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Accountability board lifts funding hold as Harford County Public Schools meets blueprint requirements
Summary
The statewide Accountability and Implementation Board voted to release Harford County Public Schools’ blueprint funds after the district demonstrated required progress in year five, district officials said. The board also discussed pre‑K capacity, new dashboards, early college pilots and persistent special‑education budget pressures.
The Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB) voted to release Harford County Public Schools’ blueprint funding after the district met this year’s implementation and student‑performance requirements, a presenter told the school board at its Dec. 1 work session. HCPS officials said the district completed required actions including a 2025 career ladder, an approved career‑counseling memorandum of understanding with Susquehanna Workforce Network and the community college, and a state‑approved preK–12 comprehensive math plan.
The presenter said HCPS is in year five of implementing the statewide blueprint and that public dashboards showing pre‑K enrollment, teacher vacancies, national board certification counts and ELA/math results are now available on hcps.org and the state accountability site. The dashboards allow users to compare county and statewide performance and include district breakdowns by student subgroup, officials said.
District staff described current pre‑K capacity as a mix of small in‑home providers (four to eight seats) and several larger centers, and said private providers will be needed to meet the blueprint’s pre‑K access goals. Officials also announced a new early college program at Swan Creek School aimed at students who are homeschooled or seek dual‑enrollment options.
Board members were told the blueprint’s implementation touches many functions — from human resources and a teacher career ladder to curriculum and comprehensive math and literacy plans — and that meeting the blueprint’s benchmarks was a factor in the AIB decision to release funds for HCPS. District materials and the presenter noted two other districts had been warned about potential funding withholds but that HCPS was not among them.
Separately, district leadership warned that special‑education spending is growing faster than enrollment. The presenter reported a roughly $65 million gap between what the current state funding formula provides and what HCPS spends on special education, and said the state as a whole is about $1,000,000,000 short under the formula. District officials described adequacy studies under way at the state level that they hope will inform future changes to the foundation formula and special‑education funding.
The board did not take action at the Dec. 1 work session; the update was informational. Officials said they will continue advocacy with legislators and through public dashboards to monitor progress and support implementation.
