Today we are going to interview Mr. Jeff Du, who graduated from River Hill High School and will join Duke University, double majoring economics and statistics. He talked about how to balance high school life. He emphasized the importance of mental health for our young people. He also has some secrets to keep your high school life more effective, meaningful and less stressful. Please tune in.
This will be discussed on August 6 2020 in a BOE board work session.
We are interviewing Ms. Allison Alston, who graduated from Reservoir High School. She will join University of Virginia and major Global Study. Allison was a student board member of Howard County Board of Education (SMOB) during 2019-2020. Allison shared her academic challenges during the senior year and the whole high school period, and how to overcome them. She has a very diverse extra-curriculum activities (smob, deltas scholar, black student union, chamber orchestra, choir, girl varsity lacrosse, French honor society, Science honor society, etc). Do you want to hear how she managed all of them? As a student board member, she talked about the challenge to fit in the adult world and tried her best to represent all students at a higher level. She also shared why she chose UVA and her major. It was interesting to realize things happened with a reason, and sometimes, maybe just a coincidence. There are much more for you to tune in.
This is our fifth episode, a small milestone in this series. Ms. Tess Yu graduated from Howard High in 2020 and will join Johns Hopkins University in the fall, majoring economics. Tess shared her secret in high school: time management, even missing some homework is acceptable to balance some priority. She has presided over the Achieve Success Together (AST, https://achievesuccesstogether.org/) program, a tutoring program, for over four years now. The AST program offered free tutoring to students in low income families at many HCPSS schools. The tutors are HCPSS high school students. What is her favorite class? How to handle cyberbullying? What is her career goal? Please tune in this episode.
(4) 2020 Interview with Hunter Craig, Reservoir High School
Mr. Hunter Craig graduated from Reservoir High School and will join Howard Community College, majoring social and political science. Mr. Craig has been very active in HCPSS and the community. He was involved in Howard County Association of Student Councils, more commonly known as HCASC. He was in the State Legislative Affairs Committee. He testified more than five times in front of the BOE. He took initiative to help combat covid-19, to work in the mental health care community, also to raise awareness because of the death of George Floyd. He talked about his struggle entering high school because of switching multiple schools and the moment to find his position in academics, club and school. He plans to finish HCC, then go to a law school, continue to get involved in the local community. His advice to high school students: just do it.
In this episode, I am interviewing Judy Zhou, who graduated from Centennial High School and will join Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. In this interview, Judy shared about her high school experience on political campaign, community service, launching her seminar to educate the community on US government, the secret to build a good relationship with counselor, the need for HCPSS to have a diverse and inclusive curriculum.
In accordance with the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association MPSSAA Roadmap to Recovery for Interscholastic Athletics, the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) established a Return to Play committee to assess opportunities for a return to athletic participation. This committee has connected regularly with the Howard County Health Department and MPSSAA to help guide our decision on whether athletics could safely be resumed this fall.
MPSSAA or the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) have not yet announced any changes regarding the fall athletic season. HCPSS has made the decision that fall athletic programs will not begin on August 12, 2020, which is currently designated as the MPSSAA start date. As we await more direction, HCPSS will delay the start of the athletic season until at least September 8, 2020, when students are scheduled to begin virtual instruction.
At this time, coaches may continue engaging with student-athletes through virtual meeting sessions to provide conditioning routines and drills and promote health and well-being. The HCPSS Return to Play committee will continue planning for reopening to be ready for September 8 or when the state and school system determine that it is safe to do so.
We anticipate further direction by the Maryland State Department of Education and MPSSAA soon and hope to have a decision and timeline finalized and communicated to our student-athletes and families as soon as possible. Registration will be closed temporarily and the community will receive notice when registration reopens.
Decisions regarding extracurricular activities for all levels are also under consideration.
Information about athletics is provided on the HCPSS website and will be updated as new information becomes available.
