President jana smith-post: good evening, I call the calvert county public schools meeting to
order. We will start with the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of
america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >>thank you.
>>up next on our agenda, we have appointments. The first appointment I'm going to read.
it is my great pleasure to be here before you today to announce the appointment of our
new superintendent. After a thoughtful process we are proud to welcome dr. Marcus newsome,
as the new superintendent of our district. Dr. Newsome brings a multitude of experience of
education, and strengthened typer det development, and success.
throughout the process, dr. Newsome not only exhibits the professionalism we are seeking,
but able to transform lives, and understand that the schools are at the heart of the community,
and everybody has the right to thrive. Our county will grow stronger, and more innovative.
please joain me in welcoming dr marcus newsome.
thank you. >>can I have a motion? >> motion to approve.
>>second. >>we have a motion and second. All in favor say, "aye".
>> aye. >> any opposed? Motion carries, 4-0. >>dr. Newsome, would you like to say a few words? >> dr. Marcus newsome: thank
you. I'm quite humbled. When I met you in july, I had no idea that I would be in this place. I
thought that at best I would be here this year to try to serve as a bridge, but over the last
six months, the opportunity to work with you, your commitment, and dedication. I know some of
you aren't feeling the best tonight, but this is important to you, and so it's important to
me. I have come to appreciate, and respect, and even love the staff that we have here. We have
tremendous leaders, and teachers. I have met so many wonderful students, and had an
opportunity to spend some time with allison, and many of her peers. I'm ready to roll my
sleeves up, and work with this team we have here, and face our challenges head on, and to do
everything necessary to provide the children that calvert county deserve. Thank you.
>>thank you. >>we have one housekeeping order. We are going to go ahead,
and sign this contract so you can't run away. >>
sale, but my wife gave me permission to come whaback to w.
>>dr. Newsome, I'm going to turn the floor to you. >>dr. Marcus newsome: thank you.
I'm happy to announce that we are appointing our next cfo, ms. Christine. I would like for you
to come up to the front, and would like to introduce you to our community.
she joins calvert county schools as chief public officer. Most recently, she is still serving
as a supervisor of finance in saint mary's county public schools. She has also served
there in roles as budget analyst, and accountant. Now she gets to come back home where she
worked from 2007 to 2018 in multiple roles in our finance department. She holds a
bachelor's degree in accounting, and master's degree of science, and management from the
university of maryland, global campus. She brings an incredible resume, and experiences here.
she left a wonderful reputation. So many of our people who had the opportunity to work with her
in the past, will be so excited to know she's coming back home. Please show your appreciation,
and welcome here back to calvert county public schools.
president jana smith-post: motion to approve. >>second.
> aye. >> any opposed? Select to skip to this part of the video">>>all in favor say, "aye". >> aye. >> any opposed? The motion caries 4-0. >>thank you dr. Newsome and board members. I'm proud to be
the next chief officer of calvert public schools. I'm proud to be back home, and to serve in this community that I not only live in, but that means a lot to me. I look forward to
day one. I wish tomorrow was day one because there is a lot to be done. By starting with day one,
I look forward to collaborate with the board to serve the student and the staff and the
mission and the continued success of our great school district. So, thank you again
for the confidence that you have placed in me. Thank you.
>>thank you. Congratulations. >>president jana smith-post: up next we have the resolution for
cte. Ms. Jones? >> resolution
whereas, february 2026 has been designated as national career and technical education month by the association for career and technical education; and whereas, the mission of calvert county public schools is to prepare graduates who are
equipped to be responsible citizens and informed decision-makers with meaningful
career and educational options in an ever-evolving global economy; and
whereas, rapid economic, technological, and workforce changes continue to reshape the
skills and knowledge required for success in the 21st century; and
whereas, career and technical education provide students with rigorous, applied learning
experiences through coherent programs of study that lead to the attainment of
industry-recognized credentials, postsecondary credit, and career readiness; and whereas, each year, more than half of calvert county public schools graduates complete one or more of the district's 24 career and technical education programs,
offered through the career and technology academy and the district's four
comprehensive high schools; and whereas, collaboration among educators, families, business
and industry partners, and community stakeholders strengthens workforce pipelines and supports local, regional, and national economic vitality. Now, therefore, be it
resolved, that calvert county public schools reaffirms its commitment to expanding equitable access to high-quality career and technical education programs that
prepare all students for postsecondary success, meaningful employment, and lifelong learning; and be it further resolved, that the board of
education encourages students, families, educators, employers, and community members to actively support and engage with career and technical education initiatives across the
district; and does hereby proclaim february 2026 as career and technical
education month in calvert county public schools.
>> aye. >> any opposed? Motion caries, 4-0.
>>good evening. I'm kerry akins to honor career education month. We recognize tonight is not just
a subject area of courses. What we are recognizing tonight is excellent. For a long time,
career, and technical education created perception by another era, and success followed a
single route. Today we know better. What we know now, and what our students prove every
single day is that excellence takes many forms. Cte doesn't sit on the margins of education,
it's at the center of it. They stand across our district, and across all of our cte programs.
with us tonight are adam, and jrtc, hs, commanding officer, kayla jones, program student,
also a skilled usa chapter student, and an apprentice. An faa state champion. Calvert
high school student. Jasmine. Cta program student, and also with ctsip, and apprentice with
our maintenance department, and program coordinator. These are the most disciplined, and
determined students in the district. They go above, and beyond every day. They do not
settle in a report card, they seek more. They are commanding officers, they are state
champions, and apprentices doing real work with real environment. They design systems, and solve
problems with no answer keys. They adapt the lead because the work demands it. In cta, we know
when the work matters, when learning becomes real, effort becomes real. Rtce program gives
them meaningful ways to meet them, and make education purposeful. None of this is not
nostalgic for what it used to be, but what it must become. We send a powerful message to young
people, your talents matter, your intelligence takes many forms. Tonight's resolution is
not symbolic, it's a recognition of what is happening in our schools, and you are looking at
it. Thank you very much for your time. And your continued support.
recognition.
>>good evening, president post, dr. Newsome, I'm the director of human resources. The national
board of certification, requires those to complete a process to meet demands of content
knowledge through portfolio submissions, and assessments. Achieving national board
certification reflects a strong commitment to direct excellence, and contributes to high quality
education in calvert county public schools. This evening, we congratulate our newest national
board certified teachers. Please join me in congratulating: ( calling names )
>>
this join the eight in calvert county public schools who previously received their
certification. We congratulate them on this significant professional achievement.
>>
president jana smith-post: up next we have our public comments. Ms. Jacobs.
>> >>public speaker: the board of education permits the public to
address the board on issues of concern. The number of speakers is limited to 30. When you are
called to speak, please state your name for the record, and limit your comments to two
minutes. If you have handouts or written testimony, please hand them to be distributed to board
members. To protect confidentiality, please do not mention specific students in
your comments. Anyone not following the guidelines, maybe asked to stop speaking. While
the board of education values your comments, and concerns, this is a business meeting, and
cannot answer or respond to your questions. Calvert county public schools will respond to issues
you raise if you provide your contact information when you sign in. Written comments are welcome any time. For more information, please contact the administration at the board of
education. >>our first speaker tonight is daniel.
>>public speaker: good evening, everyone. My name is danielle, also the president of the
citizens advisory committee, and volunteer area representative for the international student
exchange program. I'm a mom to a student at calvert elementary school, and a student at
huntington high school right now. When the government goes into if you furlough, I have th
opportunity to also come in to teach. Now I'm here to talk about the international exchange
program. I brought two exchange students here tonight that are also going to speak to tell you
about their experience.ey want
it has been for our family, and want to show you how they were making fun of our exchange
student last year, and I didn't realize the impact shed until random people came to talk to me
about the impact she had on their life. This brings cultural diversity, which continues to
enrich our community here. A few fun facts, our exchange program has been in place for over a
century in the u.s.. Approximately 300 current former heads of state, not to mention
countless government officials have studied in the united states. Our program, with the
former prime ministe, came to the u.s. On her exchange here through our program. As c right
now has the highest scholarship winners. This is two percent, and they have the highest chance
of getting into harvard with a scholarship. Tonight I ask you to accept more students into our
county through the exchange program so the county can experience the same thing we
have. >>thank you for your comments. >>
>> next speaker, please. Rodriguez. >>public speaker: good evening,
everyone. I'm margaret rodriguez, an exchange student from spain. I'm studying at
huntington high school. Danielle is my host right now. This year it's changing my life. I have
many opportunities. Spending a year in the united states. It's making my dreams come true.
since I arrived in the united states, every single day has been a new opportunity for me. I was a cheerleader. And being on the sideline supporting my team, feeling the school spirit,
experiencing friday night lights is something very special for me. I'm also going to play
lacrosse. It's very pop here, and something I always wanted to try. Studying abroad puts you
out of your comfort zone, and allows you to experience new talents that you didn't know you
had. I also have the opportunity to travel to new york city, and washington d.c., and orlando.
this experience is helping me grow, becoming more experience, improving my english, and making
connections with people. And I hope the county realizes how important this experience are
for us in the county. This is a dream around the world, and other students will be very
happy to come to this country. Thank you. >>thank you for your comments.
