Anne Arundel schools report gains in assessments and push for middle-school redesign

Anne Arundel County Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell told the County Council on Jan. 13 that the district is seeing measurable academic and operational gains while preparing pilots to overhaul middle school.

Bedell, who said Anne Arundel is “the fourth largest district in Maryland” with just over 84,000 students, told council members the district has improved staffing stability after earlier vacancy spikes and has expanded access to norm-referenced testing and Advanced Placement coursework. “We’re the only comprehensive school district that is doing this in the state where all ninth graders are required to take the pre SAT,” he said.

The nut of the presentation was a mix of operational and academic indicators that officials said matter for long-term student outcomes. Bedell said instructional staff retention is near 96% and non-instructional retention about 94.3%, and noted targeted initiatives that reduced chronic absenteeism from 25.3% in 2022 to 19.9%. He also reported growth in college- and career-readiness: test-taker counts increased (from ~4,800 to nearly 15,600 across recent years) and the number of students meeting readiness benchmarks rose from roughly 1,300 to about 6,300 over three years. AP participation grew while the share scoring a 3 or better rose from 60.5% to 67.4%.

Bedell framed the PSAT/SAT policy as both equity and practice: by requiring early norm-referenced testing and paying for 11th-grade SATs, the district widened access and created measurable gains. He also noted a jump in national merit scholars from 1 to 9 as an example of opportunity opened by higher participation. “By giving these norm referenced assessments… it really gives me a defense that listen. Our school is doing a lot better than sometimes what these MCAP scores are showing,” he said, contesting how state assessments align with local results.

Council members pressed on behavioral incidents and early-grade discipline. Councilman Smith asked whether referrals and disruptions have increased; Bedell said discipline referrals rose at elementary and middle levels and that the district convened a focused meeting on elementary behavior issues. Bedell added that out-of-school suspensions have decreased at the high-school level but acknowledged “there’s some major issues here” for younger grades and described plans to coordinate union and cabinet members on responses.

Other discussion items included cell-phone rules and AP equity. Bedell said teacher feedback shows the current cell-phone guidelines are working and that the district did not see the union complaints that would signal a problem. On AP access, staff described expanded virtual or cross-school instruction to reduce gatekeeping and increase course availability where demand exists.

Looking ahead, Bedell listed middle-school transformation as the district’s next major focus, proposing pilots next year to change programming and staffing models. He told the council the district is working in a tight FY2027 budget year and asked the council to prioritize personnel: “Our focus is people over programs,” he said.

The council received the presentation and moved to the next agenda items; council members requested follow-up data on discipline referrals, SAT-prep availability at all high schools, and the timing for the magnet-school audit report.