What does August school data tell us about the fall?

Maryland and Prince George’s County school systems released vacancy and school performance data this past week. What does it mean for area kids?

Will the kids get to school? Mostly! Prince George’s County Schools are starting off the year with 874 bus drivers, which is 14 more than they had this time last year. PGCPS still needs 145 more drivers. Bus staffing has recovered to better than pre-pandemic levels: in 2019, PGCPS was short 150 drivers. In a significant increase in transparency, the school district has published a list of the 1,200 unstaffed bus routes impacting schools across the county. 

Will classrooms have teachers? Mostly! The county has about 98% of the classroom teachers needed this fall, 6,433 of 6,550. While there are fewer vacancies this fall than in recent years, vacancies remain higher than they were pre-pandemic. The county is still looking for 135 special education teachers across 200 schools, according to a county dashboard rolled out last week. County teacher shortages rose from only 54 missing teachers in 2018-19 up to 422 missing teachers in 2021-22, according to a state report, with union estimates rising as high as 800 vacancies in the summer of 2022. 

Will they be learning? We hope so! Prince George’s County students scored better in both math and English last year than the year prior, according to data that the Maryland Board of Education released Aug. 26. A total of 38.3% of county students were proficient in English Language Arts in 2024-5, up from 36.1% in 2023-24. In math,13.1% of students were proficient, up from 10.8% the prior year. Prince George’s County had the third lowest scores among Maryland jurisdictions for both math and English, with better scores than Baltimore City and Somerset County. 

In press releases Aug. 26 and Aug. 27, PGCPS celebrated gains for students in struggling schools, including several in southern areas of the county, as well as gains for students learning English and those with disabilities. In the handful of schools highlighted, math and English scores improved between 5 and 13% in one year.

Families will receive their students’ individual results by the end of September. Detailed school-by-school data will be available on the Maryland Report Card website in December. PGCPS says “an additional public-facing dashboard offering a performance snapshot highlighting academic outcomes and school climate measures, with an emphasis on growth and gains, for every school” is coming soon. 

Have we always had this much information? No. The new interim Superintendent, Shawn Joseph, advocated for what he calls radical transparency in an Aug. 21 school board meeting, saying “you can’t manage a secret.” Along with vacancy dashboards on a central website and on the website of each school, PGCPS now has a dashboard that shows priorities and task completion for school executives. Both dashboards, he says, are updated in real time. 

According to Joseph, “These two public trackers, the vacancy dashboard and the one hundred day progress tracker aren’t just websites, they are commitments. They make our work legible, our promises visible, and our progress measurable. Transparency is an equity strategy. When families see how we deploy talent and monitor progress, trust grows and outcomes follow.”