>>public speaker: hello, my name is nais, a french exchange student. I'm at calvert high
school program. In french, it's very popular, and before coming here, I knew it would change my
life. What I did not predict is that I would end up in calvert county, and love it. I'm very
grateful, and blessed for my house family, and my high school. My friends, and american
friends, and this place. Thanks to calvert high school, I have been able to discover cheer
which is something I would have never done in france. I'm a part of the girls group in high
school that gives me opportunities to discover people, and new things. This
program has brought me so much joy, and moreover, I have also learned to past the language
barrier. This has changed my life in many good ways, and able to have this experience for both
students, and families. I use the county to know more students who want to experience the
american dream. I think it would benefit the county, for the families, and those in high
schools, and kids like me who dream to come here. Thank you for listening to me.
>>thank you for your comments.
>>public speaker: good evening. My name is dale shayner. I'm a bus driver. Last time I was a
bee keeper, but I'm both. We have some issues that are troubling our bus drivers. So
I'm going to read this to you, and like you said, you already have it. With due respect to all
concerned. In october 2021, the board of education granted school bus drivers, and well
deserved raise, and guaranteed workday, and now going back on the part of the agreement, and
reduce our hours. We certainly hope that this is not the case. Bus drivers are prepared to
protect what was guaranteed in 2021. If the county needs money, please don't take it from the
bus drivers. The board of education needs to do the right thing, and continue to honor the agreement with the drivers. Salaries from drivers are put on from taxpayers. Reliable
transportation to, and from school every day. If the county reduces the agreement hours 8-7.
the average paycheck will be reduced, which comes to $6500 for the work. School bus drivers
are not asking for additional compensation. We just want the county to continue honoring the
agreement given to us in 2021. If the county fails to honor this agreement, we will do
whatever necessary to protect our jobs, which supports our families. We do not want
conflict. We do not want disruption. >>thank you for your comment.
>> >> next speaker, please. >>public speaker: good evening,
ms. Jones. Congratulations dr. Newsome. The board of education enjoyed a retreat to collaborate
in reflective activity. Strong boards don't assume effectiveness, they examine it.
I look forward to hearing how you will enact measures for the board, and accountability, and
how you will demonstrate accountability to the community, and how you will support the students, staff and the community. As a parent, advoca for the community, I want to
speak about the bottom dollar. Ccps is the largest employer in the entire county. From the
sheriff's office to the amazing staff of parks and rec. When the commissioners cry that half of
their budget is taken, reframe that in investment in students, and staff. Serving students 180
days in 10 months, and 365 days a year for those born with the greatest needs, toddlers, and
partners at head start not through mission creek, but through the mission. Providing
mission needs, and providing counseling, and all the forms in construction. All this happens
because it's not written down on the ledger item, but for the people, and provide the best
instruction for our students to achieve all they are capable of. It takes over 2200 workers, and
transportation aids, and yes, essential office staff. Advocate for each, and every one of us at the commeissioners table like w do every day. Thank you very much.
>> next speaker, please. >>public speaker: good evening, y'all. I'm a student in calvert county public schools, and also the president of calvert county club america which is affiliated
with turning point usa chapter. It's not affiliated with the calvert county public schools.
it is separate, and not politically involved in a partisan manner, and we cannot
endorse any candidates nor parties. We invited the board to discuss what they do, and what
their policies are. All students that were there were in attendance with parental
permission, and all publicly advertised. However, we received much hate, and we posted online
that we would not be allowing any adults that are not volunteers nor parents. However,
a lot of hate has been directed towards us since then, and we have been accused of grooming
children, and including an allegation that a random unnamed man was president of our group
with felony charges. I'm the president of the group, I'm 17, and minor. I can't groom any
child. We have had all of this against our group. I would be happy to discuss anything our
group is doing with any concerned individuals because we are not doing anything wrong. We
had our first meetin in november, and discussed how we can support our veterans. We
discussed policy such as when if we can have teachers assigning things due at midnight. We are
not causing any harm. I'm a filed candidate. You can reach out to me if you have any problems about our group. >>thank you for your comments. >>
>> next speaker, please. Nancy cross. >>public speaker: good evening,
I'm going off script here to say congratulations, dr. Newsome. In your announcement, you said to
hope to be more inclusive. I agree. >>turning point usa had an event
for students. While community building opportunities for students are important, this
event raises serious concerns related to student safety, parental rights, and governance
oversight. The materials indicated that parents or guardians were not permitted to
attend. Excluding parents or guardians from a student focused event lacks transparency, and
school affiliated joint activities should have supervision standards,
background check requirements, and accountability structures. I'm also concerned about a
potential conflict of interest involving board of education members serving as guest
speakers at this event. They have responsibilities, and participation events targeting
students particularly when parental access is restricted warrants careful review to
ensure compliance with district policies, ethics guidelines, and public trust obligations.
students are widely recognized as vulnerable population. They are in critical developmental
stages, and susceptible to influence, and transparency is essential. All board members in
this room are mandated reported understate law as I am. Based upon the circumstances
surrounding this event, a report was made to child protective services. All of this was
provided. >>thank you for your comments. >> >> next speaker, please. Nat natalie?
>>public speaker: hello to the members of the calvert county board of education. I'm speaking
to you all today regarding the protest. There was a peaceful protest walk out february 13th
at the high school, and there was a letter sent out in response that walkouts are
against the code of conduct, and disrupt the learning environment. In addition, the
email outlined participation for peaceful protest, and participated in community
service, and out of school activities. These proposed solution are ineffective. Yes,
contact representative shows support for nationwide debate, and community service.
nevertheless, when it comes down to it, representatives are not going to value the opinion of
those who cannot vote, community service does not bring awareness, and other school
activities organized by high school students are not taken seriously. Uninterrupted
learning experience is reasonable. The decision to ban student led walkouts is going to
teach if there is any level of opposition that we shouldn't stand up for them. In addition
that peaceful protest has been disruptive, and where students are allowed to express their
beliefs in a peaceful manner that benefits the community. We have the resources to make
protest safe through school resource officers, and support from school staff. If there is a
reasonable suspicion to threats to students or staff, that can be dealt with accordingly. My
proposal is to the board of education is to the adjustment to the limited open forum to
allow student led protest. I'm aware of the policy. >>finish your last sentence.
>>all I ask is the ability for students to be given permission to protest at calvert public
schools. >>that concludes the speakers for this evening. >>thank you. >>up next we have our consent agenda.
>>motion to approve. >>second. >>we have a motion and second.
> aye. >> any opposed? Motion carries, select to skip to this part of the video">all in favor say, "aye". >> aye. >> any opposed? Motion carries, 4-0. >>next we have our superintendent's report. Dr.
newsome? >> dr. Marcus newsome: good evening. I would like to share
the report with the montage with a kindergarten student who is sharing his lessons learned from
a math lesson last week. For the last two 1/2 months, our school system, and our leadership team
have been working very closely with public works on this operations, and efficiency
assessment. And we have invested a lot of team to make sure that the presentation they
present to you tonight is going to be very informative, and helpful for the future of the
school district. But even with all the work that's been invested, the real work is going
to come once their presentation is presented. So, we look forward to their presentation
tonight. We have also spent a great deal of time working on the superintendent's proposed
budget for fy27, and we look forward to a conversation with the board tonight, and look
forward to answering your questions. >>you did recognize our career,
and tech students, and last saturday, they attended a state competition, and they earned 22
medals across 13 different content areas, six gold medals, eight silver medals, and eight
bronze medals in the skills area of the competitions in the areas they participated in. Last
week, we had the opportunity to attend the all county elementary school band concert. The
students did a fabulous job, and they received a standing ovation from the large crowd that was
there. We commend mr. Walker, who is our supervisor for the arts, as well as all of our
music, and art teachers around the county, and for the parents who support these young students
to become the musicians that they are. I was visitig wendy hills last week and I walked
into a room with a special education meeting, and this is the good work that goes on in
our schools every day where our teachers, and staff work to examine the data of their
students to make sure they have plans in place to implement the iep's. We also had the
opportunity to receive food donations from a food drive from the naacp. They collected enough
food donations that they can present to each of our schools, and those who have food banks,
and those who correct, and those who don't hopefully will begin food banks in their schools.
