Is MCPS trying to suppress public engagement?
And is the Board on board? Time-sensitive: they vote Thursday 7/16.
Agenda item 10.1 for Thursday’s Board of Education business meeting is “Approval of the 2026-2027 Board Handbook.” Linked in BoardDocs is the redlined version, tracking all changes from the 2025-2026 Handbook to the proposed 2026-2027 one. There are not a lot of changes and many are housekeeping, such as striking the names of members leaving the Board, and cutting the reference to a communications advisory group’s focus in the 2025-2026 school year on the Crown, Damascus, and Woodward boundary studies. A few changes are substantive, and one stands out in its reach.
What is the proposed change to the rules for publicly posting meeting materials?
To date, MCPS has been supposed to normally release meeting materials to the public online days ahead of Board meetings; the proposed change sets the expectation of simply releasing materials “prior” to meetings, which could mean hours or minutes in advance. This change matters because it would reduce chances for members of the public to contact Board members in advance with questions or concerns, to sign up to testify at the meeting, and to mobilize others.
Section 11 of the Handbook is Board of Education Meetings. Part H of that section is Preparation of Meeting Materials. Here’s the proposed change (see red strike-through):
Source: Board Handbook 2026-27 (Redline) Accessed July 13, 2026
There’s a lot of passive voice going on in this passage, but of course materials don’t prepare and release themselves. The people who prepare and release the materials work for MCPS and the superintendent; they are not Board staff.
So, the old Handbook said that MCPS staff would “normally” make those materials “available online to the public on the Friday prior to business meetings and regular work sessions.” Such meetings and regular work sessions are held on weekdays, and not generally on Fridays, so this means at most a week in advance. The “normally” is doing important work here: I had not been aware of it until reading the redlined Handbook text, and in fact I’d been somewhat annoyed in the past when materials were not made available four business days in advance, as the Board of Education meetings website says below, with no “normally” caveat. The Handbook says Board members get materials first so they can review before meetings, but I have no idea how far in advance that happens. There’s no change proposed there.
Source: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/meetings/ Accessed 7/13/26.
The Handbook and the website should say the same thing, whatever the thing turns out to be.
Why does it matter if the public sees meeting materials “before” the meeting, vs. the Friday before, vs. four days before?
Two reasons: communicating with Board members, and giving public testimony at the meeting. These matter for individuals, and especially for anyone trying to mobilize a larger group.
You can communicate with a Board member before the meeting. There’s often a closed Board session immediately before the public session, and Board members get a lot of email. So you wouldn’t want to send your email just hours ahead of the meeting.
But if you want to give public testimony, you need to snag one of the 20 slots per meeting, which often means signing up as soon as permitted.
Source: Board of Education Public Participation, https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/community/participation/ Accessed 7/14/26.
The public therefore needs to see MCPS materials in time for these deadlines:
one week prior to the meeting at six p.m. if you want the best chances of getting a slot,
three days before the meeting (when sign-up closes), or
however long it takes you to read the materials and drive to Rockville, to take your chances showing up in person the day of.
If materials are posted just minutes ahead of the meeting, the public is out of options.
Why this proposed change?
I hope we’ll learn more from Thursday’s meeting. There are ten minutes allotted for this on the agenda, but it is lodged between two big issues: the “Previous New Business” of the K-8 Instructional Screen Time Audit and a preview of the countywide elementary boundary study.
Source: BoardDocs (navigate to Business Meeting Agenda for July 16, 2026, then click agenda)
In the BoardDocs agenda above, I’ve circled in pink the attachment with the redlined Handbook. Clicking on that paper icon is how you would find it in advance of the meeting if I didn’t give you the URL, or you didn’t get an email from the MCCPTA flagging the change (I did because I’m an MCCPTA delegate, but they weren’t sent to everyone), or you missed the anonymous post on DC Urban Moms. (I don’t want to quote an anonymous source at length, and I never thought I’d write these words here, but the DCUM post is worth reading.) These BoardDocs attachments are the subject of the change: how far in advance will they be uploaded?
Sometimes, agenda items like approving the new Handbook are introduced by the Board President and there is little to no discussion before they are moved, seconded, and voted upon. There might be no discussion because they are pro forma and not interesting or worth the Board’s time. Or there could be no discussion if they don’t want to publicly discuss the issue. With ten minutes, a Board member who is concerned about what this change – and it is a change, even if a change in formal expectations more than practice, which is why they are bothering to make it – means for public engagement could start a real discussion.
I have my own guesses as to why this change is proposed. I’ve observed the Board members often ask what seem to be first-order questions that MCPS staff should have anticipated and do not have the data prepared to answer. I suppose this could be part of political machinations, where they guess the answer is going to hurt the superintendent’s agenda, and so they don’t prepare the data that would hurt the case. I can’t rule this out, but I’m guessing a less nefarious reason is far more typical: they don’t have time. Or more precisely, they prioritize other tasks above preparing materials for Board meetings – and those other tasks probably involve putting out fires related to running schools.
But why have Board meetings, if the Board doesn’t have the information they need to make decisions?
Is public engagement good?
I personally quite enjoy engaging, and giving others the information they need to engage is a big part of why I write this newsletter. I want to believe in local democracy. I am opposed to this Handbook change.
One pro-engagement anecdote: open lunch. More here, but in brief: MCPS pitched the Policy Management Committee on getting rid of their open lunch policy without making a specific case for it; the committee voted to rescind it with very little information; the public, especially the B-CC HS community, affected students, engaged by e-mailing Board members and testifying; the full Board had an active discussion; and ultimately the policy was not eliminated, clearly going against the superintendent’s wishes. Board members expressed that they wanted more information, and the whole thing felt rushed. My take is that this public engagement likely delayed a longer process that could require the superintendent to introduce a resolution and provide more reasoning and data. As much as I like open lunch, I really like the superintendent to share his reasoning and data.
