Holding our Schools Hostage

Our children deserve better than an MCEA-Apple Ballot-fueled budget crisis being negotiated on their backs.

Superintendent Taylor’s message to #MCPS staff about major budget cuts — up to $90 million or more below what MCPS requested — and the real possibility of workforce reductions is alarming. No one wants to see dedicated teachers, support staff, or vital student services impacted.

But let’s be honest: this crisis is the direct result of years of reckless fiscal management under an MCEA Apple Ballot-endorsed Board of Education.

Superintendent Taylor holds an MBA from William & Mary and was hired in 2024 specifically to bring business expertise and properly oversee the budget — yet MCPS still asked for a 10%+ increase in the FY2027 budget while enrollment has dropped by over 2,600 students this year alone (and thousands more are projected to leave).

At the same time, proficiency rates remain dismal: only ~55% in reading and ~33% in math overall, with far worse outcomes for our African-American, Hispanic, FARMS, and special education students.

His video warning of drastic cuts feels like extortion by the MCEA Apple Ballot machine — a last-ditch pressure tactic on an inflation and tax-weary public that has watched its hard-earned dollars get squandered for years with zero accountability. Hearing a message like this from the superintendent does not inspire faith. In fact, it proves we cannot trust him to lead.

It proves that fully funding MCPS equals fully funding waste. Why?

1. The MCEA-endorsed Board cut business meetings from 24 to 12 per year and routinely rubber-stamps millions in contracts via consent agendas with zero real discussion or oversight.

2. Central office overhead is bloated at 45% non-instructional spending (vs. 35% in Fairfax County — a $250 million difference we could redirect to classrooms).

3. Taylor has not proposed performance metrics tying dollars to student results.

4. We still have no independent Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to root out waste, fraud, and abuse — even though Superintendent Taylor has talked about it with zero action.

Parents and teachers have lost trust. We must:

- End the rubber-stamping and restore transparency — every major expenditure in open session.
- Establish an independent MCPS OIG immediately.

- Attach performance metrics to every budget line item and eliminate Central Office redundancies.
- Renegotiate contracts with vendors, unions, and central office leadership so that as many teachers and frontline staff as possible keep their jobs, while identifying and trimming the bloat that has driven non-instructional spending out of control.

- Redirect every saved dollar back to teachers, students, buildings, and evidence-based interventions that actually work.

Renegotiating contracts and trimming bloat would deliver real benefits: it would protect classroom positions and experienced educators who directly serve our kids, restore fiscal sanity without tax increases, boost teacher morale and retention, and — most importantly — free up resources to actually improve student outcomes instead of feeding the machine.

Our kids deserve better than crisis management being negotiated on their backs.

Our children do not deserve excuses from this MCEA Apple Ballot machine.

Taxpayers deserve leaders who treat $3.78 billion like it’s their own money — because it is.

I stand with our educators and will fight to protect classroom positions while demanding real reform and independence from union control.

Visit DiazForBOE.com to read my full testimony to the County Council, my 5 Pillars of Success, my Success Toolkit and how we rebuild the foundation of academic excellence within MCPS.