Leonardtown, MD — The St. Mary’s County Board of Education will be presenting to the county commissioners a budget that is $586,070 more than the original superintendent’s proposal. That’s a reflection of more state funding than originally anticipated.
The extra monies will be used to add eight elementary school classroom teachers and a school psychologist.
The school board had received complaints from parents, particularly at Mechanicsville Elementary School, of burgeoning classroom sizes. The new teachers will allow the school system to get the pupil-teacher ratios more in line with their stated goals.
Currently the school system has seven psychologists who rotate among the various schools with an enrollment of 18,000.The addition of one more is also a reflection of there being one new school next year – Captain Walter Francis Duke Elementary School opening in August.
The new school’s classrooms are being populated in part from teachers being transferred from other schools and hopefully following their students to the new school. In order to give the school system a handle on who is available for transfer, they are offering an incentive bonus for teachers who give advance notice of retirement.
Board member Cathy Allen noted at the Feb. 25 regular meeting that the bonus was not an incentive to retire, but just to receive notice so the system can better plan for the opening of the new school.
The overall budget presented to the commissioners is $202.2 million, representing a $7.5 million increase over the current year. The county is being asked to kick in $7.1 million of that increase. School Superintendent Scott Smith (shown) has identified three priorities in the budget: opening of Duke E.S. (at $2 million), increased health care costs ($1 million) and a placeholder for negotiated salary agreements with the three employee unions ($4 million),
Assistant Superintendent of Fiscal Services and Human Resources Tammy McCourt pointed out that what was received from the state was $1.7 million less than what the Thornton formula said the county was entitled to. But McCourt told the school board earlier that she did not include that often reported amount in the budget that the superintendent built because what was anticipated had not been received in the past. She said she was exercising an abundance of fiscal conservative caution.
In another budget matter, the school board was told at the Feb. 25 meeting that 417 of their teachers will be receiving a late $1,500 gift. The Maryland Department of Education has determined that those classroom teachers are eligible for a stipend under the Quality Incentive Act of 1999.
Last year 51 teachers at Spring Ridge M.S. received the award, for a total of $76,500 because their school was determined to be a “comprehensive needs school” under a complicated formula.
This year the assessment criteria changed, yet St. Mary’s schools were judged under the old formula and 12 of them qualified: Benjamin Banneker, Dynard, G.W. Carver, Hollywood, Leonardtown, Lexington Park, Park Hall, and Piney Point elementary schools and Leonardtown, Margaret Brent and Spring Ridge middle schools. The total grant to the school system is $625,500 to be added to the existing year’s budget and paid to the teachers.
Allen called the accounting that allowed the state to make the award “a little questionable,” But she quickly added that teachers have been burdened with transferring to a completely new assessment system and changes in curriculum. As school board member Marilyn Crosby observed, “They deserve it.”
Contact Dick Myers at news@thebaynet.com