Montgomery County’s plan to convert three high schools with predominantly poor, minority populations into magnet schools was rejected by the federal government.
Without the $3.3 million that schools officials requested, the district can’t cover the cost of the overhaul, said Marshall Spatz, director of management, budget and planning for Montgomery County Public Schools. “Our budget was cut $98 million this year, so there’s certainly not extra money lying around,” Spatz said.
But the district may seek other changes to Thomas Edison High School, a vocational school where, parents say, changes would be devastating for students, nearly one-third of whom have special needs.
The school district proposed turning Gaithersburg’s Watkins Mill High School into the International Baccalaureate School of Engineering, Digital Design, and Performing Arts at Watkins Mill, and combining Wheaton High School and nearby Edison into Montgomery County High Tech High School.
The Department of Education gave $100 million to 36 school systems to create magnet schools that will “desegregate” schools with racially lopsided populations.
About 80 percent of students at Wheaton, 70 percent at Watkins Mill and 67 percent at Thomas Edison are black or Hispanic.
Raysha Picerno, vice president of Wheaton’s Parent-Teacher-Student Association, said she was “disappointed, because it would have been a positive thing for the school.”
Associate Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Erick Lang said that the district wants to alter Edison because some vocational programs were not recruiting enough students — although he conceded that staff did not always advertise Edison to parents.
“There is some disconnect there,” Lang said at a Special Education Advisory Committee meeting.
Edison parents were incensed by the proposal, which they said would compromise special education, and remained cautious after the rejection.
“That’s kind of the scary part — what are they going to change now?” said Joan Sabaka, co-chairwoman of the advisory panel.
Spatz said his office is “looking through our budget at what we can do to bolster those programs” but did not yet know what actions may ensue.
“Sometimes you can realign other resources, from other grants and the budget, to accomplish some of the [application’s] goals,” Spatz said. “There are always alternatives.”
Anna Hinton, the Department of Education director who ran the grant program, said she expected to send letters to unsuccessful applicants Monday, detailing where they fell short.
Three-person panels assigned points to all 97 applications before rank-ordering them and awarding grants up to $4 million.
