Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) students are slowly recovering from the pandemic, but not quickly enough, according to district officials who reported to the County Council Education Culture committee Thursday.
Also, they noted, White students are progressing at a higher rate than Black, Latino and multilingual students.
“We are seeing the opportunity gaps grow,” said Committee Chair Will Jawando. “We are seeing our White students bounce back faster.”
Peter Moran, chief of schools, called the data covering the winter of the 2023-2024 school year for students in grades kindergarten, three, six and nine, “highly concerning. It is a call to action.”
Moran added, “We also view this as a tremendous opportunity as well as a tremendous responsibility.”
According to MCPS, 64.6% of students in the 2023-2024 school year met two or more measures. In the previous school year, the rate was 64.7%. In the 2020-2021 school year, in which all learning was virtual, 59% of students met two or more measures.
“The academic data is not where we need it to be for our students,” said Peggy Pugh, chief academic officers at MCPS.
According to Pugh, this summer teachers are learning MCPS’s new literacy program.
Associate Superintendent Niki Hazel explained that math teachers now will do the math the students are learning and allow students to talk the problems out rather than listen to their teachers all period. The students need to collaborate with each other, she said.
Council committee members expressed concern that more must be done to raise student scores.
Councilmember Kristin Mink pointed out that classroom size will increase in the next school year and that could make it even more difficult to improve scores.
According to school officials, some of the reasons for the poor schools concern high rates of chronic absenteeism, insufficient resources to address social and emotions needs of students and teacher staffing challenges.
“How do we get these numbers where we want them to be,” questioned Jawando. He plans to schedule more committee meetings on school issues, he said.
“I think it’s like 47 more days to school starts. No pressure.”
