Plus: Student school board nominations open through next week
January 22, 2021 | 9:58 am
January 22, 2021
School board will meet Thursday, discuss reopening plans
The Montgomery County Board of Education will meet Thursday afternoon to discuss its school reopening plan and “focused interventions” for struggling students. It also will take positions on relevant education bills in the Maryland General Assembly.
The public portion of the meeting is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m., following a 2.5-hour closed session.
The school board will discuss its reopening plan first, then “focused interventions” before reviewing school-related education bills state lawmakers are considering.
The school board in early January decided to postpone MCPS’ reopening plan until March 15. On Thursday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called on all districts in the state to implement a hybrid learning model by March 1, two weeks earlier than the district’s plan.
First hearing about proposed $2.7 billion Fiscal Year 2022 budget held on Monday
January 12, 2021 | 8:57 am
Education advocates on Monday pushed for a different approach to determining how staff members are assigned to each Montgomery County school as enrollment fluctuates due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Each year, as MCPS develops its next budget, formulas are used to determine how many staff members each school will have, based on its projected enrollment. Different positions have different formulas. For example, high schools are allocated one counselor for every 250 students.
But the school district’s enrollment dipped significantly this year, an anomaly after more than a decade of steady growth. MCPS officials have attributed the decrease (more than 5,000 students) to the coronavirus pandemic and have said they expect enrollment to rebound when classes return to fully in-person, rather than online.