State Funding Per Pupil
The state’s per-pupil funding for Carroll County Public Schools increased 32.8% between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2024. That ties with Montgomery County for the sixth smallest increase among all 24 Maryland public school districts.
Per-pupil funding is based on a formula that utilizes the district’s total enrollment and the characteristics of its students. It’s too soon to know what the per-pupil funding level will be in the later years of the Blueprint..
Here’s the district’s initial Blueprint Implementation Plan. And here’s what the state Accountability and Implementation Board – which oversees the Blueprint – had to say about Carroll County Public Schools’ Blueprint Implementation Plan:
Strengths:
- The district has a strong plan for professional learning tailored to the community’s needs. It has a goal of incorporating the science of reading into planning, teaching, and learning.
- Carroll County advisors meet with ninth graders daily to allow time for academic interventions and career counseling, engaging families throughout the process. The district monitors progress to keep students on track to graduate on time and be college-and-career-ready.
- The district’s plan is “culturally responsive,” specifically when it comes to adopting curricular materials.
Needs improvement:
- The district is still developing comprehensive plans for math and literacy that align with the Blueprint to enable students to meet college and career readiness.
- Carroll County needs to create strategies to recruit and retain more teachers, given that teacher shortages are impacting professional learning for staff and math intervention for struggling students.
- The district does not use a textbook or a specific math program in its elementary math curriculum, raising concerns about the program’s strength.
- Placing students into three levels of classes in middle school may be affecting their ability to perform in higher-level courses in high school. To improve upon this, the district should investigate longer-term trends in literacy and mathematics achievement.
- Harrison Rich