Urgent Call for Action: Tell the BoE Our Students Deserve More!
Dear Members of the Board of Education:
Before presenting the FY25 MCPS budget request to the County Executive, please first make sure you seek a special appropriation to meet the needs we have in FY24. The current budget freeze is affecting our ability to serve students and is further burdening staff who already are experiencing crushing workloads and materials shortages. Members are reporting to us that they are learning that requests for purchases of student desks, copier paper, and other materials are no longer being approved.
As you refine the MCPS operating budget proposal for FY25, we must include the funding requests vitally necessary to meet our students' needs. You, the Board of Education, must ask for what we need from the county. You have a real opportunity to save our school system by investing in your staff and your students. We invite you to partner with us in a true and genuine alliance to make Montgomery County Public Schools the beacon of educational excellence as it has been in the past.
We urge you to do the following as it relates to the FY 2025 Operating Budget:
Invest $21.3 million dollars to fund an additional “special” at every elementary school in the county.
Increase special education staffing to levels that will ensure legal compliance with IEPs.
Reduce caseloads for behavioral and mental health staff by meeting the nationally recommended ratios.
School Counselors (ASCA) 1:250
School Psychologist (NASP) 1:500
School Social Workers (SSWA) 1:250
4. Restore and increase the substitute salary allocations, and expand the highly successful and collaboratively developed permanent substitute program.
5. Cease the practice of unpaid coverage, such as “sprinkling,” which results in increased class sizes and an inability to meet the needs of every learner. Earmark MCEA-specific lapse and turnover dollars to compensate for coverage instead of reallocating unspent salaries to fund other parts of the budget each year.
6. Restore allocations for speech-language pathologists and eliminate the use of subcontractors who aren’t held to the same high standards as MCPS staff.
7. Restore the $500k for Go Guardian, the application that enables teachers to effectively monitor student use of digital media to ensure their safety and maintain their focus on learning. Without Go Guardian, teachers will spend valuable instructional time observing students’ individual screens rather than providing meaningful instruction.
8. Provide additional funding to ensure that we have adequate supports for new EML students who arrive mid-year. Additional EML counselors and ELD teachers should be allocated to schools with larger EML populations.
9. Restore the reduced Consulting Teacher positions and invest additional funds for three additional Consulting Teachers. This will improve our ability to train our novice and early career educator workforce. This is especially important as the system has increasingly been relying on conditionally certified new hires who lack teacher training and classroom experience.
With the anticipation of $224 million more in county revenues than previously projected and millions of excess dollars in county reserves, it is time for you to make bold demands and send forth a budget to the county that will support a world-class school system for our children. The county must recognize that supporting our schools is not an option but an investment in the very fabric of our community's future.
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