Council Vice President Jelanda, chairing a joint work session of three council committees, pressed county and school officials on Wednesday to produce a concrete plan for tracking who participates in out‑of‑school‑time (OST) programs after staff said the county still lacks a single, coordinated system to collect and compare participation and outcome data.

"We have to set ourselves up with the right tools, resources, authority, coordination to do it," Jelanda said, opening the meeting and urging staff to return with a plan ahead of next year’s budget decisions.

Presenters described two near‑term technical steps the council asked to see: finalizing a data‑sharing memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and the Department of Recreation, and standing up a staffed role to gather, desegregate and maintain countywide OST data. Staff said the MOU is in routing for signatures but remains under legal review because of language about background checks between represented employees and unions.

"The sticking point for the MOU right now is a line in the background checks between our two unions," an agency representative said. Staff said the remaining language adjustments were with attorneys and expected signatures to be routed in the coming week.

Officials said the MOU, when signed, will permit secure exchanges of participation records while complying with FERPA and other privacy protections. Recreation participation data are considered personally identifiable information; under the planned arrangement MCPS would match student identifiers and scrub records so researchers and county analysts can produce demographic tallies, create control groups, and run outcome studies without exposing student‑level identifiers.

"We want our families and our parents to know that their kids' data is always protected," an agency representative added, describing the planned FERPA‑compliant process.

Councilmembers pressed for more than the legal paper: they asked for an operational owner. Sydney Wilson Hunter, director of programs at the Montgomery County Collaboration Council, said the OST network currently "holds no authority to request data from our partners and also exists without the resources to establish a countywide data mechanism." Hunter and other presenters recommended a single dedicated specialist—housed at the Collaboration Council, DHHS, or another place—to aggregate and manage data from MCPS, Recreation, HHS, and private providers.

"We don't have one person or one resource that can gather all those things and clean it up so that it all speaks the same language," Hunter said. "That is where the lack of capacity for data collection sits."

Councilmembers, including Chair Friesen, said the absence of shared metrics and consistent contracting language is the key barrier: agencies track different measures under thousands of separate contracts, making countywide analysis difficult. Friesen described continued frustration that, seven months after an April meeting that spotlighted the same problems, the county had not yet produced a clear system plan.

"It doesn't feel like we're really that much further along," Friesen said. "MOU's are words on paper. They really don't mean a whole lot" unless tied to standardized outcomes and a clear owner to drive the work.

Staff recommended achievable interim steps when they return to the council: (1) a short inventory of current data capacities across MCPS, Recreation, and HHS; (2) an agreed set of shared metrics framed as "How much / How well / Is anyone better off?"; (3) a specification of staffing and technical needs to run a network data hub; and (4) pilot questions added to student climate surveys to capture OST participation and barriers.

Officials noted recent technical work already under way: a needs‑assessment data tool launched Nov. 6 produced nine responses as of Nov. 18 (eight private providers and one public agency — MCPS OST). The advisory network has 17 organizational members and a provider network of about 30 providers, staff said.

Councilmembers asked staff to return quickly with a scoped proposal that identifies what can be done within current legal constraints and what will require new funding or authority. The council’s request makes the MOU a necessary but not sufficient step: lawmakers want an accountable implementation plan tied to shared metrics and a named owner before making longer‑term budget or policy commitments.

The council adjourned after asking staff to report back on MOU status, data capacities, and an implementation plan that identifies immediate priorities for the next budget cycle.