Council committee backs Excel Beyond the Bell expansion, presses for better out‑of‑school time data and a formal MOU

A Montgomery County Council joint committee on education and planning on Wednesday signaled support for expanding the Excel Beyond the Bell (EBB) after‑school program to Waters Landing and East Silver Spring elementary schools and for adding a program manager position to oversee the program, while pressing staff to improve data collection and complete a data‑sharing memorandum of understanding with Montgomery County Public Schools.

The move to expand EBB and to add a manager was included in the county executive—s proposed budget; the committee agreed to advance that recommendation without objection. The Recreation Department staff told the committee the expansion is budgeted at $688,246 and that a full‑time program manager would be needed to support any expansion.

Committee members said the program—s reach and equity make it a high priority, but they repeatedly criticized the county—s centralized OST (out‑of‑school time) report for presenting self‑reported youth counts and provider budgets in a way that created confusion. Council members and staff said the current reporting carries duplicates, lacks unique‑youth counting, and needs data‑share agreements to produce reliable gap analyses for policy decisions.

——"We focused on our three C's, which is commitment, communication, and coordination," said Sydney Wilson Hunter, Director of Out of School Time Programs at the Collaboration Council, describing efforts to mobilize providers, launch a network advisory group and collect centralized budget information from participating agencies and providers.——

Recreation Director Robin Riley told the committee the EBB program is at a "tipping point" and needs an additional leadership position to coordinate family engagement, MCPS, transportation, food service and provider partners. "For us to continue to grow, we just need another leadership position," Riley said.

MCPS out‑of‑school time coordinator Jennifer Strobel described recent grant‑funded program expansions that kept services running after prior grant cycles ended. "The grants were all ending in April or in June. They were all gonna end... We were able to seek funding to keep a lot of OST alive," Strobel said, adding that four current 21st Century Community Learning Center grants total about $1.2 million per three‑year grant cycle and support high‑dosage tutoring and partner activities.

Council members pressed staff for concrete improvements to the centralized report: unique youth counts instead of duplicated encounters, consistent reporting by participating providers, clearer labeling of public vs. private budget totals, and a feasible intermediate metric (such as total participant hours) if unique counts cannot be produced immediately. Several members asked that MCPS and Recreation finalize a county–school MOU with a data‑sharing component; staff said the MOU between MCPS and Recreation is expected before the next school year and that it will include data provisions.

Committee discussion also covered the role of community schools, which collect program data at scale. Hope McGuire, Supervisor of Community Schools at MCPS, said community schools maintain program reporting for dozens of sites and that the office will present additional data at the committee—s July follow‑up meeting. McGuire said the community schools dataset covers tens of thousands of students and will help align county and school data once the MOU and standardized forms are complete.

The committee asked staff to provide a clearer, advance presentation before the next joint meeting so members can review metrics and data‑collection methods. Councilmembers said they want staff to return with an agreed set of metrics that will support a gap analysis by geography and by student need.

The committee—s endorsement moves the EBB site additions and the program manager request forward as part of the executive—s recommended budget; any final funding decisions will be taken later in the overall budget process.

Ending: Committee chairs scheduled a follow‑up joint meeting for July to review a revised centralized OST report, the Rec–MCPS MOU and a plan for producing unique youth counts or an interim hours‑based metric for planning and budgeting.