every month we hold a meeting, and this was held at the medical school, middle school, and revw
data, and lead the meeting, and go into classrooms, and what we call learning walks. In this
case, we were in the classrooms where the students were doing ice crystals. Once we complete
our observation we go back into the meeting, and review the data, and our results, and plans
moving forward. This was another walk report at the high school where we visited this algebra
two class and the students explained to me the polynomial functions that was part of their
learning activity for the day. This is the elementary school. This is an asynchronous
learning, and they do not have a geometry teacher online, but they have a teacher in class
from the neighboring high school. This is a math lesson. October of 2024, the county
commissioners established the student safety, and well-being advisory committee where we have participants from across the county, government, and local agencies, and even
representatives from the state who have reviewed data for the last 15 months, and hopefully
within the next several weeks, they will be presenting their report to the county
commissioners. I'm expecting the board of education will be able to attend with the county commissioners to see what we can implement to ensure that we are supporting the well-being of our
students. The middle school is growing strong, and we had an opportunity to visit that a
couple weeks ago. This was the end of a school day at windy hill and the teacher stopped to
take a photograph. I promised them that they would be able to see themselves at the board
meeting. They look refreshed after a day with the students. I want to thank mr. Seoul, and his
team for the onboarding and the orientation for all of our new employees. So they have these
every couple of weeks to make sure that our new employees are fully integrated into the school
system. On the back end of this, we established the superintendent's executive
leader, and superintendent's academy for calvert county leaders. Last week we had our
third session focused on finance, and public education, and continuous improvement. We
had speakers, the assistant director for the virginia association of school superintendents. A good friend of mine, dr. Lane. Ceo of university instructor, and state
superintendent, and worked for the white house and the department of education. And dr. Kramer who is an experienced leader here, and me maryland, and veirginia. And appointed
secretary of education in virginia. Today, I was able to attend the association of
student councils. I know she's going to talk about it. I will not steal her thunder. I will
let the pictures speak for themselves. I'm sure you can see what is going on here. It
was a great day. Every day I go by the new school, I take pictures of the construction,
and finally seeing the walls go up. Hopefully that will be ready for the next school year.
finally, I want to congratulate the recipiets of this new lighthouse award. We have this
every month for our support staff. We will go around presenting them with their
certificates. I want you to be committed to is each of you can nominate a student, teacher,
adminis administrator, or our support staff to be a lighthouse
representative of the year. We have someone from the elementary, middle school and high school. Please go to the website to complete your recommendation. That concludes
my report. Thank you. >>president jana smith-post: thank you, dr. Newsome. Next we
have student of the board. Ms. Jones. >>allison jones: I have exciting
news. Tonight the student council has their assembly. We had a pirates of the caribbean
theme, which many of the students, and advisors were happy to comply with the dress
code for that. But today, we elected the 2026/2027 student member of the board. We had
three amazing candidates that presented very good campaigns. I was very impressed with all
three. I'm very excited to announce that next year student of the board is ollie rice. I
have worked with her seince she was in middle school, and she has incredible work ethic. I
want to extend my congratulations to you. I'm so excited, and I can't wait to see
what you are going to do next year. >> >> up next, we have our efficiency study presentation.
>> I would like to welcome our representatives from public works who have been working very
diligently, and hard over the last several months, president cox is the manager. I'm going to
ask you to introduce yourself, and your colleague. I want to begin by thanking you for how
diligent you have been throughout this process. And how open you have been, and how
willing you have been to take feedback from our team, from our staff, from our employees. And
it seems like you worked around-the-clock. If I had a dollar for every time you and I
talked over the last two 1/2 months, then the board can contribute that to this budget
process this year, and do a lot better. >>are we going to have a pizza
party. >>a pizza party. Thank you so much, and thank you for being us with this evening. >>thank you, and congratulations on your position. I'm joanne
cox, and led this efficiency review. My background is in high school teaching, and worked in
the central office of education, and before I came out to the consulting world. John, would
you introduce yourself? >> absolutely. My name is john gaddis. Recently retired after
35 years in education. I worked myself as a second grade teacher to superintendent of schools.
prior to that, I was in worcester county, and then when the elementary school opened. I
was there for two years because I thought I had to move away from home, and went back home. It's been an absolute pleasure to work with your staff. And we are excited to present what we
have for you this evening. >> he is very bashful. I would like to say that he did get the
superintendent of maryland award a few years back. >>I would like to thank the
board, and for the opportunity to give you this overview report. It's very lengthy. A 450
page report. We did work day and night in the last four months to produce this report filled with
facts, and recommendations, and accommodations for the school system. Obviously, with the time
permitted, we won't go into much detail, and ask that you hold questions until the end of the
presentation. >>I have participated or led at least 150 of these type of
efficiency reviews, and 37 different states. I will say the commitment that I found in
calvert county was very refreshing. Sometimes when we ask for data from a school
district is like pulling teeth to get them to give it to us, but not this district. You
fulfilled the data request where we had 2 tthe tools to do this report, and you truly helped our
team with this report. We thank you for that. A little bit about the company, which has been in
business for over 30 years, conducted over 150 of these types of studies in 37 different
states. We do have experience in maryland. We finished one in baltimore county not too long
ago, and finished one in montgomery county. We have a high implementation rate, and
hope that carries over into this report with implementing our recommendations, and we have a well qualified team that did this study. This is just a few of the types of projects that we
have completed in the last few years. As I said, we did do baltimore county public schools,
as well as baltimore county government. If there are any county government officials in
the audience, you will know that our team, not this particular team, but we have a whole other
team of public works that does county, and city government. In baltimore we did both the county
government as well as the school system. You can find that r report. >> excuse me, can you move your mic closer. >>our staff, linda rose, dr.
bruce, saw the district chapter and the organizational overall structure, and board, and
superintendent recommendations. Dr. Greg, I.t. Director of the county school district which is
the largest in the nation. We had dr. Jane, oversaw hr in garrett county, and on the
school board in garrett county. For transportation, alexandra robinson, the former director of
transportation in new york city, and as well as san diego unified school district. Also the past
president of the national association of pupil transportation. Dr. Lisa
mcculley has her phd in special ed. And at the university of texas. Also melissa kavanaugh.
former teacher, and literacy coach, and federal grants manager, and assistant
principal. You can see we had a pretty well qualified team conducting. They are all out
there visiting us virtually. When we get down to q and a, if there is something that we
cannot answer, we have all of our consultants with us online tonight.
>> next slide, please. >>we conducted many virtual interviews before we even came
on-site. We had a data request list of over 1200 documents that our team reviewed collectively.
we collectively interviewed and/or focused group 388 staff members, or individuals, such as
central office staff. We interviewed board members, including your student member.
that was fun to interview her as well. School leadership, and staff, some cac members, and
union reps. And five benchmark directs, carol, seal ill, charles, saint mary's, and
wicomeco. Why was this study conducted? It was suggested from the staff, and board
members. With a decline in student enrollment, and local, and state funding, and coupled
with the students and the blueprint for maryland's future, dr. Newsome and his team had the
forward thinking to look at this system to remain resilient, and student centered, and fiscally
sound. Often this study is done when the big brothers send us in or the county executive. But not
the case in this district. You invited us to the your data, ang questions, and surveying you.
you should be commended for that. We look at opportunities to find ways to help you improve
your sound practices. I kind of lichen this study the book the great you have many great
policies and procedures. And it's not to what you are doing wrong, but what you can improve in the policies that you have. What we hear when we go into central office studies is that
the central office is top heavy. Nothing could be less than accurate for ccps. Your central
office structure is under staffed relative to benchmark directs. The staffing gaps are
the most evident in executive leadership, and instructional supervision, legal services, and
communication services. >> next slide, please. Our team completed this study in
a record breaking four months. And we divided this work plan up into four phases. There was a
project launch, the on-site visit. An interim briefing where each of your directors from each
of the departments we reviewed, got a chance to provide us feedback on the report, a back
and forth on the report to be sure there were no errors in this report. Here we are with
the final report presentation in mid-february. >> next slide, please.
