MCPS Parent Preference “Survey” Responses Demographic Analysis – Part 1

This is analysis of the responses data that MCPS presented to the BOE in December 2020 (Link to slides at bottom)

It is Part 1 of the analysis as the Part 2 will be analysis of the full school by school breakdown from an MPIA request.

Parent Survey Demographics of those who chose Partial In Person

This post analyzes the survey demographics just among those who chose in person.

Since these were individual choices, it made more sense to me to look at total number of students who selected Partial In Person instead of the binary win/loss percentage that MCPS displayed in their presentation.

Here is what the demographics look like overall. Note that the total number of students wanting to return for each racial group was over 10,000:

  • Asian / White / Other: 36,782 (58.3% of in person responses)
  • Black / African American: 10,240 (16.2%)
  • Hispanic / Latino: 16,047 (25.4%)
  • Note: The next 3 overlap with categories above
  • Special Ed: 7,196 (11.4%)
  • FARMS: 17,183 (27%)
  • ESOL: 8,007 (12.7%)
Figure 1

While at first this looks very lopsided, the Asian / White / All Others groups also make up 45.9% of all students according to MCPS Official 2019-2020 At A Glance (detailed section on that data and source below).

To account for school system demographics, “Figure 2” below contains the data from “Figure 1” normalized using the MCPS At A Glance Percentages.

Figure 2

As you can see, there are still more Asian, White, and Other students wanting to go back than any other group (at each level: ES, MS, HS and overall) when you normalize by MCPS enrollment demographics.

Title I, Focus, Impacted Schools Compared to Non-Focus, Non-Impacted Schools

Once again, this data focused on those that responded YES to Partial In Person before the December 2020 meeting. Some may have changed but this is the data we have.

Figure 3

In “Figure 3”, you can see the balance in these different schools is not as clear cut as the racial breakdown above.

From “Figure 3”, of those who selected Partial In Person there are:

  • Elementary School – 18% more students from Non-Focus Schools than Title I and Focus Schools (combined)
  • Middle School – 78% more students from Impacted Schools than Non-Impacted Schools
  • High School – 50.8% more students from Non-Impacted Schools than Impacted Schools

Conclusion

The largest racial group that wants to return is the one containing Asians / Whites and All Others. That is clear on all levels: total number of students, % of students, and per capita students that want to return. It would be nice to have this group broken down further, combining these makes analysis tough.

However, there are also over 10,000 students each in the Black / African American and Hispanic / Latino racial groups that want to return.

Similarly, it’s clear that large numbers of students with special needs, in ESOL, or on FARMS want to return. The last thing that stands out is the Middle School level where 78% more students from Impacted Schools want to return than Non-Impacted Schools.

MCPS Official At a Glance Demographics

Although we know many students have left the system from the 160,000 that were enrolled to start the year, the best data we have to use is the 2019-2020 MCPS At A Glance information for this breakdown, so that is what I used.

Figure 4: Student Enrollment and Demographics

Student Demographics (Since chart doesn’t show):

  • White – 26.9%
  • Hispanic / Latino – 32.4%
  • Black / African American – 21.4%
  • Asian – 14.1%
  • Two or more Races – 4.9%
  • Combined – White, Asian, Two or more Races = 45.9%

Student Population by Level:

  • Elementary – 72,338
  • Middle – 37,304
  • High – 50,519
Figure 5: MCPS Staff Demographics

Link to full MCPS Official at a glance:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/

Link to full PowerPoint slides where data for this post came from:

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