Update on MCPS Efforts to Reduce Class Size and Address the Opportunity Gap

Tune in to County Cable Montgomery at approximately 1:45 tomorrow to see the update from Montgomery County Public Schools on its efforts to reduce class size and address the opportunity gap. In approving the Fiscal Year 2017 operating budget in May, the Council provided significant new funds that would go toward those purposes. If you aren't able to watch the meeting live, you can get it on demand about 24 hours later.

New MCPS Superintendent of Schools Jack Smith, Chief Academic Officer Maria Navarro, Associate Superintendent of Elementary Schools LaVerne Kimball and Associate Superintendent of Secondary Schools Darryl Williams are among the MCPS representatives expected for the update on schools.

The FY17 budget for MCPS resulted from a historic collaboration between the Board of Education and the Council. Together we agreed to redirect significant resources to reduce class size and address the opportunity gap. Specifically, the Council's appropriation for MCPS was $89 million above the State-mandated Maintenance of Effort minimum spending level, with $37.9 million redirected within the budget directly for class size reductions and closing educational disparities by adding instructional and support staff.

On September 13, MCPS staff briefed the Board of Education on how it is allocating the additional resources in FY17 and the metrics that will be used to measure the success of these efforts. The Board of Education found the briefing to be very timely, detailed and informative, and expressed a strong desire for the superintendent to request to provide the same update to the Council.
Superintendent Smith’s presentation to the Board of Education addressed the following planned actions:

• Reducing average class size and targeted staffing to provide closer monitoring and supports for students 
• Leveraging resources to increase staff capacity to meet student needs in schools with the largest learning disparities 
• Focusing efforts on increasing the academic success of Black or African American students, Hispanic/Latino students and students impacted by poverty to mitigate disparities in learning opportunities 
• Developing instructional supports and programmatic options to increase learning opportunities for students receiving special education services and our English language learners 
• Providing enhanced curricular and instructional options 
• Increasing programmatic access by removing barriers and increasing opportunities for learning

Town Hall Meeting for Students

This year we will hold the always-popular Town Hall Meeting for Students on Wednesday, October 5, at the Council Office Building in Rockville. The meeting will be held in the Council’s Third Floor Hearing Room beginning at 7:30 p.m. A pre-meeting reception will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the building’s second-floor cafeteria.

The October meeting is open to high school, middle school and local college students. The meeting will allow the participants to let Councilmembers know how they feel about specific issues and also will provide the opportunity to ask questions of us in an organized, but informal, setting.

The event will be broadcast live on County Cable Montgomery (CCM—cable Channel 6 on Comcast and RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon) and rebroadcast at various times in the weeks following the meeting. Susan Kenedy, a producer for the County station, will moderate the meeting.

Council Passes "Education First" Budget

This year we set out to make a major course correction. We committed ourselves to the core goals of closing the educational achievement gap; reducing class sizes across the board; making decisions that are both achievable in the short term and sustainable over time; and ensuring that residents see results for any additional investments we ask them to make.
Two of the four goals relate directly to the classroom, and that’s why we created a historic partnership with the Board of Education to pass an “education first” budget.

With this budget, students and parents can look forward to more teachers, paraeducators, counselors and other student support positions, in addition to expanded programs to support achievement goals and enhance college and career readiness. What’s more, we will be able to construct school revitalizations and additions sooner than expected. Our schools are bursting at the seams, and this relief is long overdue.

While this is an “education first” budget, it isn’t an “education only” budget. As much as many people care about our outstanding school system, we know that others have different priorities. This budget is very much about those people as well.

This budget provides a much-needed boost to police and fire and rescue services as we will be adding more police officers and firefighters and giving them the equipment they need to continue to make this one the safest counties in America. This budget is about libraries, recreation, parks, the safety net, Montgomery College, and transportation programs that help get people around this county better.

