Tuesday, May 1, 2012

MCCPTA "members did not realize they had elected 15-year-old"

Gazette:  Student to serve as officer for Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations

6 comments:

  1. Paula BienenfeldMay 1, 2012 at 1:53 PM

    Thanks for posting. This speaks directly to the proposed state legislation in Annapolis which would allow the student member of the MCPS Board of Education to have full voting rights, i.e., vote on the budget and other financial issues. Middle and high school age children vote for the student member in elections conducted under the direction of the MCR (Montgomery County Region of the Maryland Association of Student Councils) which is in turn managed by the MCPS Board of Education, according to the website at http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/studentaffairs/sga/mcr/.

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  2. Montgomery County StudentMay 1, 2012 at 8:37 PM

    1. What is the problem with HB701 again?
    2. Richard Yarrow is one of the brightest people I know and has served PTAs better than many adults have - his initiative should not be disregarded when it is a stretch just to form a PTSA at a given school due to the apathy from most parents.

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    Replies
    1. Lots of differences in position and how he got elected.

      As regard to how he got elected, imagine he just had his name put in for nomination! He didn't need a note from his principal (as Student members of the Board of Education do) and didn't need to have a specific GPA to be part of the SGA! He was just a member of an organization that was able to be elected to a position. Nothing like what students must go through to run for a position on the Board of Education.

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    2. Ms. Sartucci, SGA members do need to have at least a 2.0 GPA to participate, and Richie has well above that. As to a letter from the principal, I am sure that Dr. McLeod would have been happy to write him one. He is more politically aware than most parents, and that is why he was elected. Why should it matter if he is a student? If people wanted to know whether he was a student or a parent, they could have asked. Students are the leaders of the future, but why not let them be the leaders of today?

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    3. @astudentleader

      Yes, why not let ANY student be a leader? That is my point. The Student Member of the Board of Education (SMOB) position is NOT open to ANY student. The SMOB must be screened, GPA approved and signed off by Principal before they can even run for office. Why the restrictions that do NOT apply to the adult Board of Education members.

      In the MCCPTA instance, this student WAS able to run without a note from his principal, without showing his GPA and with out being pre-screened. This student ran the SAME way as the adults. He was nominated from the floor without any introduction. That is the way MCCPTA operates, no introductions necessary. Just a name and a vote.

      Why isn't the SMOB elected the same way? Why isn't ANY student able to run for the SMOB position? Why don't we see a SMOB from Edison High School, for example, on the Board of Education, EVER? Please explain the discrimination.

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  3. @MoCo Student, my concern is that the student BOE member does not go through the entire open election process. All the other candidates are elected in an open election. Only the student member voters are limited to students in middle and high school. And, as J. Sartucci has noted, only the student member must go through a vetting process and have a minimum GPA, and only the student member receives a (I believe) $5k scholarship from MCPS or the BOE. I have no problem with a student board member and it is good that students are represented. The structure of the rest of the BOE is that some members do represent specific districts. However, if the student member wants all the voting rights, including voting on financial matters of a $2.1BILLION budget, over half of our entire county budget, they should go through the same election process. Otherwise their role should be limited. This bill has nothing to do with Mr. Yarrow. It is a bill that would be law long after he is gone.

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