Angelica Ramos
Contributing Writer
MONTGOMERY COUNTY – Superintendent Dr. Bernard Bragen, Jr. presented the needs for Montgomery County Public Schools leading into budget review season on Jan. 7, 2025.
“The way we get anything done in this division is our staff members,” Bragen said, “and it’s our teachers, it’s our custodians, it’s our bus drivers, it’s our administrators, it’s our counselors. It’s everyone and anyone that touches our kids and works in the building every day. If you’re not sure how important that is or what that asset is or what that represents for us in our school budget, 89% of our school budget, of all the monies allocated, go to salary and benefits.”
In his presentation, Bragen discussed some changes happening with the schools including raises for teachers changes to the salary scale. The raise for all MCPS employees would be three percent for FY 25-26. Under the proposed budget, MCPS would be changing how long it takes teachers and staff to hit maximum pay or salary guides for teachers. Instead of the original 36 steps to reach the maximum salary, they will be changing that to 15 steps, meaning it would only take 15 years. The salary scale steps also include the yearly raises. Bragen said the change would help with retention and attract more teachers and staff to the district. This fiscal year, Bragen and his team have proposed a second year where health benefit contributions do not rise, which makes it easier for staff to obtain health benefits for their families without costs going up, including costs on prescriptions and care.
The proposed budget also allocates funds for staff training and professional development so that staff are up-to-date on what they need in order to better do their jobs. The budget also allocates funds for programs and needs of the schools themselves. These budget allocations include the Dual Language Immersion Program, hiring four more school security officers, adding Language Learning teachers, dedicated 504 positions and so much more. School nutrition is included in the budget, but as Bragen explained, it’s “self-funding” which means it’s not coming out of the taxes or increasing the taxes. Board members proposed seeing if it’s possible to include free breakfast for students in need and are looking into that for students.
Open hiring positions were also a concern, especially regarding the open special education positions and proposed potential to open more for special education. This is an issue that has been occurring with hiring as a whole not just for Montgomery County, but for other school districts throughout the country.