Building Our Future Together is the Strategic Planning Framework that guided Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) as we seek to provide all students with the skills and knowledge needed for success. The Framework is built around three competencies—Academic Excellence, Creative Problem Solving, and Social Emotional Learning.

These are the competencies our students will need to compete and thrive in the 21st century. We’ll monitor our progress at five important milestones in a student’s educational journey, from elementary school to graduation.

Strategic Planning Framework

The District Implementation Plan for the MCPS Strategic Planning Framework—Building Our Future Together: Students, Staff and Community—was developed to guide schools and offices in fulfilling the mission, values and core purpose of the Framework. The Plan includes five core strategies, which are important levers in the work to close the achievement gap and help all students thrive. Each core strategy includes key focus areas that describe our work to meet the needs of each and every student.

District Implementation Plan

Montgomery County Public Schools recognizes that community partnerships are critical tools to student success. To empower all students, parents and community leaders to become active in shaping the student learning experience, and to empower institutions in every sector of the community to support student learning. Community engagement increases equity and improves public education by building capacity and power in communities. It works to address the issues that families in communities face so that students can take full advantage of their educational experience.

The Department of Facilities Management conducts an annual customer survey to track trends on various measures and address concerns expressed by school principals to ensure appropriate services are provided in a timely manner to support schools. From the survey results, the divisions of Maintenance and School Plant Operations monitor customer satisfaction levels for the timeliness and quality of maintenance and repairs, cleanliness of buildings and grounds care, and other facility-related services on a scale of 1 (Not Pleased at All) to 5 (Very Pleased). Results are analyzed for the three supporting maintenance depots and the six building service supervisor areas and are then consolidated for each division. Overall satisfaction ratings were 3.9 for the Division of Maintenance and 4.1 for the Division of School Plant Operations in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. Depot managers and building service supervisors evaluate the results, conduct investigations, follow up with schools to address complaints and concerns noted in the surveys, and review the processes for continuous improvement.

The percent of work orders responded to within 15 days is an indication of the timeliness of the Division of Maintenance in responding to service requests. As the system’s facility assets continue to increase in correlation with the growing student enrollment and the backlog of deferred maintenance increases due to limited funding, the total number of work orders for school facilities continues to increase. The Division of Maintenance received approximately 68,000 work orders in FY 2016 and completed them in priority order based on the urgent nature of the requests. The percent of routine work orders responded to within 15 days is a critical measurement that reflects timeliness of service to schools. Timeliness has improved markedly since 2003. In FY 2014, this performance measure was comparable to the previous year at 76%.

All school bus accidents are determined preventable/non-preventable by the MCPS Accident Review Board and guidelines, provided by the State of Maryland, are utilized when reviewing all accidents. The review board meets monthly and participants include an MCPS depot manager (rotates monthly), staff from MCPS Systemwide Safety, a school bus operator, a SEIU Local 500 union representative, and other MCPS Transportation Supervisors.

The State of Maryland Guidelines provide language to determine whether an accident should be considered preventable/non-preventable however accidents with damage less than $1,500 dollars (to the bus, any other vehicle(s), or other property) are generally considered minor and also preventable.

An MCPS Department of Transportation target of 45 (preventable accidents) was set by the department to provide a measure to gauge efforts around safety training, review, and accident mitigation.

For all preventable accidents, it is mandatory that the bus operator involved attend an MCPS accident refresher/training class. These training classes are held monthly through the school year.

The MCPS Energy Cost Avoidance Trend charts the compilation the cost avoidance from the various energy efficiency programs including energy retrofits, the School Energy and Recycling Team (SERT) programs, automated energy management systems, and Peak Load Management. This measurement shows the savings from investments in energy activities. In FY 2016, the estimated savings from all of these energy efficiency activities was approximately $9,144,614.

MCPS has made a major commitment to recycling all components of its solid waste stream and tracking the performance of these efforts. Montgomery County requires the recycling of four categories of material: paper/cardboard, bottles/cans, yard waste, and scrap metal. In addition, MCPS recycles more than 20 different items from small items such as a drink pouch to major construction debris. These additional materials are measured under the "voluntary" category of which the vast majority of the weight is construction debris. This decrease from FY 2015 is largely the result of a reduction in capital project demolitions as compared to previous years. In FY 2016, 76 percent of the waste stream produced by MCPS was recycled including both the required category and the voluntary category.

Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced through a variety of sustainability programs and investments. This performance measure tracks these reductions in six categories: energy retrofits, wind energy purchases, recycling, solid waste reductions, School Energy and Recycling (SERT) Program reductions, and energy efficiency improvements through the construction program. In FY16, the decrease in SERT reduction is due to the implementation of a new energy avoidance baseline calculation for schools. Since 2003, MCPS has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over 70,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent or MTCO2e. This represents a 30 percent reduction in the MCPS carbon footprint since 2003.

The building energy use index (EUI) shows how efficiently a building uses energy. The EUI is the industry standard for tracking building energy consumption. Building energy consumption also is significantly affected by sustained periods of abnormal temperatures. Since 2003, there has been a 12 percent reduction in energy consumption in MCPS.

The unit price for water has increased over the past decade more than all other utilities at approximately 8 percent per year. This trend is expected to continue and will result in water cost surpassing natural gas cost as the second highest category of expenditures for utilities. Therefore, reducing water consumption is an important strategy for containing the cost of utilities.