extremely long, it's quite user friendly. You will find there is an executive summary. There are
seven chapters for each of the seven departments under review. You should note there were three
departments that were not under the purview of this study, and that was the student services,
food services, and facilities. There is also an overview in appendix a of the survey
results, appendix b has benchmark comparisons. Appendix c has a list of commendations of
located, and appendix c with all the recommendations. Overall there were 29 commendation, and
68 recommendations. If we had more time than four months, I feel confident there would be
just as many commendations as recommendations that you see on the screen. And the status quo,
who is staffing the department, the budget, the organizational structure, what are they responsible for. It's a really good quick study for you, dr. Newsome as the new
superintendent to know the fact, and figures of each of your departments. Each recommendation
is data driven. We didn't make any recommendations based on one source, not on an interview or
survey result. We try to tri triangulate all the
recommendations. We have an actual recommendation, best practice that's maybe been used
in other districts to help implement. We have an implementation strategy with
each implementation, and five year fiscal impact. The overall survey results, kudos,
again to your staff. The overall survey response rate was 34.16%. The principles in ap's get the
highest return rate at 79%. That's quite unusual in the many studies that we have conducted.
that's a pretty high response rate. The survey was also filled with hundreds of open-ended
comments that should be helpful in where your administration. Key survey takeaways, benefits
from a highly committed, and student centered workforce. Staffing shortages, and capacity limits are most pressing system wide. Employees are looking for vision, and direction with
assurance, and support as ccps future in the next 3-5 years. I will share with you in many of
the interviews, it indicated that with all of dr. Newsome's visit, and going to the
classrooms, we even interviewed many para professionals, and they said,newsome, and staff
seeing this, and voting in as superintendent is well going forward with that vision.
resources, and support rather than additional initiatives that are beyond their capacity to
perform. Another theme is improvement, and enhancement opportunities are mostly
organizational, and operational. And the operational systems are the primary hurdles to gaining
efficiency. There is one more theme that is not on the screen. We heard repetitive. We are a system of school, not a school system. By that, many of the interviewees, seems that things
are not consistent from school to school. And there aren't a set of non-negotiables that all
schools must follow. I thought that was a permanent theme throughout a lot of interviews
in the surveys we conducted. Appendix b has 83 of these exhibits. So you have data at
your fingertips. Comparing ccps with the five benchmark districts in all types of
categories. This is just one slide comparison showing that student chronic absentism has
declined, and lowest benchmark for 2025. We will send the five bench marks the copies because
they have been very cooperate e iv in giving us this data. From a high level overview, consistent progress in language arts. Graduation rates above state average, your mathematic scores are not as high as ela scores, however, the proficiency
rate increased from 48 to% from 33%. Also the discipline behavior incident have shown a
decline. We left this bullet here about behavioral incidences because overall that is true
that the discipline behavior data has shown a dleen,ecline, f you look deeper, this is across
all schools shown a decrease, and there may be a need for additional student mental health
support. We did not do student services, and cannot dive too much of that into detail. But
the teachers and the support staff survey results clearly indicated that more focus is
needed on behavioral health. Student behavior, discipline, and safety concerns are the most
evident. Nearly one in five respondents disagreed that they feel safe in their school
environment. If you look at the longer term in the data showing increasing incidences of
bullying harassment, and behavior when compared to the benchmark districts. We can go,
and spend the next couple of hours on commendations. Kudos to the board for your excellent
policy development process. We don't normally see such a tight process, and we noted on your
agendas that you regularly review policies, and update them. That is quite commendable.
we find it worthy to commend the student leadership team to initiate this efficiency study.
the staff members are commended for collaborative efforts in securing grant funds for the
support of staff development, and professional development. >>also, your ccps operational
bulletin is exceptional, and a best practice model that other school districts should emulate.
>> next slide, please. Are you still in the room? I hope you are listening to these
commendations because have a ton of them in your chapter. The finance department is commended
for their excellent policies, and procedures that are in place. Also, they hold the
school base financial secretaries accountable for funds that are expended at the
school level. They have done an excellent job earning income with the carry over funds, just
over $41 million. All of these details are in the report. The finance department has done an
outstanding job with direct deposit for wages. And not all finance departments can tell
that they have completed ten audits in three years with no major findings.
>>chapter three, these are only select. There are many more in the report. I don't want to you
think those are the only commendations in each of these chapters. For chapter 3, which
is human resources, the hr department is commended for its professionalism, accessibility,
and service orientation. For staff, and supporting schools despite, this is a big despite,
sustained work low pressures, and staffing constraints. In just a moment, we'll share some
recommendations to help improve that hr workload pressure. Also the hr department is commended
for maintaining collaborative relationships with employee association that support
contract implementation, and work stability. Also, ccsps has an outstanding leadership p
pipeline program that is aligned with maryland blueprint, and built internal leadership. The
next department is the department of instruction. I was getting goosebumps when I
saw your career technology students upfront because that wa our recommendation of the
career, and technology academy is wordthy of commendation, and you will see dr. Gaddis is
recommending that you expand that program. Also the benchmark districts. You are commended for
superior performance in a broad range of academic engagements, and coordination indicators. I
will advise you to look at appendix b to see how ccps compares academically when you
compare yourselves in the district. A kudos to the teachers. I was going to ask for
a standing ovation, I don't know if that's too corny or not. Will you go up, and congratulate your
teachers because when you see these scores in the appendix. C'mon.
have a lot to be proud of in this district. The curriculum instruction staff have been very
proactive in seeking business, and community partnerships to increase access to resources.
also, they have implemented a social, and emotional diagnostic screener called panorama to plan
interventions with students with identified needs. Chapter five was your special education
department. Again, we commend the district for investing in the platform for their response innovation program, and training all teachers in the specialized design instruction module, also
highly commended for the consistent commitment of the staff for students with
disabilities. >>next chapter is transportation. The transportation department is commended for being responsive, and with the technology and the
electronic routing is cutting edge technology. Also commended for their low accident rate, and
good on time performance. Typically when we view these types of studies, one of the
complaints is how buses are not on time. We rarely heard that when we interviewed staff, and
parents in this community. Last year, there were only nine accidents in the almost
3.5 million miles driven. That's a pretty good low accident rate. Next chapter. This is a
department of technology. Information technology. Excellent depth in using key
performance indicators. Several of your departments in the school system have key
performance indicators, but we believe that I.t. Has very strong ones, and we would like
to see all of the departments having very strong key performance indicators. For
these indicators are used as metrics for how well you are delivering your service to your
customers. Technology is commended for the technology that reads, and imports data
from the maryland online iep system. Directly into your e school plus. The I.t. For the
student laptop. This practice should save ccps millions in the next five years. The last
commendation is the I.t. Support team successfully begun the implementation of a unified
school district system. It's much more efficient. >>good evening, again. Before I
begin, I want to let you know. I was in my vehicle looking for my readers, and couldn't find them.
the pair that I have is four times too small belong to my wife. I apologize. I love pink,
and this was all I could find. I want to reiterate what dr. Cox said about the recommendations,
and going to the next level. I can tell you from serving as superintendent in the state of
maryland, and being still involved, there were many many things that are happening in
calvert county that are not happening in other districts. You should be very happy about
that, and I'm sure you are proud. This is about taking it efficiencies, and what can we do
or what did we see coming in from the outside that will help you to do that. So I'm going to
start as dr. Cox said. There was an analysis, and from that, will come the recommendations. I'm
not going to cover everything on here because you have that in the report. I'm going to start
with the report, the central office reorganization. Again, we are looking at building
leadership capacity that is necessary to improve instruction, strengthen
operations, and sustain progress in an increasingly complex educational environment. Right
now, you operate with three chief officers. They manage a wide portfolio of departments.
you have a chief academic officer directly supervising all elementary principals while over
seeing curriculum, and special ed, and others operating on that side of the house with special
curriculum. This is a problem. Principals receive instruction, coaching, and support. Senior
leaders like strategic planning, and continuous improvement, and you can't response quickly to
emerging instruction, and operational challenges. The solution is the reorganization
creates an executive director for elementary, and secondary education to provide day-to-day
instructional leadership models to allow to concentrate on the system wide strategy, and
performance improvement. What will happen, the critical problems hopefully the outcomes
become more consistent instructional coaching for your principals who are your
curriculum leaders in your building, and faster communication, and restoration
of school challenges, strong alignment with district priorities, and classroom
practice, and something that is very important across the state of maryland, if not the country,
put definitely maryland, principal retentin, and development. There needs to be a
pipeline. When we looked at the district comparisons to benchmark districts, this
information is based on comparing calvert with charles county, and saint mary's county.
