Montgomery County Public Schools officials told the County Council’s Education and Culture Committee that progress is under way to move recommendations from the district's anti‑racist audit from a stand‑alone tracker into the district’s strategic planning and school improvement processes—but that the work remains uneven across schools.

"Anti‑racist commitments only move when they are grounded in written expectations, monitored for implementation, and tied to outcomes," Dr. Naya Hamlet, the district’s equity leader, told the committee. Hamlet said the district has started embedding audit action steps into strategic plan scorecards and school improvement plans (SIPs) to make equity expectations part of routine implementation and monitoring.

Hamlet described the central‑office reorganization as an effort to reduce fragmentation and to give clearer division‑level owners responsibility for equity goals. She said cross‑functional teams (CFTs) and equity specialists are being embedded in operations to support school implementation, but warned that capacity limits and leadership turnover mean results vary by school.

On leadership, Hamlet said the director of systemwide equity position has been posted, candidates have been screened and the district’s "goal is to have someone named by February" and to take a name to the school board soon. She described a rigorous hiring process that includes performance tasks and multi‑stakeholder panels.

Committee members pressed for measurable outcomes and clearer public tracking. Several members raised discipline and suspension data: one council member recited data presented to the Board of Education showing an 80% increase in in‑school suspensions (September 2024 vs. September 2025) and a 28.7% increase in out‑of‑school suspensions. MCPS staff said part of the numerical change reflected corrected classification and reporting of in‑school supports versus in‑school suspensions, and that the code‑of‑conduct revisions also changed how some incidents are categorized.

Hamlet and other staff highlighted several next steps that the committee requested: a crosswalk between the audit action plan and the strategic plan, a modified public tracker or dashboard that shows where audit items are embedded and what remains outstanding, and clearer links between professional learning, school practice and measurable outcomes.

The district said it will continue to expand equity‑focused professional learning for leaders and staff, to tie training to school improvement indicators, and to prioritize equity specialists where schools show the highest need. Officials also said they will provide updated data on professional learning participation and on discipline trends when they return to the committee.

What happens next: MCPS told the committee it will modify the existing tracker to show audit items embedded in the strategic plan, provide hiring updates on the director position, and return with discipline and student achievement data mapped to equity indicators.