told MoCo360 that he hoped the superintendent would indicate he’s moving forward to find an option for academy students that he would “put his shoulder into.”
Taylor told the families the listening session was a starting point, not an ending one.
“Our commitment to meeting your child’s needs has not changed even though some of the programming may have,” Taylor said. “I share your disappointment in where we are today.”