you will see the enrollment trends, you are declining slightly. Charles county has
stable enrollment, larger district, saint mary's also facing comparable demographic
shifts. In the comparable structure, you are very lean. There is no doubt about it
compared to st. Marys. Some of the staffing patterns with student ratio, but you do face gaps in specialized positions including counsel, and supervision. In fact, you are
the only system that does not have a full-time communications person that that is their only
job, and vital position as well as you are big enough in this educational environment to have
full-time counsel that is at your exposure daily. >>let's go over a couple of the
recommendations. Again, we tried to group these together. These are just a few of them, and I'm
of them. Our analysis found that kpi's had been started me some of the departments. Our
recommendation is to require that all departments use key performance indicators, and that
the county adopt a formal procedures framework that all departments will use so they can
be consistent. One of the other issues, one of the other recommendations is to reorganize
the district office functions with those two executive director positions reporting to
the chief academic officer, and move the secondary principles to report to an executive director
of secondary education. We have talked about full-time counsel, and communications. And then the
last one I will touch on here is having sat in the seat that dr. Newsome has been in, coming in
as a new superintendent, one of the things that we are recommending is that the board
establish some committees to help with the board of self assessment, and also adopt a
formal annual superintendent evaluation process because the committees can strengthen
oversight, and enhance quality decision-making but also, balance the information flow
with everything that the board has to do. Chapter 2, fiscal management. You will see with
the amount of work that goes to the finance department, there are a lot of people that are
doing multiple things. So, we are recommending that there be enough data job descriptions,
and responsibilities, and also a cross training model be implemented. There had been some
vacancies that are now filled, but we want to be sure that things keep going when people
are out of the office. So having the opportunity to cross train, would be a tremendous advantage
not only for finance, but for other departments. Risk management is something that
every system is concerned with. We are recommending you develop a comprehensive risk management
plan with system wide approaches that will align with current best practices, and address
possible threats that may exist. May does a tremendous job in maryland, the board of education
in working with school systems to help with that. Also, you are already doing some cooperative
purchasing, but we are recommending now to talk to the county, and take it to the next level. Could you do something with health insurances, with fleet mpanagement, are there other areas to lower cost to benefit the system. Department of human resources. What we
found was the structured organization, and assignment of duties with clearly defined
lanes will allow for smoother operations. So the recommendations here is to
establish a three division human resources operating model, and reorganize hr into three
divisions or three lanes. Talent acquisition, and onboarding, staff operations, and workforce
administration, and employee services compliance, and labor relations. This would add three fte's to the process, but would be a big help of taking that efficiency, and effectiveness to
the next level. Also, we found that there is quite a bit of mobility among staff. We had the
same thing in the lower shore. You can be in the west side, you have the same thing here. One of
the things we want to do is to recommend that your hiring process required a standardized
centralize managed hiring, and onboarding process with clearly defined stage ownership,
monitoring, and escalation within the acquisition unit. In other words, let's find the
person we want, get them on board, and get them working in our school system as fastas we
can. You will see again, recommendation 3.8, the feasibility of joining a
regional healthcare coalition could potentially help you save $750,000, in cost avoidance, in
2009, garrett county did this, and they have had good results. In chapter 4, we have the
department of instruction, and I quickly went back with what dr. Cox said. One of the things that
I think was the greatest experience for me as the superintendent, was we built a
new tech school. Boy did we hit another population of our students. Success can be seen in
many ways. Every one of those students is successful. That 50s grader in the elementary band
concert was a success. The first area is to expand that tech academy model whether you can
increase the capacity or include programs or satellite. It's clear that it works, and that is
something that would be a big benefit for the school system. Also your department of
instruction, currently has a four strand structure. So what you have is some overlapping of
responsibilities, but you also have people who are working in silos that are by themselves.
so, the recommendation 4-3 is to look at how the role structure of staff, and supported across
support teams. As dr. Cox said, would be an organizational chart to show those recommendations.
also, in the world we live in today with involvement from community to community groups,
parents, students, there needs to be a shot in the arm for the system wide plan for program
evaluation. Anytime you are looking at curriculum, there needs to be a process that is
established that is followed every single time. So we are looking at recommendation 4.5,
in establishing that clear consistent process for reviewing new, and existing programs, not
just the program, the curricular materials, interventions, support and the resources
brought in to help the students. Chapter 5, recommendations for department of special education.
recommendation 5.1, as again, you will have a chart in that chapter is to reorganize the
special education department to improve clarity, accountability, and capacity with one director
of special ed, and five supervisory roles. Your special education structure has done a
phenomenal job with compliance, it's only one part in special education, there is
instructional delivery, and lacking this fine alignment. Going through this organization takes it from compliance to instructional programming, legal responsibilities, but also,
specialized support, and assessment, and transition. Also your special education staff was analyzed for carrying heavy work loads that extend well beyond their direct instruction. As a
result, many have limited capacity to deliver high quality instruction. They are spread too
thin. So recommendation 5.7 is to maintain a simple transparent workload dashboard at the case
management level to ensure staffing decisions are driven by actual workload demands than
simply counting the number of iep's in a building or classroom. Recommendations for
chapter 6, transportation. 6.1, was to reorganize the transportation department, and
implement time saving strategies to be more efficient. There are overlapping job duties, and
everybody in that department works so well, but again, we are looking at what are specific
lanes that you work in, and what are specific responsibilities. Also, there is a recommendation
6.2, to look at your contractual operations, and to look at the whole system how you have done
things, rather than you have a contract, look at that, rather than the practice of historical
mou's, and 6-3, departmental kpi's that align with best practices. Chapter 7,
information technology, and digital learning. One of the recommendations here is 7-3. Out
of 39 of your software service contracts only one is multiyear. So the recommendation is to look
at provide upfront funding for multiyear I.t. Software, and cloud services expanding the
cost, which you can sometimes get a lower cost by doing that. They are going to charge you more for that first year. So spread those things out. It is also something where your fund
balance could be used to potentially help with some of that cost. 7-3-3 is a
recommendation that while we were here, we did not realize that you had 900 hp printers on
desktop. That's a lot of ink, and a lot of printers to keep track of. Teachers can use high
capacity printers located in every single building, and still be able to do what they need. It
would be just down the hallway which is a cost saving because if you ever replace your toner
at home, you know how much it can cost. Also, one of the things we saw is also an
accommodation. You have a wonderful staff. You have a tremendous staff. But I tried to
find a better word, but you have an aging staff as well. There needs to be plans put in place, what is going to happen specifically in technology 7-5. You are facing the retirement of a six person networks operations team within the next 2-3 years potentially. What is the
succession plan , and how you don't lose that. >>ms. Cox: you have seen on the
screen our proposed district organization. This shows the teams recommendation for the
organized at the executive level central office, and each of the chapters we just went through
has another organizational chart. The most pronounced on staffing on school leadership,
and school supervision, based on interviews, job descriptions, benchmark comparisons. This
innovation adds to director positions, one for elementary, secondary, reporting to the cao.
we have the recommendation to elevate the role of the eao, and chief officer to deputy
superintendent to reflect alignment, and more in line with your benchmark district. Ccps,
is the only school district that does not have a communication director, and we recommend one,
and as well as hiring full-time legal counsel to also report to superintendent newsome. You see
an overall savings chart chapter by chapter, the red is cost to implement the recommendations,
the black is your savings. You can see our team's proposed five year savings is over $29
million. And in the report you will have a description of each fiscal impact to show how these
numbers were derived. The next steps, and suggestions for ccps leadership, several people this
evening asked me how can I get my hands-on that report. So I'm keeping it close to my body
because some people said, let me see it. I'm going to defer that question to you, superintendent,
new newsome, and your leadership team because I didn't know how to answer. >>so, the superintendent leadership team should develop a
detailed implementation plan, and prioritize these recommendations. There is a lot
of recommendations. It can't be all done at once. They should have a prioritization. We helped
by providing superintendent news some with a chart, implementation sheet to help you
to track each recommendation, and where you are with each one. It would be, you should
incorporate year one action into your 26/27 budget. Authorize any necessary organizational
changes, and position changes. Adopt policy or governance updates. Try to launch some of
your quick initiatives. Implement performance metrics, kpi's in all departments, and
establish dashboard. Your board should be privy to your progress. And your board
meetings to conduct quarterly board progress reviews. We would certainly love for you to keep
us apprised of your implementation rate because we have a team that is very
committed to doing this work, and your success, and implementing these
recommendations reflects on our success. We are going to be checking back with you
periodically to see how it's going, and if your directors are having issues with
implementation, our team is not going to just run after delivering this final report. If
you want to send some email questions to me, I will forward them to the correct person to
make sure that these recommendations do get implemented. So, next slide, as
a former high school debate coach, I will say I stand ready for cross-examination.
questions, please. >>president jana smith-post: thank you, chair.
