Budget to cover various MCPS educational issues

On Jan. 15, County Executive Marc Elrich announced a $4.23 billion Capital Improvements Plan, which funds construction and infrastructure projects in the county for the next six years. Only weeks before, Superintendent Jack Smith submitted his recommendations to the Board of Education for MCPS’ 2021 Operating Budget, which is currently proposed to be $2.8 billion. 

According to Bethesda Magazine, both budget proposals for next year are around 4-5 percent larger than the budgets from this year. However, most students believe that such increases are justified. “I think the budget should be expanded because we have a lot of overcrowding in our schools, so we need to accommodate everyone with a bigger budget.” sophomore Isabela Santos said.

Smith reiterated similar sentiments in an interview with the Sentinel Newspaper. “The spending increases are to support our students, support our work, and to be able to attract, recruit, hire and maintain a strong and diverse workforce,” Smith said. “Fewer people are going to universities and colleges to become teachers. This money will help us grow our own.”

However, many students and staff disagree with the Board of Education and the Montgomery County Council on what the budget should be used for. Members of the student organization MoCo EmpowHER have testified before the Board on adding feminine hygiene products to secondary schools. 

“Menstrual hygiene is inherently an educational equity issue, just because first of all menstrual hygiene products are really expensive,” sophomore student advocate Hana O’Looney said. “Studies have shown time and time again that students struggle to afford them. So when people don’t have them on hand, whether that’s for financial reasons or just bad timing, it keeps them from going to class.”

The $2.8 billion budget still has to be approved by both the Board and the County Council, and thus there’s the possibility that the final budget won’t be fully funded. However, many still believe that this isn’t an excuse to underfund certain areas.

“Any Board of Education, MCPS, is always going to be working with a limited budget, but it’s a matter of prioritization,” O’Looney said. “So they’re already talking about the feasibility of two-ply toilet paper. They have an entire page on the MCPS website dedicated to thoughts on funding for two-ply toilet paper and how much it would cost. They’ve experimented with this in the past, so if this is a discussion that the Board has already had, then I think that [feminine hygiene products] definitely needs to take priority.”

The current plan for the Operating Budget is to serve more pre-kindergarten students, increase MCPS staff, expand schools and add three new regional IB programs. The Montgomery County Education Association, the county’s teacher union, rallied around MCPS’ central offices before the hearing to protest a lack of funding for teacher’s salaries, art, music and health curriculum, smaller classes and support for English language learners.

“County support for instrumental music is subpar. As our enrollment increases, our staffing does not,” instrumental music teacher Ted McAllister told Bethesda Magazine. “Essentially, instrumental music is being slowly cut from our schools, and students are losing access at an important, formative age.”

“We always need to be promoting any project that promotes educational equity,” O’Looney said. “One really big thing this year is guidance counselors and school psychologists and increasing those. Right now, every high school is required to have one school psychologist. But for a school like RM, we have 2,800 kids, and that’s frankly not enough care. So expanding funding for that is another issue that’s really important.”

The $4.23 billion Capital Improvements Plan is facing similar criticism for underfunding certain areas that members of the Montgomery County community called for. “It would be great if a portion of the Capital budget could go towards road improvement because there’s a lot of potholes where we live. It’s a minor thing, but it’ll help our community,” Santos said.

However, some students believe that the county is doing the best with what they have, especially considering the numerous financial restraints that they face. 

“We already don’t have as much money as we want to, so it’s fine to leave it at that,” freshman Carmen Kenfack said. “And a lot of other stuff people say should be in the budget is more material such as getting better technology. I think the issue with getting stuff like that is they tend to break cause we’re students, we’re kids, we can’t take care of anything. So I feel like they have their focus on the right areas.”