The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County is scheduled to discuss and adopt its final Fiscal Year 2020 operating and capital budgets at its next meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, June 19, 2019. The meeting will be held in the Board Room at the Parham Building, located at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis.
The County Council will formally adopt its FY2020 operating and capital budgets, which contain school system funding, on June 14, 2019. The budgets chart the course for the fiscal year that officially begins on July 1, 2019.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the Board is scheduled to vote on changes in the grading policy that would eliminate class rank and change the criteria for selecting school valedictorians and salutatorians. If approved, the changes would take effect for students entering Grade 9 in the 2021-2022 school year.
An amendment adopted by the Board at its May 15, 2019, meeting stipulates that students who earn summa cum laude honors (weighted grade-point average of 4.3 or higher) after seven high school semesters would be eligible to apply to be class valedictorian or salutatorian. The honors would be based on a student’s character, leadership, scholarship, and service. Winners would be selected through a school-based process to be determined by the Superintendent of Schools.
Valedictorian and salutatorian honors are currently based solely on a student’s grade-point average.
The Board will meet in a public session at 5:30 p.m. for the sole purpose of voting to immediately go into closed session, during which time it will discuss confidential matters as permitted by the Maryland Open Meetings Act including, but not limited to, legal advice, personnel, and negotiations. Closed session is not open to the public. The public session of the meeting will resume at 7 p.m.
A complete agenda for the meeting accompanies this news release. More information on agenda items will be posted on the AACPS website in the Board Docs section under the Board of Education tab.
The general session of Wednesday’s Board meeting will be broadcast live on AACPS-TV, which can be found on Channel 96 on Comcast and Broadstripe, and Channel 36 on Verizon. High definition broadcasts can be seen on Channel 996 on Comcast, Channel 496 on Broadstripe, and Channel 1961 on Verizon. Rebroadcasts are scheduled 2:00 p.m. on subsequent Sundays.
The meeting can also be viewed live on the Internet here.