Montgomery County students are set to return to school Monday under their first new superintendent in 12 years. Imported from Stamford, Conn., Joshua Starr will have plenty of classroom additions, two school reopenings, and a couple dozen new principals to help him mark a fresh year of the nationally acclaimed school system.
“There is no question that MCPS has had enormous success and is a national model on numerous fronts. … But that doesn’t mean that we can stand still and admire past accomplishments,” Starr said in a memo to parents and the community.
“I believe that MCPS is well-positioned for greater success if we continue to focus on what matters most — ensuring that high-quality teaching and learning is happening in each and every classroom, every day.”
According to Starr’s “entry plan,” he will visit four to five schools each day for the first week of school. For the rest of the year, Starr plans to visit four to five schools each week.
Critics of Jerry Weast, Montgomery’s long-time superintendent who retired in June, charged him with being out of touch with the community, opaque, and absent from the system’s 200 schools.
Starr’s plan reads like a manifesto against those criticisms: His three goals are to interact with more stakeholders, demonstrate informed decision making, and “foster a new level and spirit of community engagement and support for Montgomery County Public Schools.”
Janis Sartucci, a member of the Montgomery County Parents Coalition, and one of Weast’s most active critics, said she’s still skeptical of Starr.
“Is it a photo op or is he going to be a superintendent walking in there without an entourage?” Sartucci said. “Ride a school bus with the kids. Sit in a seclusion room, and see what that’s like for a special ed students. Eat lunch and see what the food is like. Teach a class.”
In addition to 10 “Listen and Learn” community events and six staff events, Starr will host his own book club focused on educational philosophy. The first session, in late October, will dissect Carol Dweck’s “Mindset: The New Philosophy of Success.”
But he is not the only change afoot for Montgomery’s schools. About 2,500 new students will join the school system, bringing Maryland’s largest district to 147,000 students.
Twenty-four new principals and 29 new assistant principals have been placed; and while two schools up for renovations will move into holding sites, two others move back into their shiny new buildings.
Cabin John Middle School in Potomac and Farmland Elementary School in Rockville are both swinging their doors back open to students with eco-friendly renovations.
Eight schools are receiving classroom additions, while 69 portable classrooms are added to certain schools and 123 are removed from others.