I have been receiving many concerns on the 4×4 block schedule for middle school and high school in the fall. Here I am sharing a board memo for your reference.
I know the 4×4 schedule will create difficulty, especially, for AP classes and exams. It also creates some discontinuity in some classes in terms of knowledge retention. I already encourage the superintendent to find ways to help our student who need to take the AP tests, who may find the old, year-round education is more suitable for them.
Live now: I am starting a youtube channel by interviewing HCPSS graduates.
In the second episode, Ms. Robin M Robinson, graduated from River Hill High School in 2018. She is a junior in Harvard University, studying statistics and economics. She played volleyball in RHHS and continue to play club volleyball. She practices taekwondo for more than 10 years. She talked about her challenges in high school. She appreciated the peer pressure for excellence. She emphasized the importance to have a good relationship with teachers. She also advices trying to be well rounded in the high school. She shared some experience while her guidance counselor was not aligned with her ambition in college application, she listened to herself and applied to Harvard University and got accepted. She also shared her experience as a bi-racial child and felt uneasy in the school, advocated for more education for our students at young ages. For the college life, she felt a little uneasy when she changed from pre-med to other career path. However, she feels there are so much to do and so many possibilities for her. She said: don’t worry about making friends in college. You will have new friends, even though you had more freedom in high school.
If anyone wants to be interviewed, please contact me. Thanks.
Today, the board discussed the 2020 fall plan again. The board voted to keep the first period and second period virtual. Because of the delay of school start time, the school will be virtual until the end of January 2021. This is not an easy decision, but we have to keep the safety of our students, parents, teachers and staff in the highest priority. We hope this will create a sense of stability and peace of mind for the school system.
There will be future discussions when the virtual learning should be transitioned into a blended model under which kind of conditions in the future.
I talked about the difficulty created by the 4×4 model for AP tests and no built-in recess time in the agenda.
I talked about the distant learning model, how to improve the education quality, how to make it sustainable ( digital learning center concept), etc. I asked the superintendent to create a system structure for future online education too. For example, at any given day, around 5-10% substitute teachers work in the school. They may take advantage of the online resources we created now.
There were many other discussions related how to improve the quality of distant learning.
Here is some document for your reference.
The board extended the first stage of one period of virtual learning (in the document) to two periods.
I am starting a youtube channel by interviewing HCPSS graduates.
In the first episode, I interviewed Ms. Megan Li, who graduated from graduated from Marriotts Ridge High School and will join University of Pennsylvania, Wharton Business School this fall. She shared her experience about college application, AP courses, debate team, FBLA, even materiality leave policy in the USA. Her advice for high school students is : take initiative. For the future, she wants to research the social impact of business. She hoped HCPSS would provide a more diverse curriculum. She volunteers a lot and loves to give back to the community.
If any other students want to share their experience, please contact me. Thanks.
July 9, 2020 Report to the Howard County Board of Education
The presentation is here:
By Dr. Chao Wu,
Board Member, Howard County Board of Education
After the FY 2020-2021 budget vote, I reflected and wrote a short essay on this. Hopefully this will help and guide us for the next year’ HCPSS budget discussion. The article has the follow sections:
I want to thank every teacher and staff members who have been working really hard during this unprecedented time. I want to give every teacher a raise, a competitive salary among neighboring counties. I want to raise our substitute teacher salaries to be competitive with other counties too.
Unfortunately, we have to make a budget based on how much money we have and what we can do. We are not laying off any staff. Job security for our staff is my number one priority in this challenging situation. We are still providing an average 2% salary raise for teachers and 1% for AMT staff. We are ramping up support for special education. We are fully funding the health care cost and gradually reducing the historical health fund deficit. We are able to continue on the equity path to provide quality education to all students. As an intermediate solution, we are seeing another class size increase for three consecutive years unfortunately.
I thank our staff, the superintendent, and all bargaining units, who have come together and make the budget happen.
