MCPS reports strong early fill rates for special education jobs but summer payroll rollout created payment problems

Montgomery County Public Schools told the County Council’s Education and Culture Committee on Sept. 11 that it filled the vast majority of new positions added in this year’s budget for special education and English learner services, but acknowledged summer‑pay problems after switching to a new human resources and payroll system.

Chief Talent Management Officer Cailin Connolly said the district added 688 new special education positions in the budget: 188 teachers and 500 paraeducators. “We started the year off strong, with nearly 98% of all teacher positions filled,” Connolly told the committee, adding that as of Aug. 26 — the first day of school — MCPS had filled 95% of special education teacher positions, 93% of special education paraeducator positions and 98% of EML teacher positions.

The system also reported a larger pool of new hires than the prior year: 846 teacher‑level hires this year compared with 696 last year, a 22% increase, Connolly said. She highlighted gains in diversity among the new cohort: 21% of new teacher hires identified as Black or African American (compared with 13% across the district workforce) and 16% identified as Hispanic (compared with 10% districtwide).

Nut graf: The district credited targeted recruitment and compensation strategies with the hiring gains — including a summer recruitment campaign called “Be That Educator,” increased outreach to minority‑serving institutions and differential pay for special education paraeducators — while warning that operational problems from a new payroll system disrupted summer pay for some employees.

Connolly described the recruitment approach as a mix of digital marketing and in‑person hiring events that highlighted current special education staff. To support the paraeducator pipeline, the district reclassified paraeducator positions into three levels, established a career ladder in partnership with SEIU and introduced differential pay for special education paraeducators to help recruitment and retention.

On vacancies, Connolly said there were 69 special education teacher vacancies as of the first day of school; since then the district processed 42 special education paraeducator hires and 10 special education teacher hires, and “that number is now 59,” she said. Council members asked for follow‑up disaggregation, including male vs. female hires; Connolly agreed to provide that data.

Payroll rollout: MCPS officials, including Miss Alfonso Windsor from the district payroll/human resources team, said a new enterprise HR and payroll system plus high summer hiring volume caused summer pay issues for some employees. Alfonso said most summer pay problems have been resolved and the district estimates that “99, maybe even 99.9%” of affected employees have been corrected; she said a small number of complex cases remain pending. The district is planning recompense funds for employees who were negatively impacted and has held office hours and virtual sessions to troubleshoot on‑the‑spot corrections.

Council members pressed district leaders on timeliness and on steps to prevent a recurrence. MCPS said it will increase training for timekeepers and managers, automate more assignment processes for summer work, start a winter workgroup to plan next year’s summer assignments and continue cross‑functional troubleshooting between HR and payroll teams.

Ending: Connolly said the district will continue aggressive recruiting and partnership work with HBCUs, HSIs and other institutions and will return with more detailed sourcing data. “Filling the vast majority of these positions was a huge success,” she said, while payroll staff described follow‑up measures to make affected employees whole and to avoid repeat problems.