Sunil isn’t running for the Board of Education (BOE) because everything is broken, he’s running to help address these three top priorities and to help take what’s good and make it excellent.
​

Three Major Priorities
​to improve our school system.

1. Hire more teachers, staff, and counselors so we can reduce class size and reduce support staff ratios. This will enable teachers and staff to more effectively meet individual students’ needs, develop relationships with families so teachers and parents can work together for improved learning outcomes, and help students with social-emotional skills that support academic results.​
2. Rebuild the home and school partnership to forge a close and mutually cooperative collaboration between teachers and families. Right now, parents/guardians who are able to be at the schools tend to have the strongest of these relationships while most others interact with teachers only occasionally, like during parent-teacher conferences. While most teachers try to provide helpful information and more parents/guardians are trying to absorb the information, really it can be more like speed-dating than a meaningful engagement in the best interest of the students. . To help students through improved home/school relationships, schools need more teachers, staff, and counselors so that class sizes are smaller (back to point 1).
3. Invest in student and staff health, safety, and training including mental health and wellness to promote school climate and effective teaching. Two steps can help: hiring more counselors, psychologists, and social workers who provide can mental health support (back to point 1) and including new content, for example, on brain development, the history of mental health treatment, the chemistry of disorders, and related matters as part of our curriculum.

Sunil offers public comments about school boundaries
​at the January 9, 2020 MCPS Board of Education meeting.

For every $100 million reduction in bonding, the savings are $8 million, or the salary of 100 new teachers.*

*Estimate is based on statements of Richard S. Madaleno, Jr, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, indicating that for every $1 million borrowed it costs $80,000 annually in principal and interest.

Three BIG Ideas
​to address the major challenges to achieving these goals.

Big Idea #1: Find the money
MCPS has two major courses of the funding. The County and the State. The leadership in the General Assembly is trying to fully fund the Kirwan Commission recommendations. As Maryland comes together in support of Kirwan funding, we must join the call to make sure that the state and county governments step up to provide the resources and advocate for increases in state and county allocations to MCPS. 

We can find even more resources by re-balancing capital and operating budgets. The current MCPS Capital Improvements Program (CIP) is $1.82 billion, which requires $1.2 billion in new bonds (money the county government borrows) with a requirement to repay them at a cost of close to $100 million annually. Reassigning students from overcrowded schools to under-enrolled schools can make it possible to shift financial resources to a hiring expansion. It actually has several benefits.

• By reducing the need for new buildings, MCPS will decrease the new bond amounts and the annual cost of repayment of those bonds.  For every $100 million reduced in bonds, MCPS will save $8 million*, about the salary of 100 new teachers.
• School that had been overcrowded will receive less per/student funding, but will decrease or even eliminate costs associated with overcrowding, like rental of portables.
• Schools that had been under-enrolled will get increased per/student funding to support associated expenses.

This kind of re-prioritization requires assertive leadership within the BOE and a willingness to work with the county government, the county council, and with the state.

Big Idea #2: Make teaching and working in MCPS more attractive and prestigious to help retain teachers
There is a teacher shortage nationally. There are fewer teacher training colleges and new teachers are leaving within years of starting in the profession. Hiring and keeping teachers requires more resources, but also requires we elevate the profession, improve work conditions, support teacher autonomy, and build in extra time for teachers to develop relationships with individual students and families. Three decades of emphasizing standards have reduced teacher autonomy and eroded the relationships that were and should be the foundation of teaching. We must find ways to restore the balance between standards and other activities that contribute to successful teaching, including teacher autonomy, relationship building, and career advancement that allows classroom teachers to remain in the classroom and not have to take on administrative responsibilities for the sake of promotions.

Big Idea #3: Train teachers and staff more effectively
Teacher and staff training time is scarce and can be expensive. Hiring more teachers and staff will help, but all teachers and staff - especially those who are new to the profession - need effective training and professional development. Too often professional development is seen as just a requirement instead of a source of excitement and even a path to advancement. In order for teachers to be effective, teachers need more time to work on lesson planning, engage in content learning, and pursue special coursework such as on Mental Health First Aid.

To reinvigorate training, involve teachers in developing and managing professional development. One possibility might be to look at longer contracts for new teachers to include more training time. Another would be to allow more planning and training time during the year in addition to offering professional development opportunities, like graduate course credits. And with increased hiring that adds planning time, a third possibility could be to encourage more group-based professional development through which handfuls of teachers gather to develop their own learning programs.
​

DONATE

​​Authority: Friends 4 Sunil Dasgupta
​Treasurer:  Jamison Adcock
PO Box 9542 Silver Spring, MD 20916