Dozens of parents and kids staged a sit-in outside Montgomery County Public Schools’ Board of Education headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, on Monday to demand the school system continue its virtual learning program.
The school system announced last week that it would be shutting the Montgomery Virtual Academy (MVA) down due to budget constraints, leaving around 800 kids that are currently enrolled in the program in a lurch.
WTOP spoke with several frustrated parents of children with severe medical conditions who said their children were thriving in the online school program.
Jonathan and Kristen Lasko were with their 10-year-old son Max, who has spinal muscular atrophy and requires a ventilator and a wheelchair.
“I’ve seen Max’s teachers work tirelessly, day and night, to give him this high-quality education and it just feels like a gut punch, like pulling the rug out from under us,” Jonathan Lasko said.
Ninth grader Tom Echelmeyer is also a virtual student. He was sitting with an open laptop preparing for class to start when he spoke with WTOP. He said he’s on a liver transplant waitlist and is immunocompromised.
“I just wish for the MVA to stay for as long as possible, even once I’m healed and once I get my liver, there are still people who need this, people with health problems,” Echelmeyer said.
Not all the children enrolled in the program have medical needs. One student WTOP spoke with, 12-year-old David, said he had been bullied at school in the past, and finally felt accepted at the virtual academy.
“It saved me from all that. I felt great,” David said. “You get to express yourself, you don’t have to express your body weight or how you look, your race. You can be yourself on the MVA.”
He said he’s made friends at online school and they hang out after class, including taking trips to Dave & Buster’s arcade and the park.
In a letter sent out to MVA parents, the director of the program, David Chia, said the school system is still “committed to working collaboratively” with families to help transition their students back to in-person schooling.
For students who are unable to return to in-person schooling, the first option the school is offering is to enroll the student in Interim Instructional Services (IIS) — a short-term service for students with physical or medical conditions that allows them to continue schooling at their own pace.
The second option would be instructing the student at home under the supervision of the school system or a nonpublic entity registered with the Maryland State Department of Education.
Kristen Lasko said the way IIS had been explained to her made it an unsuitable option for her son.
“Receiving (an) education that is only going to be a couple of hours a week for a couple hours a day, from a teacher that comes to the home, is not equal to receiving six hours of education a day from a trained educator, five days a week,” she said.
Lasko said she and her husband were told their only other option is to homeschool Max themselves.
In an emailed statement to WTOP, an MCPS spokesperson was unable to say just how much closing the MVA would save the school system but that the board is “working through necessary adjustments in the budget.”
The board is set to vote on the budget June 11.
WTOP’s Ciara Wells contributed to this report.
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