After the vote, I have been self-reflecting on the budget process and where we can further change and continue to improve, especially for our future budget.
The board unanimously adopted its FY 2020-2021 budget on Thursday, June 18,2020. The operating budget is 918.7 million, an increase of 17.2 million over FY 2020. We used a 5 million fund balance for FY 20-21 budget. Among the efforts:
Unfortunately the class size will be increased for the third consecutive years. On average, elementary school will increase class size by one in FY 2020-FY 2021. Middle school and high school will increase class size by 1.25.
I have been asking HCPSS staff to project our future funding needs. Instead, I created a short table as follows with explanations below. Please note this is not an extensive or complete or accurate list. This is a rough projection.
| Budget Increase Need Per Year | Amount |
| Student Growth Budget Need (800 new students) | 10.22 million *** |
| Fully Fund Health Care | 5 million |
| Possible COLA Salary/Step Increase for Our Workforce | 6 million |
| Total | 21.22 million |
Board Approved Tuition Rate: In-State Elementary/ Secondary in the amount of $10,650 and Special Education in the amount of $31,950.
Each year, the school has around 800 new students, where 10% are special education students. The total county cost for student growth is around 10650*720+31950*80 = 10.22 million.
So we need to invest extra 10.22 million dollars to catch up with the student growth each year. Please remember the county funding formula (MOE) for HCPSS is using the student population from the previous year such that this extra 800 new students are not funded in the formula. This is the common problem for many school systems which see a continuous student growth and the funding increase could not catch up with the increased need.
This section may be updated depending on how this calculation is revisited based on feedback from our staff and other people. Another calculation I am thinking is to use the average per student cost, which is around 16k. Then the total is 16k per student per year * 800= 12.8 million.
On average, the health care cost increase is around 5 million dollars per year. In some years, it was an 11 million dollars increase.
In the past 10 years, our workforce has received a salary increase between 1% and 5%. That is the reason I am writing a possible 1% increase at least. The 6 million dollars is an estimate based on this year’s 2% salary increase (12 million dollars).
We have a historical 32 million dollars health fund deficit inherited from former superintendents’ era, which has to be paid down over the years. With the plan worked out with the county government, we need to pay around 8 million dollars per year to pay it down. The original deficit was 50 million dollars.
During the discussion, we heard the teacher salary (State Category 2) increase was fully funded. In reality, when there is an increase of salary, other expenses (benefits, retirement) will go up as well. We will not be able to give a teacher salary increase, but not give them the associated benefit increase. So unless everything associated with a full compensation package for an employee is fully funded, we could not call the salary increase fully funded.
Second, many teachers’ salaries are not funded in State Category 2. For example, there are more than 1200 special education teachers whose salaries are not funded in Category 2.
Third, the health care cost keeps increasing at a faster pace than anything else. In order to avoid the health fund deficit issue that happened before ( with an accumulated deficit of 32 million now), we need to fully fund the health care cost. The school system cannot run at a deficit by law.
It is a little complicated and I want to make it easier for the general public to understand it.
During the last two weeks of the budget discussion, we received thousands of emails asking the board not to cut the budget. In reality, the board is not generating money ourselves. We fully rely on the funding from the county and the state to operate. They give us money and we make a budget and balance the budget.
Furthermore, when the board was in negotiation with the unions, we were not allowed by law to discuss anything about employee salary and benefit publicly. We were not able to comment on the negotiations publicly. The public and our workforce definitely felt the frustration because of the communication restriction on these topics. We had to rely on the union leadership to relay the message back to union members.
For the school budget, if we don’t ask for it, we don’t get it from the county government and the county council. At the same time, we know the county has so much need and we will not get the full amount we ask. So we have a very delicate balance here since we want to present a fair and reasonable budget for discussion.
Furthermore, the county executive and the county council can claim they fully fund something by State Category. However, all categories are interconnected when our staff is preparing for the budget. In general, we are not able to separate one category totally from other categories while considering funding.
