Prince George’s school system expecting additional state funding

[Anonymous]

From the Gazette

Thanks to a possible additional $46.8 million from the state, Prince George’s County Public Schools is expecting to have more money to expand full-time pre-kindergarten, improve wages and hire more teachers.

“We’re putting additional money into salary and wages to make our salaries more competitive with surrounding jurisdictions, and we have increased the number of teachers to address questions of class size and balance,” said schools CEO Kevin Maxwell during a budget work session and public hearing Monday night at the Sasscer Administration Building in Upper Marlboro.

The estimated increase comes from Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) proposed $39.3 billion budget, unveiled last week that includes increased spending for pre-kindergarten and K-12 education.

“This is all new information,” said Thomas Sheeran, acting chief financial officer, adding that details of the additional state funding are still to be determined.

Included in that amount, the school system is expecting approximately $885,000 in additional revenues dedicated to the expansion of full-time pre-k, which will allow the school system to expand from eight to 32 schools with full-day pre-k, said Monica Goldson, acting chief operations officer.

With the additional state funds expected, Maxwell’s proposed fiscal 2015 budget has increased to $1.8 billion from the $1.75 billion he requested in December.

Among the budget items are program expansions and additions. Those include the creation of three Spanish immersion specialty schools; increased funding for art, music and environmental studies; expanded enrollment in the county’s existing French immersion, Montessori and Talented and Gifted magnet schools; and expansion of the Judith P. Hoyer Montessori School to include seventh and eighth grades.

Hoyer is one of three Montessori magnet schools in the county. The northern and southern Montessori schools are both K-8.

James Wallace IV of Bowie, a fourth-grader at Hoyer, asked the board to support the expansion.

“This will allow the upper grade Montessori students to continue their Montessori education without interruption,” Wallace said.

A portion of the additional state revenues will be used to decrease the amount the school system is relying on from its reserve fund balance to pay for Maxwell’s list of program expansions, from $46.3 million to $42.8 million.

School board member Peggy Higgins (Dist. 2) asked Maxwell to explain the rationale behind dipping into the school system’s $144 million reserve funds.

“As excited as I am to be able to provide our students and our teachers all the things that this budget offers, the fund balance is obviously one-time funds,” Higgins said.

Maxwell said the school system generates a fund balance each year through positions that go unfilled, and that the school system expects to accrue approximately half the fund balance it’s spending by the end of the fiscal year.

“We’ve got a pretty robust fund balance of $144 million and we think that using some of that for some of the programmatic changes we’re trying to make is in our best interests and not hurtful to our bottom line at all,” Maxwell said.

The school system will hold two further budget hearings at 7 p.m. Feb. 19 and 24 at the Sasscer Administration Building. The board’s Feb. 27 regular meeting has been rescheduled for Feb. 25 at 7 p.m., when the board will vote on the budget.

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[Anonymous]

Pre-K is going from 8 schools to 32 schools full time. This is outstanding and PG seems to be headed in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

Why does PG need state funding?

These funds from the state is a form of welfare.

[Anonymous]

Well if it is welfare then it is greatly appreciated and welcomed by all who send their kids to PG's public schools.

Every county in Maryland receives state funding for its school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does PG need state funding?

These funds from the state is a form of welfare.

MOCO, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, AA, Howard, Carroll, etc. all receive this same welfare, nitwit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does PG need state funding?

These funds from the state is a form of welfare.

MOCO, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, AA, Howard, Carroll, etc. all receive this same welfare, nitwit.

PG gets the most welfare, and the people there call it a rich county!

[Anonymous]

"The people there?"

Get out of our forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does PG need state funding?

These funds from the state is a form of welfare.

All states supplement locally generated education funds with state funding.

[Anonymous]

I read somewhere- I want to say within the budget or on the PGCS website- that they would be using these funds to increase seats in the TAG programs including RG Montessori and French Immersion. Does anyone know if this will effect the lottery results for these schools for this upcoming school year 2014-2015? Ie. will more kids be accepted b/c of this increased funding?

[Anonymous]

Yes, that is in fact the case! I initially thought my child had not placed for the specialty lottery because I believed the waitlist number to be too high. But due to the increased funding and expansion of programs, she was able to get into the French immersion program!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read somewhere- I want to say within the budget or on the PGCS website- that they would be using these funds to increase seats in the TAG programs including RG Montessori and French Immersion. Does anyone know if this will effect the lottery results for these schools for this upcoming school year 2014-2015? Ie. will more kids be accepted b/c of this increased funding?

As a result of the additional funding, I understand that they added an additional Prek - K class for Robert Goddard Montessori. I was told that meant 8 additional seats for 3, 4 and 5 year olds. Also, some applicants who apply are actually not qualified. This is generally true for schools that have pre-requisite requirements. For example, with Montessori if you are are older than 3 or 4 you must have a Montessori background. This means the student must be coming directly from a Montessori discipline. Some of the applicants who won a spot may not actually be qualified to accept the spot. Unfortunately, it takes time for the school to weed through these applicants and parents with children on the waitlist may have made other arrangements by the time that they are notified they have a spot.

I think in the past we were notified a few weeks before school started that our child had a place. We had already re-applied at her current school, but we were able to give enough notice before her old school start date to not be heavily penalized.