by  Sydney Henry ’20

On February 6, MCPS Superintendent Jack Smith met with student reporters from multiple high school publications to discuss his vision for the school system.

Many of the questions asked by students had to do with the recent demographic and enrollment reports that were published by the school board in January. One topic brought up by editor-in-chief at “The Tide,” Richard Montgomery’s newspaper, was the reported decrease in enrollment. Dr. Smith responded first with statistics, saying the school system has enrolled “over 20,000 students in the past 10 years…just under 80 percent stay in MCPS from kindergarten to eighth grade.” He also said that the greatest number of students are in the lower grades, and that students are most likely to leave MCPS during the middle years of their education, meaning there are more students entering kindergarten than there are graduating out of high school.

Dr. Smith also addressed a question on the 2017 switch to MyMCPS Classroom, which replaced Edline. He said the school system wanted to create more online services and integrate said services into students’ everyday education. The school board hopes to have continuous long-term use of the program and to possibly further develop it in the future. When asked why the board chose MyMCPS over Edline, the response was just that the newer system was simply easier. “If it’s not as easy as buying things on Amazon, we’re making it too difficult,” said Dr. Smith.

However, the most contentious topic that was discussed was the ESOL Program, or English for Speakers of Other Languages. Some students at the meeting felt it was not an efficient enough program to give students from other countries a proper education, saying that the classes don’t connect enough with the students and often don’t integrate the students into other areas of their schools. Dr. Smith responded that he hopes to change the program in the next few years, as it is unfair to expect a student to become fully literate in a whole new language and graduate at a high school level in only four years.