Montgomery County Public Schools Leading the Way

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is one of the largest school districts in the nation with 205 schools serving over 162,000 students. It is also one of the most diverse demographically with a majority being Hispanic, African American and Asian students . My work was with two separate departments of MCPS but both projects were connected to the district aiming to improve and adjust with the increasingly diverse student body. When I began the initial research I found that knowing how to search within the library’s online database was a huge advantage. This was key with the first project which was with the MCPS Office of School Support and improvement to complete the research work for the renaming of MCPS school buildings. I was tasked with researching information on a new list of names that was going to be submitted as part of a report to the Board of Education. 

One of the main concerns the supervisors had was that the research had to have historically accurate and that meant that each and every detail had to be properly cited with official government or peer-reviewed academic sources. The names were of individuals who had made significant contributions locally, state-wide, or national-level. Understandably, the information that was researched was looking beyond the achievements as the initiative was in response to local objections against schools that were named after individuals who were associated with unethical practices such as former slave owners.

The second project was with the Office of the Chief Academic Officer which was looking into nation-wide data on honors courses in public schools. MCPS offers accelerated courses for students starting in 4^th grade which has been remarkably effective in improving the county’s performance as many Middle Schools and High schools are now only offering honors courses in English. In order to consider a district wide approach to advanced/accelerated learning, MCPS commissioned a research paper summarizing the information found in other public school systems. 

The information had to fall under several categories that made it comparable to MCPC so I initially began looking for honors programs that were in public schools and were non-selective but as the weeks progressed we realized that the school should have additional factors that made it a reasonable sample school. For example, one of the best performing public high schools that had their entire student body enrolled in rigorous courses was Scarsdale High in New York. They were one of the few public schools to create their own Advanced Placement (AP) program but as it turned out they were the third richest school district in the nation. 

MCPS on the other hand does have a significant wealth gap which meant that looking into Scarsdale’s honors program would not really be of any benefit as they most likely had many other factors that contributed to their high performance. Finding this type of information was a new experience because the majority of details are not on websites. I had to call up schools and district offices as well as reach out to journalists who had written articles with information that was important to my work. Through both projects I found MCPS to be unique in that despite being as large as they are, they were making strides towards being progressive and inclusive.

Image: https://theblackandwhite.net/55693/news/increasing-diversity-in-mcps-prompts-petition-to-rename-churchill-high-school/)