By Laurie Taylor-Mitchell
The annual costs for new computers and technology (STAT*) is now $57 million, and over $250 million overall is expected to be spent by 2018.
Administrative salaries and costs are also increasing within the school system: the salary budget for the Chief Academic Officer and two other positions is nearly $500,000.
In its massive diversion of funds towards technology, the proposed Operating Budget of Baltimore County Public Schools does not address the great need of all students for more support staff, and subjects the existing School support staff to ever more crushing workloads.
According to one administrator at a recent Board of Education meeting, the BCPS 2018 Operating Budget is “sufficient” in supporting administrators and offices working with students in poverty. Another stated that there were backpack programs feeding children in schools.
But the school system does not fund weekend backpack programs. The current backpack programs feeding children at risk of hunger on the weekends are funded privately; they only feed a few hundred children in the system and reach a fraction of those in need (there are over 32,000 children identified as food- insecure in Baltimore County).
The 44,000 children in the school system currently qualifying for Free Meals live in families with incomes at 130% or below the federal poverty level, which for a family of three is about $26,000 a year.
Over 52,000 qualify for both Free and Reduced Price Meals, nearly 47% of all students. The poverty level is actually higher, given the high cost of living in Maryland.
While there are 53 Title I Program Schools in the system, there are over 90 schools in BCPS with poverty rates of over 50%.
The administrators made no mention of support services for non -Title 1 schools with extremely high poverty rates.
The belief of BCPS administrators that Student Support Services can adequately assist students in poverty, indeed all students, is not accurate given the recommendations of the national professional agencies cited below.
The BCPS answer below to Board members sets out disturbingly inadequate ratios of support staff for students. Here are BCPS guidelines in response to a question from Board Members on hiring more guidance counselors.
Guidance Counselors: The American School Counselor Association (ASCA), recommends a ratio of 1 counselor for every 250 students. Compare with BCPS ratios outlined above:
Elementary schools: at only one counselor per school, most elementary schools will receive only one counselor for at least 500 students. No additional ones are provided until enrollment hits 700, a ratio still far above the recommended ratio of 1 counselor to 250 students. With Enrollments of 1,000 to 1,500, according to the guidelines, the ratio could still be as high as 1 counselor to 500 students.
For social workers, the ratios are much worse. With only 74 full time social workers in BCPS last year, the overall ratio is 1:1501 students.
The American School of Social Work recommends one social worker for every 250 students: “Staffing at a higher ratio than the maximum recommended by SSWAA compromises the quality of services provided to students and affects the potential for positive academic outcomes for all students.”
Within BCPS, 28 social workers are full-time only in the high schools, leaving 46 social workers for all other schools in the system. With one full-time social worker for every high school, the ratios are staggering. In five high schools, the ratios range from 1 social worker to 1,496 to one for 1,993 students.
BCPS has only 39 full time Pupil Personnel Workers (PPWs) for all 167 schools, with most workers serving in multiple schools, a statistical ratio of 1 to about 2,800 students, with much higher ratios at some schools.
Each PPW has huge responsibilities, including attendance issues, evaluating and enrolling students who are homeless or in hardship situations, social, emotional, and behavioral problems, supporting other school personnel working with students, re-entry after hospitalization, and referrals for families needing community assistance.
One PPW was assigned to three schools, with a total enrollment of about 4,500 students.
For many children, poverty affects every second of every day.
From my experiences with private assistance programs, we know that children might begin the school day hungry or have no money for lunch. Others do not have underwear, socks, toothpaste, or deodorant; some have no sheets, or even beds. Some families have asked for toilet paper in interviews with school staff on their needs.
Poverty and its stresses also have a devastating effect on being prepared for graduation.
When I participated in mock interviews for seniors at a high school last year, five of the students I interviewed had failed most of their classes in high school. They had been in and out of crisis and economic hardship the entire time. While their speaking skills were good, they could not write well, could not spell, and had never put together a resume, and they were less than seven months from graduation.
What will happen to them? We need programs, based on the needs of individual schools, to help impoverished students from the moment they arrive in high school until they leave the system.
I have recommended the addition of 115 additional full time School Guidance Counselors, 38 additional full time Social Workers, and 73 additional full time PPWs, so that every school with a poverty rate over 30% (about 112 of them) will have additional staff to support the large numbers of students in poverty.
Homeless students also need many support services; there were over 2,500 students identified as homeless in the system last year. To fund these positions would eventually cost about $16 million dollars annually.
The annual costs for new computers and technology (STAT) is now $57 million, and over $250 million overall is expected to be spent by 2018.
Administrative salaries and costs are also increasing within the school system: the salary budget for the Chief Academic Officer and two other positions is nearly $500,000.
The staff positions proposed above could be funded by reducing STAT costs by just $4 million dollars a year for the next five years and then and in subsequent years to maintain these positions.
The costs for additional staff described above must be compared with the costs of STAT and administrative costs, and the fact that these positions have been underfunded for decades. These positions fill existing needs that are not being met.
It remains to be seen what the Baltimore County Board of Education will do with this information –they will vote on the budget in February.
