July 17, 2024 by Jasmine Jefferson (MCPS Summer RISE student)

On June 11, 2024, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) made the momentous decision to close the Montgomery Virtual Academy (MVA) during a Board of Education (BOE) meeting. This decision caused shockwaves around Montgomery County. Students, staff, and families are now faced with unclear futures and are searching for potential educational and career options as a result of this move, which appears to have been motivated by budgetary constraints (see Q7). Serious concerns regarding educational access and these students’ futures are brought up by the shutdown. This article will look at the impacts the closure is having on families, staff, and schools.

Previously, the MCPS Board of Education had made the decision to keep MVA and “recommended that the district fund the full program in response to community reaction to the potential elimination of the program” and stay open for the fiscal year 2025, and then after that period, they will advise the administration to look at the elementary portion of students and conduct an analysis on that data.” We spoke to MVA parents who say that MCPS is staying untrue to these claims.

In the June 11th board meeting, Karla Silvestre, president of the MCPS BOE, stated that “we have made decisions that nobody wanted to make.” Due to the sudden closure, many families, students, and staff have a minimal amount of time to decide how to further pursue their future without the Montgomery Virtual Academy (MVA). 

The MVA was created in the COVID-19 pandemic but has since been an option to accommodate students that thrive in virtual learning. It is a synchronous virtual learning program (full time during same hours ad MCPS schools) and serves around 800 families. It aids students with special needs, learning differences, and medical conditions. As well as those looking to learn without distractions or bullying, and even elite athletes. “Having the virtual academy to go to for our son has been life changing for us,” said Sterling High when being interviewed by WUSA9. Sterling shares two children with Courtney Evans; their 4th grader and kindergartener attend the virtual academy. We spoke to them and both are medically vulnerable to COVID and other transmissible diseases; the academy has been imperative for their family. The virtual academy is “a setting that allows our families and our students to have an option that, for some, the traditional setting is just not what they’re comfortable with. And then for others, they may have some medical reasons,” board member Shebra Evans (Dist. 4) said in the aforementioned MoCo360 article.

In response to community criticism about the program’s possible closure, the MCPS Board of Education had previously advised that the district continue to fund the entire program and keep it running until the 2025 fiscal year ends. The funding for this period is estimated to cost approximately $4.26 million. The BOE had still planned to eventually phase out the elementary portion while looking at “how <MCPS> can better utilize that for our secondary students.”

New MCPS Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor held a listening session with MVA parents and staff yesterday on Tuesday 7/16. You can see more details of that conversation in this WJLA article. The cover image is from Dr. Taylor and a parent speaking at this event.

MVA parents have shared data they claim shows MVA on par or performing better than similar demographic schools and in some cases better than the MCPS average. Since MCPS is not openly sharing information about their findings, parents and staff have had to collect their own data. Thus, we cannot validate the source of all of this data nor see the data in whole. It’s also not clear if advanced students who are in MVA hybrid are included in the data, if special education students are included, among other things which could significantly alter the findings.

MCPS has done multiple surveys that highlight some findings about the virtual academy. Moderately MOCO and The MoCo AI Company previously used a program to analyze one of these surveys which showed that MVA was among the top results for things MCPS should continue.

Next Steps for Families

MCPS is giving families few options to continue their child’s school path. One is to apply for a COSA, which means Change of School Assignment. MCPS says they are giving preference to MVA for COSA applications. The other option is IIS, or interim instructional services, which allows students to receive virtual learning for up to 4 hours over 60 days. 

IIS is only a temporary solution to out-of-school learning. Many issues arise with both COSA’s and IIS for students, though. COSA applications are difficult to navigate for parents and are a lengthy process and may not necessarily help with the issues that pushed students to virtual. IIS is also hard to navigate, and there is not enough time for students to sufficiently gain learning time compared to being in the virtual academy. It requires some sort of teacher, some of whom are teaching at odd hours of the day due to taking off on their lunch break or free time. 

Courtney Evans, who has a child in kindergarten, recalled that one of their classes was at 6:30 p.m., interfering with their at-home routine. IIS also lacks the capacity to accommodate the number of students coming from the virtual academy. With confusion from many parents for the next steps, MCPS has hosted a few informational sessions, but Evans and her spouse, Sterling High, state that they have been very scarce, and communication between MCPS and families has not been very good. Many residents feel that MCPS did not take all factors into consideration. Time is scarce for families to figure out their next steps. In an interview with DC News Now, MVA parent Natoya Goldman states, “The timing of it all is not appropriate at all.” Then adding, “I’m like, how do we have two months to figure out where our kids will be going in the fall?” 

Per WTOP, “David Chia, the director of the program, states that the school system is “committed to working collaboratively” with families transitioning their students into in-person learning. Chia says that every former MVA family will get an assigned MCPS staff member that will aid them in the students’ return to in-person school and that these staff members will take each student’s requirements into account.”

Impact on Staff

Teachers who have adapted to virtual teaching now have to decide whether or not to resign completely or transfer to another in-person MCPS school. Their decision must be made by July 15th, a date which has now already passed. Teachers must now re-acclimate with teaching in-person classes. Staff, just as families, now have to navigate their future in a considerably short period of time.

During the MVA conversation Tuesday night, many staff commented in testimony or in the chat they they had left MCPS due to removal of MVA but were ready to return if that option opened back up.

Schools receiving MVA students

Many students who attend MVA have IEPs, special needs, and unique learning situations that might be difficult to accommodate or very costly in in-person schools. Schools may need to prepare for a sudden influx of students with diverse learning needs and backgrounds. Many of the students’ homeschools may not have the resources to properly provide them with what they need to succeed. MCPS may not have the funding to get these resources into its schools. To leave MCPS altogether, even for a short period of time, would mean losing IEP and other statuses and having to begin these lengthy processes over again.

Advocating for MVA

Many residents have gone through extensive measures to advocate for keeping the virtual academy open. Parents have sent countless emails and phone calls; there have been rallies, protests, and some sit-ins, according to Evans. One sit-in student, Toryn Goldman, stated when interviewed by DC News Now, “Don’t get rid of my school; I love Montgomery Virtual Academy.” 

A petition urging the board and MCPS to continue funding the academy garnered more than 2,000 signatures, as well as video messages of support from students who attend the academy. 

Evans also recalls that there was seemingly no acknowledgement of their efforts at times from board members or that they would hold untrue to their previous claims. Multiple parents feel that no member of the academy nor other factors were considered during the board’s decision. 

Currently, the Evans family and many others are petitioning the State Board of Education on behalf of all MVA families that MCPS conducted an illegal closure. According to COMAR 13A, the announcement of a school closure cannot occur past April 30th of the ongoing school year. However, MCPS does not recognize MVA as a school but rather a program due to the way its budget is allocated versus in-person schools. This could be a key issue in the petitioning case. But Evans states that their counterargument to this claim is that the virtual academy has all aspects of a school: “We have a mascot, we have our deans, and we have dedicated teachers that don’t teach anywhere else.” 

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