State board approves Howard school system's first Blueprint implementation plan

Jul. 31—Howard County's first plan for implementing the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, a sweeping statewide education reform plan with a decade-long rollout, was approved by the Maryland Accountability and Implementation Board on Wednesday.

The Howard County Public School System will use its 159-page plan to comply with mandates set by the 2021 law designed to radically transform the state's public school system by funding billions of dollars of education initiatives.

The Blueprint for Maryland's Future is designed to make Maryland's schools among the highest performing in the country by providing more time for teachers to plan lessons and develop skills outside the classroom, offering universal prekindergarten for 3-year-olds, and redesigning the public education funding formula, among other initiatives.

The Howard County Board of Education adopted its $1.1 billion fiscal 2024 operating budget in May, including $21 million from a projected unassigned general fund balance to be used for Blueprint mandates.

Timothy Guy, HCPSS Blueprint coordinator, said that since these are one-time funds pulled from a budget surplus, the money will not be guaranteed in future budget cycles.

"This is not recurring [funding]," he said. "It's just enough to fund operational costs."

At this time, it is unclear where additional funding for Blueprint mandates will come from.

HCPSS staff have been meeting since September to plan how the school system will meet goals in a manner that is programmatically appropriate and fiscally responsible.

The school system has received feedback from the Maryland State Department of Education and the accountability and implementation board, Guy said.

"We did get feedback on the documents," he said. "They asked for a little more detail. We'll do another round of edits. There are a small amount of edits here and there."

Guy said once edits are made the school system will post the revised plan on its website at https://www.hcpss.org/blueprint. He estimates the editing will take a few weeks.

Meeting state benchmarks

Howard's initial plan consists of responses to 164 questions covering the five pillars of the Blueprint. They include early childhood education, high-quality and diverse teachers and leaders, college and career readiness, more resources for students to be successful, and governance and accountability.

The Blueprint implementation plan submitted by HCPSS in March aimed to increase the number of public school prekindergarten slots from 700 to 1,220 and the number of private slots from 368 to 374 for next school year, pending sufficient funding and staffing.

Funding to expand pre-K from half-day to full-day for all children is not included in the current fiscal 2024 budget, Guy said.

"We are still providing the services to students," he said. "It's not like we eliminated pre-K, but the original plan to full-day for all programs has been eliminated."

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The plan does include screening children for English language proficiency and providing guidance to ensure that children entering kindergarten receive appropriate services and support for English language learning. The school board will also work to eliminate barriers that prevent the enrollment of students in the county who are homeless.

As part of the Blueprint, Maryland public schools will help students achieve college and career-ready status by the end of the 10th grade. This is intended to ensure that students have the language and math skills they need to succeed in Maryland community college courses.

The school system will provide free access to the 60-credit JumpStart dual enrollment program, and expand its Career and Technical Education Career Academy as well.

Elementary, middle and high school interventions during and beyond the school day and year are also part of the HCPSS plan to help struggling students develop necessary literacy and math skills to graduate.

The plan also states that the school system commits to identifying and removing institutional barriers to recruiting, hiring, retaining and promoting a diverse workforce. The school system has increased minority representation by 2.3% during the last five years. This is similar to the overall state increase of 2.8%.

The state board approved the initial Blueprint Implementation plans for all 24 school districts in the state, but the plans from Calvert, Charles, Garrett and Queen Anne's counties were approved with conditions.