Council committee hears anti‑racist audit update as MCPS moves to embed findings in strategic plan

On Thursday, Jan. 30, the Montgomery County Education and Culture Committee received an update from Montgomery County Public Schools staff laying out how the district’s anti‑racist audit and action plan are being embedded into a new strategic plan intended to create consistent, system‑wide accountability.

MCPS presenters said the audit’s central finding was not a lack of best practices but inconsistent implementation across schools. "When you took 200 pages and you narrowed it down to one main thing, it was the implementations of the policies and the applications of our best practices as a district greatly differ from school to school," a district presenter summarized.

Why this matters: Committee members said embedding the audit into the strategic plan could stop what community members have called repeated cycles of analysis without durable results. MCPS officials described a three‑phase planning process that included broad community engagement, a root‑cause analysis and the current phase of drafting goals and strategies; the Board of Education is scheduled to finalize the plan in May.

What MCPS is doing: Dr. Alston and other MCPS staff described new public and internal dashboards (school profiles, ParentVUE metrics) and expanded monitoring tools intended to make equity data more actionable. "The dashboards are a great start but they serve as the foundation as how we will look at our data to drive decision making," Dr. Alston said, noting the district is building professional learning so staff can use the tools through an anti‑racist lens.

Council concerns: Multiple councilmembers raised two recurring themes — accountability and transparency. Members described updates to an online "tracker" that appeared to have been dormant for months and pressed staff to set regular public update schedules and clear metrics so residents can see progress. One councilmember told staff the tracker’s recent flurry of edits raised doubts about whether the district is consistently maintaining the public record.

Organizational questions: Staff acknowledged that an originally planned project‑management oversight committee was not fully active and said that accountability structures tied to the strategic plan will provide regular check‑ins and clearer timelines. Councilmembers also sought detail on personnel changes: several positions originally funded as restorative justice or equity specialists were described as being moved into new "professional learning specialist" roles; staff said the people in those roles will be placed into the new titles but acknowledged some HR and resource details remain to be worked out.

Next steps: MCPS said it will publish phase‑by‑phase materials for public comment this spring and asked the committee to monitor whether the revised oversight structure produces more regular, detailed public reporting. The committee plans to revisit these items during upcoming budget and oversight sessions and after the Board finalizes the strategic plan in May.