. >>ms. Post, before questions, can I make a final statement? >> yes, of course. >>dr. Marcus newsome: effectiveness, I want to thank
you for this very comprehensive report, which you covered over 450 pages in less than an hour.
public education is the most transparent education in the community. You can see the
website, and see how every individual school is performing with this academic performance with attendance, with its discipline, and how it spends its dollars. In my first days at
the board of education, they demonstrated to me that they want to see the same level of
accountability, and transparency within a central office. So this efficiency assessment allows the
entire community to see the operations of every major department, and central office.
we don't have anything to hide. Some of this is going to be very uncomfortable. But that's part
of improvement. And we do plan to provide this information on our website, and make it
available to the community starting tomorrow. I'm sure some people may take some sections,
and perhaps take it out of context, and we'll deal with that, but I said in my comments
at the appointment that we are ready to roll our sleeves up. Take the implementation plan,
and begin work over the next several years starting with this year's budget. So, again, we
look forward to the challenge ahead. And we know that it's going to produce a more
effective, more efficient, and more accountable, and more transparent school system. Thank
you again. >>president jana smith-post thank you, dr. Newsome. Are there any questions? >> I would like to thank you for your report. There are 60
recommendations, what would you say are the top three to five priorities that we might be able
to accomplish this year? >> well, I think that this year, you should focus on your
educational, the changes, and staffing for education. For your central office. I think that
those are optimal, and that's what the whole district is about, improving student
education. I think that after our analysis, those extra positions in your curriculum,
and instruction are well deserved, and well needed. I think that would be one of your
top priorities. >>I think also looking at the first thing that comes to mind
to me is human resources. You want to be sure you have the very best teachers in front of
your students. I think one of those priorities is to look at your process that you are using
in hr, to make sure that right now, someone is talking to those student interns that are in the
building. It may be too late to do that already because a lot of them are being hired right away.
when you again the process of your having your budget discussions tonight, when you
know how many positions you have available, that number is going to probably be consistent, not
only across southern maryland, but the whole state of maryland, and we know there is a teacher
shortage. Everybody wants the best. For me, as superintendent, dr. Newsom will learn question
by is the new process, and you are going to have multiple offers. For staffing, what directly impacts the students are the biggest priority in february
with the budget being developed. >>that leads me to question no. 2.
>>I wanted to add a third one. I think you should start looking deeply at your transportation.
it is highly costly for the school system. Our consultant gave some very good geuidance o
ways that you can cut those costs, and place to tackle in year one.
>>thank you very much. You say the human resources function continues to stand more
improvement. What would it require to our overall hr to better align with the schools.
>>we have our director who can help with that. >>that is such a great question.
I really do encourage to you look at recommendation 3-4. Which is on page 138 of this
report. Because what we are really looking at the hiring, and onboarding workflows that
looks at the structure of the hiring process, and break it up into hiring steps and insures
that employees are fully ready on the first day as dr. Gaddis said earlier. This improves the
timelines. That's what we heard most based on survey results, and we also heard in the enter
views by our focus groups. It improves timelines, and reduces interruptions. Look at that
recommendation 3-4. >>does that answer your question?
>> yes, it does, thank you. I think you touched on pieces of this. How will the new hr
position help us attract, and retain teachers and the funding to restructure this department?
>> that is recommendation 3-2 because when you look at the structure of human resources,
having those three lanes is very important to ensure that we have that talent acquisition
expertise, and the onboarding to get people in place, and in a sequential order, doing the
operations, and workforce administration so it's looking at your certification, licensure improves the hiring timelines, reduces the backlog, and compliance risk, and stabilizes
that service delivery. So also the third lane would be the employee services, and
compliance, and employee relations. Looking at anything that has to do with worker's
compensation, that monitoring, and to look at recommendation 3-2 for the three divisions to
build efficiencies in human resources. >>thank you, and one additional. You also recommend we elevate the chief academic officer, and officer of superintendent. Can
you describe that in more detail? >> by elevating thouse position,
you are emphasizing more instructional leadership. They are stretched very thin from the interviews we participated in, looking at the benchmark directs, and we believe by
elevating those positions given them more time to focus on instruction, and less time on other things they are responsible for, will even more elevate your great student
achievement in this district. Thank you. >>in the key service takeaways,
the operations to hurdles, and gaining efficiency, can you expand on that
>>sure, we focused a lot on kpi. You have a great start on kpi's in many of your departments, but
not all of your departments. It's wonderful to have kpi's, but you have to follow-up on
those, and what are they measuring and the outcomes. We hope in year one thatyou can
focus in on more of your kpi's for each department. >>the other question I had is
this presentation talked a lot about central office restructuring. Was it part of
this audit to look at how schools are structured, our staffing radiatio at the school
level? >> no, just central office. >>okay, thank you.
>>we can always come back. Don't tempt us with a good time.
>>I know that some of why you are staff members, and some of the divisions that were
departments that were not covered, kind of felt like they wanted to be part of the study
too, but we did cover some things in student services, and also we looked at your janitor
position. I know you don't call them janitors, you call them building service workers, pardon
me. We did reach beyond the scope of work in some of those areas.
>>this is done as you all know in haste because it was so important as we move forward into this budget discussion. So, it was just a way the timing had worked out in which we had
conversation with dr. Newsome, and had to go through the bid process, and all of those things to get to this point. In autopi, we wish we had a lot more time, and something that we can go
back to consider. It has been very very helpful. I think it's given us an ability. You are
third party, and you came from the outside looking in, and you had an opportunity to talk to a
variety of folks, and receiven put from a lot of different folks, and in some cases, it
solidifies what many of us were thinking or what we have experienced, but in others, some
of them were surprising, and may have changed the way that we thought things were. And they
aren't necessarily. I think this was really necessary, and especially important as we move
forward through our budget process. >>do you have any questio >> I would like to say thank you, and would like to recognize the finance person to the right.
who are you, young lady? >>I'm barbara. >>thank you.
>>our next segue to this is the budget discussion. So one thing that I look at and I made that
comment in my interview was that we don't have the standard operating procedures. I think
also, looking beyond kerwin, and cte is one of our gems, and I'm glad you recognized that. Maybe
we are not looking far enough ahead, but I think when you detail, dr. Newsome, the
detailed learning, and not necessarily at every school, but projecting the best teachers to
the school in another area. I think that might be part of this future that we face. But I can't
get my head around the benefit that the students get frommen person teaching. So, it's going
to be a public policy discussion of what quality or what effectiveness that we would have
through technology versus an in person lesson. I know that our speech pathologist, the number
of speech pathologists that we have has gone up I think to now eight. I forget how many we
have. But it has gone up because people wore masks for years and the students didn't learn the
enunciation with their speech, and now they are having problems with their own speech. That's
one thing we didn't consider when people were staying at home and were afraid. That bounds
from 2020/2022 where it was thrown to everybody to try to placate these issues, and now we
are getting into the real nuts and bolts of these things, and I'm concerned we have
opportunities, but some of these opportunities also have costs before we can save. And there
has to be some degree of discount on the savings. I don't expect to realize 100%. I think
there is going to be some discount to that. The other thing I want to caution folks, I
believe we are going to put this lie l online if it's not already. >>it will be tomorrow. >>I appreciate what you have
done and it was really quite a process, and it's been commendable. I have been through
some myself in different organizations. Usually, when my bosses are asking me questions I
usually, say, did you check your credenza because some people didn't read the report. I'm
going to read the report carefully. That's probably what got me dismissed from my last
job. >>for reading it carefully or not? >> no, for telling people it was on their credenza, and to look at it. It was probably not the
best thing to say. The public doesn't know also that we take this job very very seriously. We
are trying to do the best we can for calvert county, and the students in calvert county.
also, I have developed a parallel concern for the employees of calvert county of
public schools as well because again, every person that I have met has in their heart, the best
intent from ursula who takes care of the building here to teachers like amanda, and other
folks that I know that are in the system. They are doing everything they can to do the
best possible job. So I want to make sure that we give them the credit for the commendations
that you have in this report. And susan, dr. Johnson, you are doing a phenomenal job. Jackie,
you are doing everything you can. You are probably swimming at everything as soon as you
open your email I'm sure. We are going to try over the next couple years. I still have three years left in my term, but we are going to try, dr. Newsome to support you every way we can.
the elephant in the room though is that funding is flat I expect from the state and the county.
so I would just say we probably have to take a tact where we tell them where this number gets
them, and we put in the things that we maybe able to save, and we give the commissioners a
choice to help us out beyond that flat funding. Because I think that again, one of the
comments tonight is we have to invest in our kids. It is an investment, and it's an
expensive investment because they are in our school system now for 14 years, prek, and 12 other years. That's 14 years time $20,000. So you are investing or spending in every
kid $300,000. That's quite a bit of money especially for folks that don't have kids in the
school system that are living here, and every year their property taxes go up a little bit. The commissioners will say, no, the tax rate didn't go up, no, but my assessment went up
and it went up over 12%. I think we have to balance the needs here with the folks that are in
this county trying to live every day with 12% assessment increases and the state
doubling. >>president jana smith-post: yeah, we are going to segue into
the budget discussion, and part of that will be part of the budget discussion. Can I turn to
you, dr. Newsome, or who is leading the budget discussion? >> yes, thank you again, and
safe travels back. I know you are probably going back to florida.
