I don’t mind telling you we showed off a little. We held it
the atrium of the new Calvert High School.
NJROTC students served as escorts and presented the colors. Andre Jones,
CHS senior, played piano. Welding
students made centerpieces. Graphic arts students designed and printed the
programs. And our culinary arts students prepared an awesome meal.
Following lunch, I had the opportunity to share with our
business leaders a picture of what we look like, how we’re doing and where we
need to be. I’ll summarize here.
What we look like:
·
Our 15,569 kids are 73% white, 13% African
American, 7% two or more races, 5% Hispanic and 2% Asian.
·
Our 1,179 teachers are 75% white females and 17%
white males. (This is why we have a goal to improve recruiting for greater
diversity.)
·
Our 105 administrators are 51% white females and
35% white males.
·
Our 781 support staff are 69% white and 28%
African American.
·
We have a general operating budget of $196
million of which 59% comes from local support.
How we’re doing:
·
Math and Reading scores as measured by PARCC are
well within the top 5-10 districts in MD, except in Algebra II, where our
curriculum is not aligned with PARCC.
·
Science proficiency scores near the top.
·
SAT scores going up while increasing the number
of students taking the test.
·
SAT scores far exceeding state average.
·
Graduation rate among the highest in the state
for all groups.
·
Competitive teacher salaries. A pay schedule
generally in the top five in any category.
·
Moving forward to bid a new facility to replace
Northern High School.
Where we need to be:
·
We have not been able to fully support our pay
schedule in recent years so we are losing our ability to compete for the best
staff. Some teachers are behind $8,500. We need to fix that.
·
We plan to move forward to be Future Ready -
putting a digital device in the hands of every student and expanding Wi-Fi
access in the county so students have access to curriculum 24/7.
·
We need to improve school security with
installation of security cameras in every school.
Where we need to be will be
achieved by two things:
1. Effective
planning, training and execution by our staff.
2. More
money from the Board of County Commissioners.
I think we can do both.