On Aug. 20, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Northwest High School will host a clusterwide event featuring activities, games, and MCPS and PTA resources. Learn more here.
On Aug. 21, from noon to 4 p.m., Rockville High School will host Rockville Day, a back-to-school bash also with activities and community partner support. Learn more here.
Students are heading back to school later this month with teachers reporting on August 22nd for Pre-Service. August 22nd-26th will serve as professional days for teachers. Prior to the first day of school for students, MCPS is holding a Back-To-School Fair at Westfield Wheaton, and most students will be returning to school on Monday, August 29th (Only Arcola Elementary School and Roscoe Nix Elementary School follow the Innovative School calendar). Below you will see important dates to remember for the 2022-2023 school year:
2022
Below you will see notes from the August 8th, 2022 MCPS media briefing regarding recruitment and staffing for the 2022/2023 school year. The full video of the meeting is also available below.
Dr. Monifa McKnight (paraphrased):
Jennifer Celotta is a Montgomery County native who was born in Gaithersburg and graduated from Wootton High School in Rockville in 1989. Since then she has gone on to become a very successful television producer, writer, and director, including directing six episodes of the popular Netflix series Cobra Kai that is a television series sequel to the original Karate Kid films.
Celotta has an impressive résumé that includes writing credits on popular television series’ like, Home Improvement, The Office, Abbott Elementary, Malcolm in the Middle, and a lot more, including directing three episodes of The Office.
MCPS currently has 247 full-time teaching positions and 60 part-time open teaching positions as the first day of school approaches (August 29th), according to the school system’s website. Last Tuesday, MCPS hosted a virtual informational session for job seekers to learn about available openings for the 2022-2023 school year. On Friday morning the Montgomery County Board of Education tweeted, “MCPS is looking for special education teachers! Do you know someone who would be a great fit? Encourage them to apply at mcpscareers.org“.
According to a late July post on the MCPS website, the school system offered the following information: MCPS is the largest and most diverse school system in Maryland. The district is seeking highly qualified professionals to join its workforce as classroom teachers and support professionals. The system is looking to hire for these critical areas:
The Maryland Department of Health issued a statement on August 2, which includes details about case counts, testing and vaccination strategy, and contact tracing efforts. As of that date, there were 129 confirmed cases of MPX in the state of Maryland. Information about the Montgomery County public health response is available on the DHHS website, as are instructions on pre-registration for vaccination for eligible individuals. County residents and medical providers can contact the Montgomery County Communicable Disease Control team at 240-777-1755 with questions about county services.
Below are links to more information about MPX, including how it spreads, symptoms, prevention and treatment. In contrast to the early days of COVID-19, we know more about MPX, how it spreads and affects humans, and about the available vaccines and treatments. Individuals at a higher risk of being exposed to MPX should be vaccinated, take additional precautions to protect themselves, and seek a medical provider’s advice if they are concerned for symptoms of MPX.
The program ran for four weeks, from July 5-29. Each student had a minimum of 50 hours of either in-person, virtual or a combination of the two experiences.
Among the experiences RISE participants were exposed to this summer were:
The Richard Montgomery “Tree Troupe” team of Sienna Burns, Lynna Deng, Josh Goozman, Connor Palansky and Katie Yang, which in June won the Maryland State championship, finished second in the national competition to a team from Lexington, Mass. A team from Pinecrest, Fla., finished third.
Lissa Vincent, Richard Montgomery team’s teacher advisor, and Barry Burch, Maryland Envirothon program coordinator, accompanied the team to Ohio for the competition.
With pre-K enrollment dropping by nearly 300,000 students last year, which hurt educational progress and increased inequality, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2022’s States with the Best & Worst Early Education Systems. Maryland came in at 3rd on the list, behind only Arkansas and Nebraska.
In order to determine the best early education systems in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 12 key metrics. The data set ranges from share of school districts that offer a state pre-K program to number of pre-K quality benchmarks met and total reported spending per child enrolled in pre-K.
All MCPS students and their families are invited to kick off the new school year at the Back-to-School Fair at Westfield Wheaton Mall on Saturday, August 27th from 10am-1pm. The event is described as “a wonderful opportunity for families to learn about the school system and county programs and services, while enjoying family-friendly activities, entertainment, a free COVID-19 vaccination clinic and more”
MCPS will offer free shuttles to the event, which is located at Wheaton Mall (11160 Veirs Mill Rd Wheaton, MD 20902), from the following MCPS high schools:
MCPS hosted the Summer 2022 Safety Summit at Walter Johnson High School bringing together school leaders and community safety partners for discussions and training. The conference provided information and clarity around the new memorandum of understanding between MCPS and police. A video recap of the Safety Summit is available below:
https://youtu.be/hQWN0pyGw9U