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School social workers press board for pay equity in FY27 budget
Summary
Several licensed school social workers urged the Anne Arundel County Board of Education to prioritize salary parity with school psychologists and pupil personnel workers in the FY27 budget, saying AACPS underpays and underutilizes social workers.
School social workers filled the public comment portion of the Oct. 15 Anne Arundel County Board of Education meeting to call for pay equity and greater use of their clinical skills in schools.
Scott Candelosi, a school social worker with 25 years of clinical experience, told the board that social workers are the only licensed clinical mental-health providers directly employed by Anne Arundel County Public Schools and that they supply a wide array of services including individual and group counseling, crisis intervention, IEP support and family engagement. He said AACPS currently uses a fraction of their capabilities and pays them less than comparably qualified colleagues such as school psychologists and pupil personnel workers. "Please support our bid to correct the salary scales and provide equitable compensation to school social workers," Candelosi said.
Elizabeth Saperstein, a social worker at Meade High School, echoed that message and said AACPS contracts out some mental-health services to outside providers who may hold lower level licenses and maintain long wait lists. Shauna Bridal, who said she has been a social worker for 25 years and has spent the past decade in AACPS, told the board the system employed 72 school social workers as of 2025 and that the department has more than doubled in size since becoming its own department in 2020. Bridal recounted a 2006 reclassification that left approximately 14 social workers on an older pay structure and said surrounding counties have since corrected similar inequities by placing school social workers on the same pay scale as school psychologists and pupil personnel workers.
Speakers asked the board to make pay equity for school social workers a priority in the FY27 budget so the system retains experienced clinicians and better serves students’ mental-health needs. There was no board action on the item at this meeting; staff and the superintendent said public comments would be referred to the administration for follow-up.
Staff and board members did not take action on compensation during the meeting’s public-comment period; budget priorities and compensation topics were discussed later in the meeting during the board’s review of FY27 priorities.
