Issues for Budget Meeting

We need to fill the auditorium with hundreds of supportive parents on April 10, 2025 at the Frederick Community College at 6 p.m. The meeting is largely focused on the budget, but you can talk about any of the items below. Please arrive early so that you get a seat, and please wear orange to signify your support of fiscal responsibility, parental rights, and academic excellence.

Budget

Click here to download a spreadsheet that backs up the following statements.

  • Our budget has grown faster than the rate of enrollment and inflation for decades. The Board requested $988 million, an increase of $48 million. That is a 5% spending increase for a 1.6% estimated enrollment increase.

  • Over the last four years, for every 3.7 students who enrolled, FCPS hired a new staff member, yet class sizes are not decreasing. Less than half of our staff are classroom teachers. Click here to see every staff member’s salary in the school system.

  • Administrative spending has skyrocketed. Watch here to see how much. Our schools’ public affairs department has 17 people in it. Do we really need that many?

  • According to the teachers union, Maryland’s starting salaries are #5 in the nation and the average salary is #8 in the nation. If our county were a state, our starting salaries of $56,528 would be ranked as #2 in the nation, right ahead of New Jersey. See the union ranking and our salary scales.

  • The Maryland Blueprint is causing the worst fiscal crisis in 20 years, and will result in massive tax increases. A former Democratic state Senator has said the teachers union is bankrupting Maryland.

  • The teachers union is at the root of Maryland’s budget crisis.

Academics

Click here to view the Maryland State Report Card for all subjects that backs up the following statements.

  • Despite record spending, 75% of our students fail algebra. In most grades around 40% of students fail English. 70% of students fail science.

  • FCPS sought to reduce charter school funding before the state forced them to return the money. It also eliminated several grades from the Remote Virtual Program that serves medically fragile students. The theme is that if a program is something parents choose, FCPS is not very supportive.

  • Despite the school system’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, minority students continue to underperform, such as the nearly 90% failure rate of Hispanic students in algebra.

  • Our career and technology center needs to be expanded, but all we get is talk. Ask our Board of Education when they will finally take action on this pressing need.

  • Maryland’s charter school law is ranked as the worst in America. Among other things, it makes online schools illegal, and will not allow charters to hire their own staff. They have to hire union teachers instead. Ask the Board if they will support legislation to bring our law into the mainstream.

Parental Rights