Realizing our funding will be short for the near future, I have been advocating for a change in the budget process to avoid the last minute change and uncertainty which is painful and hurts the morale of our workforce.
We could consider a budget into two parts.
Many people are now realizing that HCPSS is facing a structural deficit issue. The funding increase could not catch up with the student population growth and other increasing needs.
In reality, the share of the county funding into HCPSS is swinging up and down. HCPSS budget was previously mismanaged and underfunded such that we are facing such a difficult situation now.
We hear there are people calling for higher tax. However, tax for our county residents is very high already. Our tax rate is top 3 in Maryland. Raising tax may have a detrimental effect on our economy and in the end it may hurt our tax base in the long run.
Furthermore, additional tax revenue does not mean it will be provided to HCPSS. I want to avoid the failed promise and fiasco that Maryland state gambling money would go into education when some people promoted the gambling industry. Yes, some gambling money went into education, but original money was diverted away.
The county may receive 20 million dollar additional revenue by increasing some tax rate, but the county may give only 1 or 2 millions to HCPSS. I have been advocating for HCPSS to receive a larger share (percentage) of the county revenue.
There are many “wants” in the county budget and we may need to shrink those “wants” and redirect the money to HCPSS. Our excellent school system is one of the most important reasons that many families come here and 90% of county revenue comes from property tax and income tax.
We need to cherish the support and trust from families who live here and HCPSS must provide an excellent, equitable and individualized education for our students.
Thanks for reading this.
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to report the per pupil expenditures of federal, state, and local funds including actual personnel expenditures and actual non personnel expenditures. The HCPSS finance office followed MSDE’s methodology to develop the school level per-pupil expenditure data that is being reported. All districts across the state followed the same methodology.
Expenditures are separated into:
School-level per-pupil expenditures: local school system operating expenditures directly attributed to schools or allocated to schools based on certain criteria and reported as a per-pupil or per-student amount.
District wide costs: expenditures that are not directly linked to a school.
Regional programs, the experience level of staff at the school, and Title I funding contribute to the differences in the per-pupil funding between schools.
Expenditures for students in nonpublic placements, pre-kindergarten, and infants and toddlers programs, are excluded from this per-pupil reporting.
| School Name | State/Local Amount | Federal Amount | Total Amount |
| Cedar Lane Special Center | $ 95,663.00 | $ 2,417.00 | $ 98,080.00 |
| Homewood School | $ 72,023.00 | $ 1,499.00 | $ 73,523.00 |
| Wilde Lake High | $ 15,994.00 | $ 530.00 | $ 16,524.00 |
| Oakland Mills High | $ 15,718.00 | $ 566.00 | $ 16,283.00 |
| Hammond High | $ 14,990.00 | $ 517.00 | $ 15,507.00 |
