Legislative Platform

Pension/Retirement

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Maintaining the teacher retirement program as a state-funded categorical program
• Full state funding of the teacher retirement program.
• An evaluation process for monitoring and updating employee benefit programs

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Any shift in funding responsibility from the state to the counties.
• Any imposition of a cap on the state’s share of teacher retirement funding.

Capital Budget/School Construction

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Adequate state capital funding for FY 2010 to address school facility needs.
• Consideration of expanding the state’s bonding capacity to meet Maryland’s growing school facility needs.
• Reviewing current standards for the Interagency Committee square footage allowances for new and modernized schools.
• Developing a mechanism to ensure locally forward-funded projects remain eligible for state funding, even if the project has been completed.
• Changing the Public School Construction Program to address inequities in funding needs related to the size and location of an LEA.
• Eliminating the penalty for building additional classrooms which are intended to reduce class size in support of student achievement.
• Incentives for the distribution of funds for green and energy-efficient school construction.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Any effort to reduce the $1.23 million Aging School Program funds legislated for Montgomery County.
• Any reduction to the State and local cost share formula.
• Any change to the threshold requirements for
  prevailing wages.

Operating Budget

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Full commitment to the funding incorporated in The Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2003 (BTE), including the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) and student transportation.
• Resumption of the annual inflation adjustment.
• Additional funding to support English for Speakers of Other Languages by recognizing the costs of educating Limited English Proficient students and follow-up monitoring.
• Maintaining teacher retirement as a State funded categorical program.
• Reimbursement for students placed by state agencies at RICA.
• State aid reimbursement for educational programming at RICA.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Any retreat from funding identified in BTE.
• Additional state mandates, unless accompanied by sufficient and ongoing state funding.

Maintenance of Effort

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Continuing current maintenance of effort provision.
• Changes in the maintenance of effort formula to require that local funding is consistent with the adequacy goals of The Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2003 (BTE).

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Additional waivers to maintenance of effort provisions.

Special Education Nonpublic Tuition

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Maintaining the 80/20 cost-sharing formula of the Nonpublic Tuition Assistance Program.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Any attempts to increase the local share of tuition for special education students served in nonpublic
  schools.

Public Funding for Private Schools

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Strong accountability for all public dollars spent on education.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Appropriation of public funds for private and parochial schools.
• Direct aid to private and parochial students.
• Tuition tax credits, vouchers, or tax credits as a means of reimbursing parents who choose to send their children to private or parochial schools.
• Continuation or expansion of providing textbooks
  to private schools.

Comprehensive Master Plan

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Requiring the state superintendent to allow a local school Board’s strategic plan to serve as a comprehensive master plan as long as it describes the goals, objectives, and strategies that will be used to improve student achievement, as well as meet state and local performance standards for all students, as specified in the The Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2003 (BTE).
• Eliminating the state superintendent’s ability to require additional information from local boards beyond the requirements of the BTE, without the approval of the General Assembly.
• Eliminating the requirement that a county board cannot implement a plan until it is approved by the state superintendent.

Collective Bargaining

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Maintaining that matters for bargaining are considered to be mandatory, illegal, or permissible.
• Ensuring that decision makers regarding negotiated matters have an expertise in education and are committed to act in the interest of all key stakeholders.
• Ensuring that policy decisions that affect the education of students be made with full consideration of and input from staff, students, their parents, and the local community.
• Ensuring that the fiscal implications associated with any changes to collective bargaining are fully considered.
• Preserving the current two-prong test to determine the distinction between matters that are predominantly working conditions and those that are predominantly educational policy in bargaining.
• Promotion of interest-based bargaining as an effective, collaborative strategy for negotiations between willing parties.
• Further scrutiny of the potential impact of binding interest and binding grievance arbitration on negotiations, in the absence of developed standards or consideration of specific exceptions.
• In the event of a jurisdictional change at the state level over collective bargaining for public education, that, irrespective of the change, the precedent setting value of decisions rendered to that point carry over.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Allowing class size, school calendar, or any matter already covered by statutory law to be a permissible subject of negotiation.
• Mandating specific content in a negotiated agreement.
• Including in impasse proceedings any permissive subject of negotiations that the parties have not mutually agreed to negotiate on.

Curriculum

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Maintaining the authority of local boards of education to determine educational policy, curriculum, and administration.
• Retaining decision-making authority at the local level.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Any efforts by the General Assembly to legislate curriculum, firmly believing that this role belongs to local boards of education in conjunction with the State Board.

Charter Schools

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Reaffirming that the sole authority for establishing public charter schools is vested in local boards of education with an appropriate procedure for appeals of local decisions.
• Defining “commensurate funding” as resources equal to what is allocated to similar schools in the district, excluding central administrative expenditures and other expenditures that may be provided in kind.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Efforts to expand charter school authority beyond local school boards.
• Efforts to weaken academic or fiscal accountability requirements.
• Funding requirements that give charter schools more resources per student than other public schools in each district.
• Any attempt to deprive charter school employees of the rights and responsibilities of other public employees.

Early Childhood Education

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Statewide initiatives supporting high quality early childhood programs, including child care.
• Efforts that encourage the provision of an array of services by a variety of agencies.
• State fiscal support for any expansion of local pre-kindergarten services.
• Maximum use of community organizations to provide pre-kindergarten services, with commitment to support of local curriculum requirements.

Nutrition and Health

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Expansion of Maryland Meals for Achievement as an entitlement to include all eligible schools that choose to apply.
• Efforts to increase federal funding for the Summer Food Service Program.

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Limiting the number of eligible schools that participate in Maryland Meals for Achievement.

Safety and Security

The Montgomery County Board of Education supports:

• Innovative initiatives and funding that address gang prevention and involvement and promote targeted interventions to reduce gang activity.
• Innovative initiatives and funding that speak to strategies that ensure a safe and secure learning and working environment for students and staff..

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Statewide approach to discipline that limits a school system’s ability to respond to unique and unusual circumstances.
• Unnecessary mandates on school systems that divert resources from programs that directly help students.

Home Schooling

The Montgomery County Board of Education opposes:

• Limiting the number of eligible schools that participate in Maryland Meals for Achievement.