>>thank you very much. >>I would like to ask barbara, who is the acting director,
interim director for budget, and finance. And she's been working really hard just to give you a
glimpse of the challenges. It's like somewhat put together, a report, and you had to come behind them, and you weren't necessarily involved in the development of that report, and
you have to present that report, and there are going to be some things in the report that you
may not understand, and then there are challenges, and then our full time person will ramp
up and the timeline doesn't change. I want to commend you, barb, for what you are doing,
and working with the team. If you are comfortable there, you can present from there.
>>what she's going to present for you is an overview of the budget categories, and try to
give you an explanation of areas where we see the greatest change from this current year to the
upcoming year. Hopefully that will prompt questions from you in the conversation.
>> are you going to cover fy26 at projected end? >> no, just the proposed stuff
for 27. Good evening, president post, superintendent, dr. Newsome, and board members. My
name is bash sekera. Director of finance, acting. I'm here to present the proposed 2027
budget. >> next slide, please. I thought we would start with the revenue
first. So you can see our budgets for this year for fy27 is going to be $303,325. That is
a 200,000 increase in the budget from fy26 to fy27. So we are talking budgeted amounts. For
our local, we are projecting to take in $1.7 million less in local money. What makes up that
$1.7 million is, in fy26, and this year, we received a big credit from may of 1 $1.3 milli.
we don't expect to get that next year. Also we expect our interest, what we are earning in
interest to drop about $200,000 because our expenditures are going up, and there is less cash
to invest. Also, there is a couple other bigger items. We had this year projected that we
would get $95,000 in insurance reimbursements, and we are projecting that's not going to
materialize next year. Those are the big things of the $1.7 million that were not going
to have in 27, that we budgeted in 26. We moved down to county appropriation. We are asking for
$6.7 million more than what we received last year for the county. We are going to be
getting $5.9 million more in state funding, and some of that is foundation, which goes for
the total enrollment population, and some of it is for specific enrollment population. So we are
restricted on how we can use those funds. We are going to talk about, probably you have
question of concentration of poverty. That is a supplemental fund that we are going to be
getting for new expenditures. For next year. The prek, that is only for prek funding. There is
some funding sources we can't use for other general enrollment population. Then the federal, we
are projecting $15,000 more, I think that is rotc because of increasing salaries, and we'll
get a little bit more to cover that. Clearly, we are looking at $15 million ask, we are asking
for $4.2 million more in fund balance than we asked for last year. So this is a difference
between 26, and 27. So you can see those differences budgeted between 26, and 27. Do you have any questions? >> you have to stick to your script.
>>I don't have a script. >>that was my point. >>because we are open to public
scrutiny. The increases each year are like 10%. So we went from 262 to 288, right? So
that's $27 million. Right? Over 10%. Then, we've got from 288 to 303. That's a little less than
25%. The tough part is that those revenues are not, thosen puts are not changing ten
percent. That fund balance number, which I expect for fy27 is $27 million. There is not a
lot of funds left. We want to keep 30% in budget for one time initiative rainy days. So I'm
worried about the tragjectory. The consultants made a great probably need to change course
because those are going up pretty high. Can you talk about the fixed charges in the budget
for fy27, what you expect them to go up? >> we can go to the next slide,
and talk about expenditures. >>sure. >> can I ask really quickly, the
increase are reflective of some of the proposed changes based on the information from the audit
and the superintendent proposed budget last time on the new increases.
>>those are included in the expenditure. I think I sent the worksheets of the ones that are
in the budget and the recommendations in the budget. >>barb, can you go back to the
first slide. I want to make two points. The 6.7. If the public will look at the county
appropriation leine, the fy26 number that we know for sure is $163 million. The fy27 proposed
is the anticipated county appropriation, right? It's not something that they have told us is coming? >> it's what we are asking. >>possibly. The board may ask
for more, but that's the projection here. >>correct.
>>the state aid category, the state provides $109,739 million, and the ask, I don't know if we
really have an ask on that one, you are expecting that it might go up.
>>correct. >>so this budget as presented is predicated on almost $14 million
of money that we don't know if it's going to happen yet. Right? We know we can use fund balance.
>>we are pretty certain about state aid, but anything can change because it's still in
legislation right now. >>yeah. >>that's what I will say for
these slides, thank you. >> the expenditure by category. This is an overview of what
budgeted in 26, and what we want to budget in 27. So, you can see the bottom line is a 5.3%
increase in expenditure. From 26 to 27. Do you want me to go through each line?
>> no. >>okay. >>I sure don't. Thank you.
>>I do have one question. I will start with one. Do we have an estimated total amount of what
it will cost to honor all of the current agreements because to paul's point, there is an
increase obviously, to run the school system every single year. And I think it's unrealistic for
anyone to believe that spending is going to maintain because we are going to continue to give
our people steps in colas. Can you tell us what that amount is? Sure, for bargaining units, we
are expecting an increase of $993,000. I know it's a detailed number.
>>paul has goosebumps. >>the labor portion because when you look at the increase, you
have the fixed charges that go along with it. The fixed charges would be $136,986, the labor
portion, $81,860. If you go to cea, the total increase for cea is going to be $6,0 $6,212,000.
the cola increase. It went up by 27 million, and is going up $15 million from 26 to 27.
>>well, 25, are you talking about the difference of 25, and 26?
>> for 25, no, it was close to that number too, wasn't it? >> okay, the funding changed for
25 a little bit. >>the revenue change, yes. It went down to $86 million.
>>for casa, $658,000. And $506,000 in labor, and $90,000 in benefits. Meet, and confer,
$105,000, 63 total, 14,000 in benefits, then a total of $7.7 million. 6.6 million in
labor, one million in benefits in fixed charges. It's going up labor just for the negotiating
agreements, labor, and benefits will go up, we are projecting them to go up 7.7 million
>>thank you. I think that's important for everybody to understand. As a board, we
stated at the beginning we wanted to be sure on this budget cycle we are honoring all the
agreements. The idea that we are not going to need more money doesn't make a lot of sense when
we make that as our first point. >>I also wanted to know do you happen to know, I realize you
are just here, and it's fine if you don't know. How much are we calculating for inflation, for
operation of plant. >>for utilities, are you asking, we are budgeting flat for
utilities. We have been budgeting, we've been coming, our expenditures have been
coming in less for the last couple years. They have budgeted flat with no increase. We have a
couple overall no increase flat. >>okay, thank you. >> to paul's point, and let me
know if you are getting to this section. He did mention we have a fund balance policy in place,
and that was intended as a protection for the school system. For just that reason,
and I recognize that this may be a situation where we have to utilize some of that fund balance. With that being said, it defeats the purpose of having a policy if we don't follow it
because then what's the point of having any policy if we are not going to follow them. I think
that's something that needs to be discussed. I would like to see specifically how much of the
fund balance, and what that is going to leave us with in that fund balance to make the determination if that's what we want to do if that's what we are doing from our fund balance or
ask what we might ask the county comme commissioners for when we go to
see them. >>barb, were you in the office in 23/24s, you saw the surplus,
which was $23 million is you are pl -- surplus and the 23 was taken away from the fund balance. What was the thinking in the office during those years when you were
building in such a generous budget. >>unfortunately I wasn't
involved in those types of conversations during that time. Maybe there is some history that
we can find for you. >>if I may, I think the purpose that mr. Harrison is asking is
we want to make it very clear when we go to present this budget to our county
commissioners that they understand clearly what we are asking for, and why, and we
understand what our fund balance is going to be, and not that they agree to give us that, and
come back, and we, I don't want to say mysteriously, but all of a sudden, we have a far greater
amount in our fund balance than we say that we did. We cannot have that and it doesn't give
this board a great deal of confidence. To this day, every time I see a county
commissioner, and they want to talk about budget, they talk about that. That's something
that just cannot happen. We need to make sure that we go. We will advocate. If we understand, and it's clear that the school system needs it, then all of us are happy to go, and advocate
for that, but we can't have that kind of -- I'm not speaking to the general, that's one of them,
and to mr. Harrison's point that one, the fund balance policy that's why we have it, and we
can solidly standby, and standby every single penny we are asking of the commissioners, and that's
not going to change. >>dr. Marcus newsome: I believe that a large portion of the fund
balance was probably the result of unfilled positions, and one of the things that we hope to
accomplish through this efficiency review is start to eliminate some positions through
attrition. I presented that two weeks ago, and we have a few that we are starting with this
year. As you know, the largest portion of our expenditures are through positions, so when you
have that large number of unfilled positions, then that's probably the major factor in the
increase in the fund balance. >>I carry, I hope a good deal of respect or confidence or
something, I hope. But in the year where the previous board president demanded $10 million
more from the commissioners, we had a $24 million surplus. So the commissioners are looking
like what the -- >>we are getting beat up still. >>are you sure you need that
money because the last time you asked for it, you had $14 mllion sitting in your pocket.