| Long Reach High | $ 14,946.00 | $ 486.00 | $ 15,432.00 |
| Reservoir High | $ 13,883.00 | $ 471.00 | $ 14,354.00 |
| Glenelg High | $ 13,838.00 | $ 413.00 | $ 14,251.00 |
| Atholton High | $ 13,659.00 | $ 436.00 | $ 14,095.00 |
| Mount Hebron High | $ 13,367.00 | $ 418.00 | $ 13,785.00 |
| Howard High | $ 13,079.00 | $ 452.00 | $ 13,531.00 |
| River Hill High | $ 13,048.00 | $ 416.00 | $ 13,464.00 |
| Marriotts Ridge High | $ 12,851.00 | $ 384.00 | $ 13,235.00 |
| Centennial High | $ 12,715.00 | $ 407.00 | $ 13,121.00 |
| Harpers Choice Middle | $ 17,743.00 | $ 525.00 | $ 18,269.00 |
| Oakland Mills Middle | $ 16,385.00 | $ 604.00 | $ 16,989.00 |
| Wilde Lake Middle | $ 15,486.00 | $ 502.00 | $ 15,988.00 |
| Lake Elkhorn Middle | $ 15,404.00 | $ 463.00 | $ 15,867.00 |
| Mayfield Woods Middle | $ 14,794.00 | $ 467.00 | $ 15,262.00 |
| Glenwood Middle | $ 14,538.00 | $ 441.00 | $ 14,979.00 |
| Patuxent Valley Middle | $ 14,277.00 | $ 435.00 | $ 14,711.00 |
| Thomas Viaduct Middle | $ 14,133.00 | $ 490.00 | $ 14,623.00 |
| Murray Hill Middle | $ 14,099.00 | $ 456.00 | $ 14,555.00 |
| Elkridge Landing Middle | $ 13,682.00 | $ 449.00 | $ 14,131.00 |
| Dunloggin Middle | $ 13,629.00 | $ 424.00 | $ 14,053.00 |
| Bonnie Branch Middle | $ 13,607.00 | $ 436.00 | $ 14,044.00 |
| Lime Kiln Middle | $ 13,580.00 | $ 409.00 | $ 13,989.00 |
| Folly Quarter Middle | $ 13,392.00 | $ 437.00 | $ 13,829.00 |
| Hammond Middle School | $ 13,346.00 | $ 382.00 | $ 13,728.00 |
| Clarksville Middle | $ 12,829.00 | $ 338.00 | $ 13,167.00 |
| Ellicott Mills Middle | $ 12,641.00 | $ 414.00 | $ 13,055.00 |
| Patapsco Middle | $ 12,157.00 | $ 355.00 | $ 12,513.00 |
| Burleigh Manor Middle School | $ 11,840.00 | $ 362.00 | $ 12,202.00 |
| Mount View Middle | $ 11,610.00 | $ 364.00 | $ 11,974.00 |
| Stevens Forest Elementary | $ 17,241.00 | $ 1,235.00 | $ 18,476.00 |
| Guilford Elementary | $ 16,902.00 | $ 1,106.00 | $ 18,008.00 |
| Cradlerock Elementary | $ 16,569.00 | $ 1,294.00 | $ 17,863.00 |
| Running Brook Elementary | $ 16,593.00 | $ 1,226.00 | $ 17,819.00 |
| Longfellow Elementary | $ 16,371.00 | $ 1,176.00 | $ 17,547.00 |
| Bryant Woods Elementary | $ 16,245.00 | $ 1,188.00 | $ 17,433.00 |
| Phelps Luck Elementary | $ 16,140.00 | $ 1,204.00 | $ 17,344.00 |
| Talbott Springs Elementary | $ 15,838.00 | $ 1,202.00 | $ 17,041.00 |
| Ducketts Lane Elementary | $ 15,509.00 | $ 1,145.00 | $ 16,653.00 |
| Deep Run Elementary | $ 15,470.00 | $ 1,154.00 | $ 16,624.00 |
| Waterloo Elementary | $ 15,901.00 | $ 520.00 | $ 16,420.00 |
| Dayton Oaks Elementary | $ 15,404.00 | $ 466.00 | $ 15,870.00 |
| Laurel Woods Elementary | $ 14,399.00 | $ 1,136.00 | $ 15,536.00 |
| Swansfield Elementary | $ 14,350.00 | $ 1,139.00 | $ 15,489.00 |
| Clarksville Elementary | $ 14,916.00 | $ 507.00 | $ 15,423.00 |
| Lisbon Elementary | $ 14,730.00 | $ 499.00 | $ 15,229.00 |
| Bollman Bridge Elementary | $ 14,132.00 | $ 1,076.00 | $ 15,208.00 |
| Bushy Park Elementary | $ 14,595.00 | $ 416.00 | $ 15,011.00 |
| Jeffers Hill Elementary | $ 14,560.00 | $ 444.00 | $ 15,003.00 |
| Rockburn Elementary | $ 14,485.00 | $ 477.00 | $ 14,963.00 |
| Thunder Hill Elementary | $ 14,320.00 | $ 494.00 | $ 14,815.00 |
| Bellows Spring Elementary | $ 13,669.00 | $ 481.00 | $ 14,151.00 |
| Hanover Hills Elementary | $ 13,605.00 | $ 488.00 | $ 14,093.00 |
