Schooling Superintendent Starr

In his first stop on the “Listen and Learn” tour Tuesday night at Northwest High School, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr heard parents concerns over transparency, capital improvement projects, teacher raises and No Child Left Behind.

“We have been to the moon,” Starr said. “How do we get to Mars? Are the things we need to get to one place the same things we need to get to another place?”

The town hall style meeting was the first of 10 events scheduled throughout the county this year. As the title of the tour suggested, Starr said he was there to listen and learn. Prior to meeting parents and the wider school community, Starr held a closed-door session with school staff. He is scheduled to have five other staff only events through out the county.

The next stop on the “Listen and Learn” tour is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at Thomas S. Wootton High School.

At Northwest, some parents said they were glad Starr was making the effort to get to know the school community. Others said they wished Starr had provided more substance, more answers to the issues that parents raised.

One parent said she was concerned by the widening gap between upcounty schools other schools, with regard to SAT scores. Extending Starr’s analogy, she said some students on free and reduced meal programs had “missed the shuttle to Mars.”

Another parent raised concerns about overcrowding in schools, saying his son skipped lunch for two weeks because the Northwest cafeteria was too crowded, leaving students without enough time for lunch. Last year seniors could go off campus for lunch but the privilege was scrapped following complaints from local businesses and disciplinary issues with students from other grades who accompanied seniors for lunch outside the school. 

Other issues raised included improving education for special education students and gifted and talented students, accountability, school zoning and teacher compensation.

Ed Vigezzi, incoming Parent Teacher Student Association President at Martin Luther King Middle School, said he was eager to hear Starr lay out his vision for MCPS schools. But Vigezzi said that his concerns were more specific.

“If I had a pressing issue as a private parent it would be the modernization of Seneca Valley High,” Vigezzi said. “It has been pushed back a couple of times and my son and daughter will go there in several years.”  

Stephanie Ineh, the Parent Teacher Student Association president for Northwest, said she was glad that Starr was meeting school communities but said she wasn’t completely satisfied with what he said Tuesday.

“I did not hear any specific plans of action for him and where he is going. I heard generalizations,” Ineh said. “I understand that he has been in his position for a short period of time so he has to learn and grow into that however I am not completely satisfied with what I heard here today.”

Starr said issues raised by parents would take time to research and address satisfactorily.

“This is listen and learn which not state and direct,” Starr said. “This is about listening and learning and I am not giving answers yet. I have nine more of these (meetings) to do in the community. This is the first step of really understanding what people want with their schools and then out of all these we will develop some action steps but it is not time yet. Right now it is time for learning.”