so we are dealing with a credibility problem, and we can't just ask for a number. We
have to ask for a specific cause. So would it be to fund the fully fund the bargaining
agreement. That's with this cost to implement the savings plans we are going to have to spend a
little money with this cost, and we give them that option to choose what they would like to
fund. I don't want to hold them hostage, certainly it isn't our place, but we want to give them
the best due to previous board actions. >>thank you.
>>president jana smith-post: are we done. >>if you have any questions.
staff are here to answer. >>I have a general question. When we go to talk about the
health plan, very good health plan, trust me. Is that something where you are talking
to a rep from care first who comes out to say, hey, here is what's going to cost you next
year, or is that handled by the county? What's the process for that?
so calvert county public schools has a healthcare committee. And we have consultants, partners that work with us, and help coordinate our care first to negotiate our best possible
contracts with care first. We are currently in the last year of the contract with care first
with the opportunity to extend it for two more years. >>, and is there any discussion
with st. Marys or charles or mabe about a better healthcare consortium?
>> we have not discussed that with the other two counties. I reached out to the county
administrator to talk about other options that could be possible for us to partner in.
>>thank you. >>president jana smith-post: do you have any questions?
>> paul harrison: I'm just trying to figure out how we are going to package this.
>>president jana smith-post: iv a meeting with two of the county commissioners, and conversation
about safety resource officers, and they said they would be willing to pick up. I think we
have six that we need. Three of, which they would pick up, and three we would have to pick up.
are those three sro's included, was that included in your budget, dr. Newsome, thank you
were not included in the budget with my conversations with the administrator, and her team. My
understanding is they were going to support for all 6 sro's. >>perhaps we should have a
meeting together than a separate meeting. >>paul harrison: that would be
outstanding. That's what I asked on the last budget cycle. >>president jana smith-post: I'm
glad I asked. Any other questions? >> no, but thank you, barb.
that's an excellent job. >>whatever we implement, I would like to see some type of
timeline along with a method of tracking progress, and how that progress is going to be reverted
back to us. Thank you. >>paul harrison: now, here is the immediate timeline is
march 1st is when that budget has to go to commissioners. The next meeting the 26, that is our
final vote to say this budget is going to the commissioners. So, I think we should take, and
this is probably going to be a lot of work for you, barb, but I think we should take that fy26
adopted budget, and then we should layer in what it is we need to ask for additional to
that number from the county commissioners. It's static, we don't get all this, but these
are the things, and we should probably put some kind of priority on those. Is that a
fair, do I need to make a motion on that or is that a fair way to approach it.
>>president jana smith-post: no motion needed. >>paul harrison I would suspect
we are going to have to have something like that because if we just send it to them to ask
for $7 million without any discussion about what it's for, that could be dead on arrival.
thank you. >>president jana smith-post okay.
>>if there is no further discussion the next portion which is new business, I think.
>>future business, not new business. >>I have one thing. This
efficiency review report indicated a drop in overall behavior issues in calvert
county public schools. A couple of schools, however, are showing an increase with their behavior
issues. And if I looked at that correctly, I believe they were at the elementary level. I would
like to know what measures of support could be put in place to support those students, and
staff. >>we'll work on that. >>thank you.
>>do those discussions when we have, I'm not used to all this new language. We used to get
just spankings. Now it's behavioral intervention because we have a behavioral episode.
are we involving the parents at the early stage in that? What's the process when a kid acts up
for the first time? >> so depending on the incident, if it's one that a teacher responds to, they would be reaching out to the parent. If it comes to the office, we would
be reaching out to the parent so the parent is a partner in how we deal with behaviors, and how
we approach things. >>all right. I really want to make sure that the teachers have
a safe environment as well. You shouldn't go to work every day, and have to worry about getting
slugged from a student. Thank you. >>president jana smith-post: any
other future business? >> I still want to talk about a future business for cta. That
needs to be on the horizon for expansion of the cta. Is that part of the plan or do we have
to contact the state for school facilities, or what else do we have to do to grow that program?
>> president jana smith-post: so, I think it might be a brick and mortar or lack thereof. We
don't have that. I don't know that there is been consideration about expansion for cta. So
certainly, I think it warrants some discussion, agreed about how our capacity with that
program now. I know capacity is relative to the number of children we are allowed, but how
many kids are not getting in that could if we had an additional facility.
>>now you are talking. >>obviously, it's not going to happen this year, but an
important part of the discussion. >>we have a top tier program and
the facilities, you know. >>president jana smith-post: dr. New
newsome, maybe that is an opportunity to have a discussion with staff. Ms. Warner will be
so happy that we are talking about this because I think it would be helpful to know for the
future; and for planning purposes, and would also be good for the county commissioners to
know since they are looking at space, and building things in the county.
>>okay. We'll move into board comments, and we'll start with ms. Jones. You had enough?
okay. No comments for you. >>ms. Goshorn? >> melissa goshorn: I want to
say that I'm glad that we are going to have you here for are four years. And thank you again to all the staff for the efficiency. I know it's a lot of work on top of a lot of work. So
appreciate everybody doing such a great job hearing from the consultants, just how wonderful
our team was to work with at a time when everybody was already really stretched thin. It's
really appreciated. Thank you. >>mr. Harrison? >> paul harrison: me again, wow.
one thing I wanted to ask, kevin is here. Hi, mr. Cook. How many students are on a bus average
per trip? >> this is a board comment. Into ulm
-- that's a comment that I will make because we drive around with a 53 seat bus, and there
are six kids on it. 72 seat bus, wow. And there are six kids on it. I think that's room for
improvement. I think also in the risk management category, buses go right in there. Right. It's
one of the most exposed things, and standard operating procedures for all schools. That's important. And a school system instead of a system of schools. Those are the highlights for me. I didn't do any events this last couple weeks. But I hope to get back
out. I'm going to, hold on, I need to read this into the record here. Friday march 13th,
at mount harmony elementary school, there will be a liberty, and legacy night celebrating
america's 250th birthday. The time is from 5:30 p.m. To 7:30 p.m.. I have an invitation
from dr. Melanie sanchez who does phenomenal work, and I will do everything I can to get there
on friday. Please, if you can make it. It's awesome. Thank you.
>>president jana smith-post thank you. >>vice-president lisa grenis: I
had the pleasure of attended today's calvert association of student council meetings with
there exceptional candidates. Congratulations who will represent schools next year. I
would like to ask you to consider attending the fundraiser on march 24th to
support this organization. We have some upcoming high school spring productions, which
provide families with opportunities to support the arts while enjoying the amazing talent of our students. This year, the high school will be performing "into the woods".
hunting town high school. It will be presenting cinderella. Northern high school, spongebob.
you don't want to miss the high school performance of le miserable. I think it's a fun
thing to do with families. It's affordable and the money is going to such a great
organization. Please support the arts. Thank you. >>president jana smith-post: not
to brag, I saw spongebob on broadway. It's fantastic. I would love to see how it's
changed. It was a number of years ago. Thank you to ms. Jones for the work, and effort
she's put in. We appreciate it, and congratulations to our new cfo, and congratulations to dr.
n newsome, we are grateful that you are here, and thank you to
the staff who have endured a lot of changes. Many of you are leaders, but you deserve to have
a leader working with staff and the schools day-to-day. I am excited for what the next
several years has to hold. I'm looking forward to all the changes, and recognizing that
they might not all be fun, and might be some growing panins, bt in the end better for our staff,
and school system. I want to say thank you even though they have all left to the students who
came, and spoke. I know that is