Schools
Superintendent's Contract, Budget On School Board Agenda
Anne Arundel school board members will vote on the superintendent's job and the budget at their Feb. w1 meeting
From AACPS: The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County will discuss and vote on the reappointment of Superintendent George Arlotto to a second four-year term and the adoption of its Fiscal Year 2019 operating and capital budget requests at its next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 21, 2018. The meeting will be held in the Board Room at the Parham Building, located at 2644 Riva Road in
Annapolis.
Dr. Arlotto has notified the Board of his desire to remain as Superintendent when his current contract expires on June 30, 2018. The Board will now consider Dr. Arlotto’s reappointment, the finalization of which would be contingent on the parties reaching agreement on a new contract and approval by the State Superintendent as required by law.
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At the meeting, the Board will also adopt its official operating and capital budget requests for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2018. Dr. Arlotto has recommended a $1.19 billion operating budget that would add 238.7 positions – 94 percent of which would be allocated for teachers and others who have daily contact with students – and provide every school system employee with a compensation
increase.
Dr. Arlotto’s recommendation would add 190.7 teaching positions, 106 of which would address continued enrollment increases and 30 would help reduce rising class sizes. Another 25 teachers would be added for English Language Acquisition classes,
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12.5 more would be used to expand the Enhancing Elementary Excellence (Triple-E) program to nine elementary schools in the Annapolis cluster, and 16 additional positions would address the needs of special education students. Another 6.3 teaching positions would be used to help open the Carrie Weedon Early Education Center in south county next year.
Dr. Arlotto’s recommendation also includes $20.8 million for compensation increases. Pending the outcome of negotiations with employee bargaining units, that would be sufficient to provide step increases to all eligible employees, commensurate increases to non-represented employees, and a 1 percent cost-of-living increase to all employees.
More than $850,000 in Dr. Arlotto’s recommended budget will go to boost pay for substitute teachers by $10 per day. Substitute teacher compensation has not been increased in more than 15 years.
The proposal also includes $1.1 million for 10.4 positions to help address increasing issues related to the social and emotional wellness of students. Those include 5.4 school counselors, two school psychologists, two social workers, and one pupil personnel worker.
More than $3 million in Dr. Arlotto’s recommendation is allocated to the expansion of the Monarch Academy Annapolis Public Contract School and needs at other charter and contract schools across the county. Monarch Annapolis’ base enrollment is scheduled to rise from 530 to 638 students next year.
In his recommendation, Dr. Arlotto also included:- $137,340 for two additional bilingual facilitators to undertake the critical work of collaborating with families.
- $1 million to continue the fiber ring expansion, a collaborative project with the County Government designed to increase high-speed internet access
Dr. Arlotto’s $216 million capital budget recommendation to the Board would allocate funding to nine major school construction projects, in priority order:
- Manor View Elementary School ($3.8 million)
- High Point Elementary School ($4.5 million)
- George Cromwell Elementary School ($15.6 million)
- Jessup Elementary School ($7.9 million)
- Arnold Elementary School ($6.7 million)
- Edgewater Elementary School ($19.7 million)
- Tyler Heights Elementary School ($18.2 million)
- Richard Henry Lee Elementary School ($16.9 million)
- Crofton Area High School ($54.8 million)
Elementary School.
Public testimony on the Superintendent’s Recommended FY 2019 Operating and Capital budgets was taken at Board of Education public hearings on January 9 and 11, 2018. Accordingly, no public testimony on the
recommendation will be taken at Wednesday’s Board meeting. If amendments are offered by Board Members, public comment will be taken on those amendments only.
The Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. to vote to go into closed session, during which time it will discuss confidential matters as permitted by the Maryland Open Meetings Act including, but not limited to, legal advice, personnel, and negotiations. Closed session is not open to the public. The public session of the meeting, which is open to the public, starts at 7 p.m.
A complete agenda for the meeting accompanies this news release. More information on agenda items will be posted on the AACPS website in the Board Docs section under the Board of Education tab.
The general session of Wednesday’s Board meeting will be broadcast live on AACPS-TV, which can be found on Channel 96 on Comcast and Broadstripe, and Channel 36 on Verizon. High definition broadcasts can be seen on Channel 996 on Comcast, Channel 496 on Broadstripe, and Channel 1961 on Verizon. Rebroadcasts
are scheduled for 7:00 p.m. the day after the meeting and 2:00 p.m. on subsequent Sundays.
The meeting can also be viewed live on the Internet here. Archived videos of Board meetings are also posted online.
POLICY COMMITTEE MEETING CANCELED
The February 21, 2018, meeting of the Board’s Policy Committee has been
canceled. The Committee will next meet at 1 p.m. on March 14, 2018.
Image courtesy of AACPS
