MCPS Superintendent Holds Student Town Hall At Quince Orchard

Faced with countless questions from students about how budget issues may impact the school system, new Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr said his goal is to keep current programs in tact.

“My goal going forward is to, quite frankly, not add and not cut,” Starr said yesterday at in Gaithersburg. “I don’t want to cut anything from what we currently have and I probably won't be able to add anything either.”

Starr visited QO for his second Student Town Hall. The event, also held Oct. 12 at Blake High School, is formatted conversationally, with students engaging the superintendent with questions for the duration of the program.

Many QO students were particularly concerned with potential cuts for extracurricular programs such as arts and music, Quince Orchard’s Student Government Association President, Jordan Finkelstein said.

“I think it’s really a concern for us because we don’t want our activities to be cut as the first thing,” Finkelstein said.

But Starr ensured the Cougar crowd he has no plans to do so.

“I cant make any promises but I have no intention at this point of cutting extracurriculars and cutting some of those things that I know are so important to kids’ experience at school,” he said.

Finkelstein, a senior, said he thinks it’s great that Starr is visiting high schools because it increases his direct communication with the students and allows issues to be heard from their perspective rather than that of teachers and parents.

Starr, too, relishes the opportunity to learn from the students what their big picture issues are in the county, he said.

“The kids are really articulate, really passionate, and they want to make sure that they and their siblings coming up are getting a great education,” the superintendent said.

In addition to budgetary issues, Starr addressed students’ concerns regarding the stresses and dependence on standardized testing in the county.

Citing his own struggles with standardized testing as a student, Starr said as he has become an educator, he has come to “understand how limited [standardized tests] are in their ability to encapsulate the entirety of the student and what a student knows.”

“I’m really distressed at the over-reliance on standardized tests,” he said.

Rather than focus directly on improving scores, the superintendent would rather focus on creating the best lessons and most engaging, high-quality environment for students, he said, adding that once they achieve this, he has no doubts the results will come.

Quince Orchard principal Carole Working said the administration and faculty wanted to make sure every group in the school was represented at the Student Town Hall meeting.

“I just think it’s a great opportunity for the kids to meet the superintendent face-to-face,” Working said. “I think it’s a terrific experience for [the students] to begin to learn about participating in a civic dialogue that’s actually real, not something staged for class.”