Resignations, spring break dates and more: Highlights from Montgomery school board meeting

After two and a half weeks of winter break, Montgomery Public Schools are back in business, and district officials are excited about what the second half of the school year holds for MPS students.

“2024 is slated to be a phenomenal, phenomenal year,” Montgomery County Board of Education President Brenda DeRamus-Coleman said. “I know that I can speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say that we are looking forward to supporting our administration, our students and our families to ensure that everyone is working together.”

The board wasted no time, jumping into the application of a new charter school, high number of resignations across the district in the last two months and discussion around the pricey MPS capital improvement plan.

In case you weren’t able to attend the meeting yourself on Jan. 9, here are the highlights:

‘Very concerning’ mid-year employee resignations

When it came time for the board to consider personnel reports, District 5 representative Pamela Cloud would not approve the report without discussing a few concerns about certified personnel.

Without naming anyone in particular, Cloud pointed out that MPS has seen 30 resignations in the last two months, and 19 of those happened in the last month alone. Additionally, there were five people who retired between the end of the second nine weeks and the start of the third.

“That’s the middle of the school year,” Cloud said. “That’s very concerning to me.”

Superintendent Melvin Brown said he could not confirm whether the district had “exit slips,” signatures and acknowledgements from all resigning employees, though he said he would check.

District 1 representative Lesa Keith said some board members have been asking for exit slips, or explanations of why employees are leaving, since their election to the board and have yet to receive any.

“When you are resigning in January with a contract that goes for a year, you just want to know,” Keith said. “As a board, you just want to know.”

Memphis charter school wants to come to Montgomery

Every year, often in the January meeting, Montgomery’s board of education hears from the heads of charter schools who have applied to open in Montgomery.

These schools can either apply as conversion charters, meaning the charter would take over an existing school within the district, or start-up charters, meaning it would be a new public school established by a nonprofit to run completely independently from the district.

This year, there was one start-up application: Freedom Preparatory Academy.

Started in Memphis, Tenn., 15 years ago, Freedom Prep operates under the expressed mission to “prepare all students PreK-12 to excel in college and in life.”

Founder and CEO Roblin Webb told the Montgomery school board that “education is our modern civil rights movement,” and she believes local parents would benefit from having Freedom Prep as an option for their children. She also emphasized the racial disparities in education opportunities across the country.

“We’ve graduated six classes with 100% four-year college acceptance,” Webb said. “We have kids on Wall Street. We have kids playing rugby at Dartmouth now. I just spoke at one of my founding kids’ graduation from Vanderbilt Law School.”

Freedom Prep’s number one priority is getting kids to college, and Webb said that she encourages kids as young as elementary school to participate in college visits. Other values include affirming positive school culture, promoting character development and exposing kids to the world around them through field lessons.

“I’m not a charter school advocate. I’m a good school advocate,” Webb said.

The charter network is already planning its expansion into Alabama with the opening of a school in Birmingham later this year.

School board members questioned Webb about the curriculums and special education opportunities, but they did not take a vote on the charter’s approval. That may happen in an upcoming board of education meeting.

Capital improvement chugs along, but could have been doing more

MPS debuted its $150 million capital improvement plan in 2022 following the 2020 ad valorem, or property tax, increase. Part of the referendum that voters passed included the provision that the school district could not start collecting the taxes for three years, and MPS received its first influx back in October.

This funding is allowing MPS to pursue dozens of improvement projects, including the new BTW building, the Ninth Grade Academy at Carver and new field houses and gyms scattered across the district.

During the January school board meeting, MPS Chief School Financial Officer Arthur Watts explained that the district is in an immensely better financial position than it was in 2019. That year, the general fund balance sat at $19.7 million. Now, that number is $94.4 million.

However, he said the three-year delay in collecting the increased ad valorem tax hurt the district's pockets.

“If we would have been allowed to go ahead and start our capital improvement plan right then, we would have saved tens to hundreds of millions of dollars,” Watts said. “There are projects that we will not be able to do because of that delay.”

The state legislature was responsible for the addition of the delay into the referendum.

Watts also noted that, as far as he knows, Montgomery’s delay was longer than most other districts in similar situations.

For example, when Pike Road residents approved an ad valorem tax increase to go toward schools, tax collection began just one year later.

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to do it anyway,” Superintendent Brown said in the January meeting. “Some folks believe in equity and others don’t.”

When’s spring break 2025?

There are currently two options for the MPS 2024-25 school calendar. Both options include 180 days for students and 187 days for teachers, with those extra seven days acting as time for professional development.

Spring break is the same for both: March 17-21. The two options for the first day of the school year are Aug. 7 and Aug. 8. Winter break will either be from Dec. 23-Jan. 3 or Dec. 20-Jan. 3 with Dec. 20 as a professional development day for teachers. May 22, 2025 would be the last day of school for students on both calendars.

Parents and community members will have 30 days to weigh in on which schedule they would prefer. MPS is circulating a feedback survey where people can submit their comments, and the issue will be brought back to the board at a later date.

Hadley Hitson covers children's health, education and welfare for the Montgomery Advertiser. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Highlights from the Montgomery school board's January meeting