Laurie Taylor-Mitchell, a former Professor of Art History at Hood College in Maryland, is a co-founder of Advocates for Baltimore County Public Schools, and founder of the Loch Raven Network, a non-profit group assisting students in need at her son’s former high school in Baltimore County. laurie.lochravennetwork@gmail.com
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*Students & Teachers Accessing Tomorrow
STAT-us-BCPS A grassroots education coalition working to slow down the high-tech takeover of Baltimore County Public Schools. Check it out and give them your support!
Is the Digital Conversion of Baltimore County’s Schools a Worry for All Schools? By Joanne C. Simpson
Thank you for posting! This is so moving and shows just what is neglected here:
“We know that children might begin the school day hungry or have no money for lunch. Others do not have underwear, socks, toothpaste, or deodorant, some have no sheets, or even beds. Some families have asked for toilet paper in interviews with school staff on their needs.”
Another burden being created: Aren’t we putting the cart before the horse and increasing the homework digital divide in Baltimore County by increasingly putting the school’s curricula online and sending kids home, 47 percent of whom live in poverty, in areas with no reasonable or free broadband wifi access—and where they can’t do that homework online? BCPS has at least 2,500 students who are homeless. How will they survive the semester? Paper and pencil are at least portable and work everywhere. Will that option still exist? What about families that don’t want their children increasingly tethered to screens at home.
It’s not that tech upgrades weren’t needed here, it’s that the cost of STAT — which is actually much higher in the long run — seems increasingly irresponsible. (See additional costs outlined via the link below, as well as in the post just prior on Nancy Bailey’s amazing blog)
If Baltimore County Public Schools, like many other districts that upgrade their digital options, did not assign the devices one-per-child all the way down through 1st grade (and up to 12th) and used less expensive devices–$300 Chromebooks, which HP also makes—instead of laptops that cost more than $1,300, the schools in this transformation would save $112 MILLION DOLLARS.
How could some of THAT money help these children and fund many, many other school needs. This seems clear fiscal irresponsibility.
I fear the priorities of this administration are all wrong in the end for our children, and supporters of this digital ecosystem are exporting this template to much of the rest of the country.
Stay aware.
https://statusbcps.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/whats-the-status-of-stat-costs-in-a-dozen-years-that-could-be-a-billion-dollar-question/
Meanwhile, while BCPS community members were not paying attention, policies were changed to free up SPENDING AUTHORITY for the Superintendent.
Not only are the priorities upside down here — with our STAT 1:1 digital conversion sucking the life out of Baltimore County’s resources,– but authority AND oversight over how those resources and money can be spent, has reached new (insane) levels.
AND, if that wasn’t baaaaaad enough, why not just get rid of the Board of Education’s responsibilities, altogether?
I’d say that “you just can’t make this stuff up!”, but apparently we are. BCPS is just making this up as we go. (The quote used by our Superintendent is: “building the plane as we fly it”, after all. ) And, all of this is happening at great expense — of money, of time, and of what BCPS had been known for, which was quality education.
“Tale of Three Policies”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzc8WRnqmyc
I’m another founder of ABCSchools. I recently testified at a Baltimore County Board of Education meeting about STAT costs and opportunity costs. I spoke for myself that night, not for our group.
Here’s what I said: “The FY18 proposed operating budget notes that the STAT initiative requires a significant funding commitment and that anticipated annual and ongoing costs will be $57 million per year. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions already spent on the project.
The May 2016 County Auditor’s report on BCPS finances was critical of STAT. The report noted that “BCPS’s budget for the Other Instructional Costs program has been growing in recent years due the digital conversion/S.T.A.T. program, while funding for the Instructional Salaries & Wages program has remained relatively flat.” Regarding the opportunity costs of funding STAT, the auditor asked why BCPS had “chosen to prioritize this initiative over other competing funding needs.”
Our school system has nearly half of its students living in poverty, and a large number are homeless. Taxpayer dollars are going toward massive STAT expenditures at the expense of expanding feeding and support programs and hiring social workers and pupil personnel workers to meet the needs of these at-risk children. All BCPS students could benefit from more guidance counselors and a lower student-to-teacher ratio. Student safety would improve if better pay were offered to bus drivers to alleviate the severe driver shortage.
STAT’s unwieldy expenditures and maintenance costs siphon away much-needed funds for schools struggling with lack of drinkable water, crumbling buildings, and environmental impediments to learning such as lack of air-conditioning and workable heat.
I am not anti-tech. Technology has its place in education and is clearly a huge part of our world. I’m for the safe and judicious use of technology, as long as objective, measurable learning outcomes show that the tech investment is worth it … I ask you to carefully consider STAT expenditures taking into account that student achievement has not increased despite the huge amounts of money spent on this initiative.”
See this video featuring Loch Raven Network’s founder Laurie Taylor-Mitchell here: https://betterbaltimorecounty.com/bbc-stories/loch-raven-network/
Thank you for sharing this. We need to remember that the human connection is the most important thing for well-being and learning in children. BCPS budgets need to be re-evaluated.
Thanks to Laurie’s efforts, the Baltimore County BOE voted last night to add funding (has to be approved by County government) for 23 guidance counselors and 12 social workers. Our system has 112,000 students. It’s a good start. STAT will continue as planned.
Leslie, That’s wonderful news! This was sad, and to hear that more funding will be provided is great. The three of you are terrific!Thank you for all you do for children in Baltimore County and beyond!
Wow! I wonder where the money came from for this.