State Funding Per Pupil
The state’s per-pupil funding for Cecil County Public Schools increased 30.9% between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2024. That’s the third 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 Cecil County Public Schools’ Blueprint Implementation Plan:
Strengths:
- The district plans to create a college and career readiness team to monitor students’ progress and to intervene when they are falling behind.
- Cecil County has a comprehensive literacy plan that calls for improving early literacy instruction, using evidence-based practices in the classroom and providing individualized help for students that need it.
Needs improvement:
- While Cecil plans to offer tutoring before and after school and virtually, the district may need to provide content experts who can help students during the regular school day.
- Cecil County is experiencing teacher shortages in key subject areas (including special education and upper-level STEM) and needs to come up with new ways to hire and keep a diverse and qualified staff.
- Cecil County has a good system for choosing and approving teaching materials, but it doesn't take into account how well the materials reflect different cultures.
- The district could use some help creating a career ladder that rewards teacher leadership.
– By Hayden Smith