| Atholton Elementary | $ 13,588.00 | $ 456.00 | $ 14,044.00 |
| West Friendship Elementary | $ 13,543.00 | $ 409.00 | $ 13,952.00 |
| Ilchester Elementary | $ 13,487.00 | $ 451.00 | $ 13,938.00 |
| Worthington Elementary | $ 13,065.00 | $ 394.00 | $ 13,459.00 |
| Veterans Elementary | $ 13,003.00 | $ 429.00 | $ 13,431.00 |
| Triadelphia Ridge Elementary | $ 12,959.00 | $ 457.00 | $ 13,417.00 |
| Waverly Elementary | $ 12,968.00 | $ 404.00 | $ 13,371.00 |
| Clemens Crossing Elementary | $ 12,925.00 | $ 364.00 | $ 13,289.00 |
| Manor Woods Elementary | $ 12,491.00 | $ 426.00 | $ 12,917.00 |
| Elkridge Elementary | $ 12,331.00 | $ 469.00 | $ 12,800.00 |
| Hollifield Station Elementary | $ 12,313.00 | $ 397.00 | $ 12,710.00 |
| Hammond Elementary | $ 12,196.00 | $ 464.00 | $ 12,660.00 |
| Forest Ridge Elementary | $ 12,226.00 | $ 426.00 | $ 12,652.00 |
| Pointers Run Elementary | $ 11,951.00 | $ 413.00 | $ 12,364.00 |
| Gorman Crossing Elementary | $ 11,640.00 | $ 405.00 | $ 12,045.00 |
| Northfield Elementary | $ 11,416.00 | $ 407.00 | $ 11,822.00 |
| Centennial Lane Elementary | $ 11,328.00 | $ 372.00 | $ 11,700.00 |
| Fulton Elementary | $ 11,294.00 | $ 401.00 | $ 11,696.00 |
| St. Johns Lane Elementary | $ 11,009.00 | $ 382.00 | $ 11,391.00 |
There are very large variations on per-student spending between schools. Cedar Lane Special Center and Homework School are two different schools which rank the highest spending. Then
Here is the spreadsheet.
As the HCPSS budget work session comes closer to the final vote (scheduled to happen on 2020/6/18). Here is the document the board received.
There are many unknown factors and the school system is working to have a plan. Here are some concerns I shared with the staff.
Here is the PowerPoint slide.
The plan is actively under development and will change over the time.
Annually, the Board of Education reviews long-term capital planning options and school capacity utilizations through the Feasibility Study. This report starts the capital budget process. The annual student enrollment projection is introduced; identification of potential new capital projects (e.g., additions, renovations) or changes to previous capital projects are discussed; and anticipated attendance area adjustments within the timeframe of the capital improvement program are presented in this report. Plans examined in this document may be implemented in the approval of the capital budget or changes in school attendance areas.
The 2020 Feasibility Study indicates no boundary review process for implementation in SY 2021-22.
Here is a comparison of state category spending between HCPSS (in the middle column) and other neighboring school districts(Baltimore County, Frederick County, Arundel County, Montgomery County) over the last five years. At the current budget level, a 1.0% of HCPSS budget is 9 million dollars.
I believe it is important for the school board and the school system to
Another comparison I would love to get is the K-12 funding level for each county over the years.
I am Dr. Chao Wu from Board of Education. It is a great honor to have this opportunity to congratulate you, our high school seniors, graduating at this un’’precedented time in our history. Many years later when we look back together, we will be proud of ourselves exemplying resilience and compassion, at this moment.