But it’s not totally straightforward. Here’s a counterpoint anecdote, from June 4, 2026 when the Board asked MCPS athletics director Jeff Sullivan about whether he followed protocol in his consultations with the girls’ gymnastics community before cutting the sport. He explained: “It was very clear from the coaches that they wanted the gymnastics program to stay and we knew that the gymnasts wanted the program to stay. We were doing a data analysis of the program and I will own the fact that we did not go back in that process to the gymnasts and to the gymnastics coaches again and ask through that process.” The Board was glad he “owned it” but still mad. They wanted him to follow the rules, which required another round of listening. And as Board member Rita Montoya explained, “whether it’s gymnastics or something else… it’s not just about finding out whether or not they want the program to continue,” but about the fact that the Board doesn’t have the “lived experience” of the gymnastics community. She’s basically arguing that Sullivan has his data about how much different sports cost and how many students do them, but he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and the only way to find out is through engaging with the gymnastics community. Yet if he had gone back to listen again, it’s likely the gymnastics community would have (rightly) said he listened but it was performative because his mind was already made up – something that likely many people who receive so many survey notifications from MCPS can relate to. In this case, there’s a limited athletic budget, and the fight seemed to be over retaining girls’ gymnastics or adding the new sport of stunt. Many people would be upset either way. It is simply not possible to engage your way to consensus.
So, do we want to bury MCPS in public engagement, requiring them to make a public case for everything when they have so much other pressing work to do? It depends on how much we trust not only the people leading (superintendent) and governing (Board) the system, but the system itself.
Do MoCo voters trust their leaders and the system?
The June primary results for the at-large school board position suggest MoCo voters are short on trust in MCPS and the Board.
Brenda Diaz, a former MCPS teacher who left after violating a mask mandate and now homeschools one of her children, advanced to the general election with 30 percent of the vote.
Source: Maryland State Board of Elections Accessed July 13, 2026.
This is a huge deal. The local Democratic party had just adopted a new policy allowing them to negatively endorse non-partisan school board candidates they deem opposed to their values, and used it for Diaz. Their website says they’ve “asked our volunteers to share this statement with voters during the election, and they may do so proactively even if the voter has not requested information about school board races.” The primary gives anyone other than registered Democrats little incentive to turn out, and three out of 10 voters still chose Diaz. Her opponent in the general election will be Omar Lazo, who was endorsed by the teachers’ union, with its members handing out Apple Ballot endorsements at polling places. I’m guessing many people were voting against the union and “the system” rather than for Diaz or against Lazo, if only because most people have little information about candidates. (In the other June Board race, in District 3, Sally McCarthy won 61,000 votes with the union endorsement, but unlike Lazo, she is an established leader in the countywide PTA.)
Should local public schools be democratic? How?
This post is getting heavier than I’d planned for summer, but here we are. Nationally, this is up for debate. Strong mayors, appointed boards, vouchers, charters – there are lots of widely-used ways for systems to have less democratic or less public local schools than we have in MoCo.
Not all school districts have publicly elected boards. DC, for example, has a strong mayor system. The elected school board is primarily advisory, with limited power; the Mayor, not the Board, appoints the key leaders in the school system; and the DC Council – not the school board – is responsible for oversight. That last one is a big difference, and there was a lot of discussion among County Council and Executive candidates this election about how MCPS needs better oversight. County Council member and former Executive candidate Evan Glass recently called for a County Executive appointee to serve on the school board.
It’s hard to pay attention in Montgomery County in 2026 and not have sympathy for Abundance-type arguments about the possibility of too many checks and balances. But it’s also hard to support reducing those checks and balances when you don’t trust the system. Voters just said they don’t, and that means it’s not time to reduce transparency with the proposed Handbook change.
Pop quiz
Which of the following might you send to your Board member TODAY Wed. 7/15?
a. Please explain why you don’t want MCPS to post materials for the public in advance. I thought you ♥️public engagement?! I’m sorry some of my fellow residents are such a pain, but please, don’t let them spoil it for the rest of us.
b. I support the Handbook change. Everything is going great at my kid’s school and with my property taxes/rent, so I have no reason to question this whole governance setup.
c. I’m opposed to the Handbook change. I elect you to represent me, but how can I share my views with you if I don’t know what’s on the agenda? (And no, the agenda item like “approve 2026-2027 Handbook” is not enough!)
d. Is this Handbook change because you’re afraid of the countywide school closure and consolidation studies? Fair!
Answer key
c. My pick would be some version of c, though I included a for anyone who is still feeling very polite. I doubt anyone would bother sending b. And I didn’t have time to get into d today, but it’s going to be quite a year ahead.
Extra credit
If you care about this change, let the Board know what you think TODAY Wed. 7/15 before they vote on 7/16. The districts for Board members just mean they live in that district, but you vote for all members, and all members represent you. E-mail all members, and the main e-mail address boe@mcpsmd.org: Graciela_Rivera-oven@mcpsmd.org, Brenda_Wolff@mcpsmd.org, Rita_M_Montoya@mcpsmd.org, Karla_Silvestre@mcpsmd.org, Laura_M_Stewart@mcpsmd.org, Julie_Yang@mcpsmd.org, natalie_zimmerman@mcpsmd.org, and welcome to the new student member of the Board Leul.Dawit@mcpsmd.org!
Exit ticket
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