Aspirational Goal 3

After earning the Association of School Business (ASBO) Pathway to the Meritorious Budget Award (MBA) in 2020, FCPS was successful in earning the MBA for the fiscal year 2021 budget year. The ASBO MBA is annual award earned by school districts based on their commitment to sound fiscal management and budgetary policies. Thus, the award promotes and recognizes the best budget presentation practices in school districts for accurate, transparent, and clearly communicated budgets.

To earn the award, school districts submit their application and budget documents to a panel of school financial professionals who review them for success in demonstrating they have met the necessary and rigorous award criteria/requirements. The process also provides feedback that districts can use to improve their budget documents.  Additional information on the MBA award can be found here: Meritorious Budget Award & Pathway to the MBA.

Creating an optimal learning environment is critical to the learning and development of students. Optimal learning environments not only consider academic, psychological, and social factors but environmental qualities of a school and/or classroom. A 2017 report by The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health discusses what we already know about the impact of environmental qualities (e.g., temperature, lighting, air quality, acoustics, etc.) on student performance as well as additional research needed (see: Impact of School Buildings on Student Health and Performance). In addition to this report, decades of past research also support the impact of school building and/or classroom design and its impact on student learning.
 
Recognizing the impact of classroom environments on student performance, FCPS aims to increase the number of schools meeting expectations for optimal learning environment. FCPS will develop a rubric rating to assess optimal learning environment based on the sufficiency standards released by the state. Using nearly real-time monitoring, the rubric rating will include an assessment of the following: temperature, lighting, relative humidity, carbon dioxide, and acoustics. Currently, FCPS cannot realistically assess the classroom environments until all students have returned to in-person. Discussions on how to assess classroom environments and/or empirically sample classrooms will continue. The ultimate goal is to identify any potential environmental issues within the school building and/or classroom and to proactively resolve the issue.
 
In addition to environmental factors mentioned above, FCPS will analyze custodial assessment data. Custodial assessments have been occurring well over 10 years in FCPS. Recently, FCPS has upgraded from a paper to an electronic assessment and allows for comparison to industry standards. FCPS use of custodial assessment data will be for determining systemic needs for professional development and assessing the adequacy and functionality of tools and supplies.

Measurable goal 12 states that FCPS will decrease mobility rates of teaching staff for Tier 2 schools from baseline (2020) to 5% by 2025.  While monitoring internal mobility can help to improve staff retention, leadership opportunities as well as recruitment costs, high mobility can also have a negative impact among schools with student groups who are consistently demonstrating lower academic performance. FCPS employs a variety of strategies to decrease mobility for Tier 2 schools, including implementing differentiated staffing and differentiated funding, creating collaborative networks among schools, holding job fairs, focusing on a diverse workgroup, and highlighting unique opportunities for staff. The following table includes mobility rates for teaching staff in Tier 2 schools identified for the 2019-2020 school year.  Overall, there was a 12% mobility rate among teaching staff in Tier 2 schools.