Last year, I talked about embracing changes in my graduation speech. This year, we have been confronted with a change, an un’’precedented change. We are in a lockdown. We are having a virtual graduation celebration. We have a new norm. We are recovering slowly, yet steadily.
There is a great proverb: what hits us and does not strike us down will make us stronger. Many of us witnessed the 2008 great recession because of the financial crisis. We survived and thrived. Now, we are experiencing a global pandemic. The pandemic will not deter us; instead, we will, yet again, define our own path with determination! (raise hand)
There will be many unknowns, especially in the short time horizon. There will be challenges, visible and invisible. We must, we will, and we can, prepare ourselves with knowledge, passion and compassion.
I am grateful and hopeful that HCPSS has taught you those skills, to prepare for your future, a bright future. Along the road, you will continue to have friends, families and community to support you. Please always be hopeful and thankful.
Your future is our nation’s future.
At this time, please join me in honoring the Class of 2020 as we now recognize each of our graduates.
Dear HCPSS Community:
We would like to take a moment to address the recent events in our nation, state, and county. As we grapple with the social-emotional impacts of a pandemic that may have forever changed our daily lives, we have witnessed another senseless killing of an African American, George Floyd. It is important that we acknowledge this event, reflect on the hurt and pain we are feeling and resolve together to do our part to eradicate hate, condemn violence and stand up to acts of racism within our own community.
We are outraged that incidents like these continue to occur and as educators, we know that these incidents have a profound impact on our children. As recently as last week there have been incidents where our students have made or posted racially charged remarks on social media. Our entire community suffers when even one individual feels their sense of safety and belonging is compromised.
At this moment, the word pandemic holds so much more meaning. We are facing a pandemic of racism, hate, and bias that threatens the freedom, peace and well-being of every person in our nation. During the COVID–19 pandemic, we have seen members of our community discriminated against and scapegoated. Now, amidst dealing with the uncertainty of a post-COVID world, we once again are met with the harsh reality that some in our society do not value the lives of African Americans. Make no mistake about it, what is happening in Minneapolis is part of a systemic issue that we need to talk about and address. What we are seeing across America is more than just a reaction to one incident; it is a culmination of years of dismissal, frustration, and anger.
The great writer James Baldwin said it best, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” The best way for us to get through this is to face it head on and talk about it. We must create opportunities and spaces for people to share and heal together. We are asking staff, families, and community members to talk openly about what is happening and to encourage our young people and adults to talk through this. These conversations can be hard, but they are necessary. We encourage you to review resources that we have provided on the HCPSS website, including how to talk to children about traumatic events.
If you are unsure where to start, reach out to community and faith-based organizations that may be able to help, or contact our Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Dr. Kevin Gilbert at Kevin_Gilbert@hcpss.org.
As a school system, we will continue to invest in diversity, equity, and inclusion resources, in order to address the structural racism in a measured and intentional way. Collectively, the Board of Education and superintendent have made a commitment to invest in restorative justice practices, mental health supports, anti-bullying resources, anti-bias and microaggressions training, and professional learning for leaders to operationalize equity in every building and office. Now more than ever, our commitment must not waver. Our school system, however, cannot do this alone and it is incumbent upon every individual in our community to take the initiative and have the tough, uncomfortable conversations that are necessary to address incivility and hate.
To our students, we want to say that if you are feeling unsafe, please reach out to a trusted adult—whether it is a parent, guardian, relative, teacher or administrator. We may not be together in our school buildings right now to provide you support in person but know that all of us are here to help you, protect you, and take care of your well-being first and foremost.
We ask that together, we use the widespread hurt, pain, and anger as a catalyst to create the type of society we desire for each and every one of our students. We pledge to do everything within our authority to eradicate acts of violence, hatred, and racism in the Howard County Public School System and create an environment where every student feels a sense of safety, belonging and inclusion.
Sincerely,
Mavis Ellis
Chair, Board of Education
Michael J. Martirano
Superintendent