This budget means that no matter where you live in the county, if you call an ambulance, you can count on a life-saving response time. Our police force will now be equipped with body cameras. Potholes will be filled, snow will be plowed, grass in parks and on playing fields will be mowed and trees will get planted in the right-of-way. While our unemployment rate has fallen steadily over the past couple of years, our newly privatized program for economic development promises an even better job market in the future. We are going to help new businesses in their early stages and hope they will remain here once they become successful. We are going to aggressively seek to get established businesses to relocate here and we are going to fight to keep the great businesses of all sizes that already call Montgomery County home. Our avid readers and researchers will appreciate the interim Wheaton Library and extended hours at several branches. And students will have better access to after-school enrichment programs.

I want to be clear that this year’s decisions represent more than a one-year budget. They represent a plan for the future. For the first time in eight years, we opted to raise the property tax over the Charter limit. That wasn’t an easy decision, but I am optimistic that we’ve set up a structure that is responsive to our community’s needs and is sustainable over time.

See my full comments on the approved budget or read the press release for all the details.

Funding Agreement for MCPS Reached

Good news. Our Education Committee today unanimously recommended that the Council adopt a plan that will provide Montgomery County Public Schools with its full funding request for the Fiscal Year 2015 operating budget and also for the MCPS Technology Modernization project without exceding the Maintenance of Effort requirement. The plan was a collaborative effort among the Council, the County Executive, the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools. Here's the press release:

ROCKVILLE, Md., May 12, 2014—The Montgomery County Council’s Education Committee today unanimously recommended that the Council adopt a plan that will provide Montgomery County Public Schools with its full funding request for the Fiscal Year 2015 operating budget and also for the MCPS Technology Modernization project.

The Education Committee, which is chaired by Council President Craig Rice and includes Councilmembers Phil Andrews and Cherri Branson, voted 3-0 to recommend that the Council approve the plan. The recommendation goes to the full Council for consideration on Wednesday, May 14. The Council is scheduled to reach a tentative agreement on the overall budget on Thursday, May 15, and is scheduled to formally adopt the budget on May 22. The budget will go into effect on July 1.

The recommended plan provides resources for the full amount of the Board's requested FY15 operating budget. It also provides the appropriate local resources to reflect the State's Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirement, the State's pension shift requirement and the full amount of the MCPS general fund balance. The plan additionally funds the Board of Education’s requested increase for its Technology Modernization project in FY15 and FY16 through a combination of local funds and Federal E-rate funds.

The plan primarily achieves its objectives through a combination of drawing down the large fund balance in the MCPS Retiree Group Insurance Fund and the Other Post Employment Fund (OPEB) trust and by reallocating funds within the MCPS budget request from Category 12 (Fixed Charges) to educational priorities.

The plan funds the Board of Education’s operating budget request by providing $11.2 million from the existing MCPS general fund balance; $13.3 million from the excess MCPS Retired Employees Group Insurance fund balance; and $27.2 million applied from funds from the MCPS OPEB Trust to retired employees pay-as-you-go group insurance costs.

“I am pleased to announce a funding plan for the FY 2015 MCPS operating budget that fully meets the Board of Education’s request,” said Council President Rice. “The Council has developed this plan in collaboration with Board President Kauffman, Vice President O’Neill, Superintendent Starr and the County Executive.

“All of us are committed to investing in our students, focusing on the achievement gap and maintaining MCPS’ position as a national leader in education.  This plan provides the needed resources. 

“The plan fully funds the Board’s FY 2015 educational request by repurposing excess reserves for current retiree health benefits, while protecting support for future benefits in the Council’s FY 2015-2020 Fiscal Plan. In addition, the plan fully funds the Board’s FY 2015 Technology Modernization request in both the operating and the capital budgets.

“This plan achieves multiple goals by making judicious use of both new County resources and excess reserves.  Going forward, we will work with MCPS, as we do every year, to address future enrollment growth, negotiated agreements, and strategic investments to improve student achievement.” 

Council Approves School Bus Cameras

We unanimously approved a bill that authorizes installation of cameras on County school buses to monitor vehicles that illegally pass stopped buses. Given that about 100,000 students ride school buses in Montgomery County, this is a very important safety measure.

The bill authorizes the County’s Chief of Police, after consulting with the Board of Education, to install cameras on Montgomery County Public School buses to monitor traffic. Drivers caught on tape illegally passing a stopped school bus would be subject to a maximum civil fine of up to $250. No points would be assessed to an individual’s driving record.

A Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) survey released in March 2011 reported that in a single day in February, 7,028 drivers overtook stopped buses in Maryland. The report stated 56.9 percent of the violators were oncoming vehicles passing the bus from the opposite direction; 37.9 percent passed the bus from behind on the driver’s side; and 5.2 percent passed the bus of the side of the bus passenger door. The survey was coordinated by MSDE along with transportation directors in all 24 County school systems. Approximately 65 percent (more than 4,700) of all bus drivers statewide participated in the survey.

The approximately 1,500 County school bus drivers file an average of 500 reports each about drivers who illegally pass their stopped buses during a school year. Local school bus drivers showed strong support for the measure.

Thank You, Roscoe Nix

You couldn’t hope to meet a kinder, more caring man than Roscoe Nix, who died Wednesday after a full life of political and civil rights activism. Montgomery County wouldn’t be what it is today without Roscoe's leadership, and I am grateful to have known him. I’m glad he had the opportunity to see the elementary school in Silver Spring named after him in 2006. Since he was a tireless advocate for education, the honor was extremely well deserved. Although it is sad to say goodbye, Roscoe's achievements will live on in Montgomery County for decades to come.

Welcome International Baccalaureate Americas Global Center

I look forward to attending (and offering a toast at) Wednesday’s ribbon cutting for the International Baccalaureate’s new headquarters in Bethesda. The organization services nearly 2,000 schools in North, Central and South America and provides global services to 139 countries worldwide.

The IB announced its selection of Montgomery County for its Americas Global Centre in February 2009. The Center will grow to more than 100 employees over the next few years as part of the organization’s plan to expand capacity over the next 12 years in preparation for an estimated 2.5 million students and 10,000 IB programs worldwide by 2020.

The IB encourages students to be active learners, well-rounded individuals and engaged world citizens. It also serves in an educational advisory capacity to other educational organizations. I'm proud to welcome International Baccalaureate to Montgomery County.

Town Hall Meeting for Students

Join us for our first-ever town hall meeting for students on Wednesday, February 3. High school and middle school students from across the County will be able to express views on issues and ask questions of councilmembers in an organized, but informal, setting.

When it comes to decisions affecting young people—whether in regard to schools, libraries, recreation, parks or the community in general—the practice too often is to have one set of adults talk to another set adults. This Council will have many important decisions to make in the coming months—and many of these decisions could have significant impact on people 18 and under. We think the best way to find out what this generation of Montgomery County residents need and want is to hear directly from them.

The meeting, in the Council’s Third Floor Hearing Room, will start at 7 p.m. A pre-meeting reception will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the building’s second-floor cafeteria. The meeting will be broadcast live on County Cable Montgomery (CCM—cable Channel 6 on Comcast and RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon) and rebroadcast at various times in the following weeks.

RSVP by calling 240-777-7931.

No Word on Waiver

Because we still have not received the State’s decision on our request for a waiver on the educational funding requirement under the State’s Maintenance of Effort law, we will not have sufficient information to take a straw vote on the budget on Thursday as originally planned. We likely will take the straw vote on Tuesday, May 19, with the final action still scheduled for May 21 if all goes well. There are a lot of moving parts at this time, so stay tuned.

The Maintenance of Effort law requires jurisdictions to appropriate at least the same amount of money per pupil from their own budgets as they did in the previous year, regardless of any additional funding that may be received from other sources such as the state or federal government.

Because we received additional federal and state aid for education, we believe we can reduce our local funding portion of the school system’s budget without going below the program level recommended by the Board of Education. This being an extreme year, we are hopeful the State will grant a one-time waiver of the Maintenance of Effort requirement so that we do not have to make extreme cuts to other programs. We expect to hear tomorrow (May 15).

If we do not receive the waiver, then we must provide additional funding to the school system. There will be no other option but to take the money from other parts of the government, so we’ll have to re-evaluate our earlier decisions or take some other dramatic action.

If we do receive the waiver, we will finalize the remaining details of the budget, including Reconciliation List items (those which have not yet been approved, but are recommended for approval if funding permits), on the same day as the straw vote.

Now it gets REALLY interesting.