Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) officials raised concerns that the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future may need to be updated amidst possible impacts to next year’s budget at a meeting Wednesday.

The statewide program, passed in 2021, aims to elevate Maryland schools into a world-class system. To accomplish this goal, the plan outlines a procedural increase in state funding until 2031.

As part of the Blueprint, FCPS is required to meet the minimum school funding, or MSF, of programs like multilingual education. MSF means Frederick Schools must meet at least 75% of the per-pupil cost of qualifying programs. Failure to meet those requirements could result in the school system losing approximately $4 million in state funding.

By the end of each year, Associate Superintendent Heather Clabaugh said the school system has approximately $9.7 to $16 million dollars -or a little more than 1%- of the budget left over. She says losing that $4 million would push the school system ever closer to the budget’s margin. “It could change the FY27 budget because you don’t have the funds to carry over,” Clabaugh said.

Accountability

Across 2025, parents have complained classes have gotten too big, with some reaching 30 or even 40 students in a single room. At the same time, teachers have reported a growing need to get second, or even third jobs to afford to work in Frederick.

Dr. Sarah Sirgo, FCPS Chief of Staff, said that while she loves the idea of the blueprint, it is making it hard for the school system to address the concerns of students, their families, and faculty. “We’re basically just trying to hold on to what we have,” Dr. Sirgo explained. “There’s no opportunity, as we begin the work of designing the superintendent's recommended budget, to add anything.”

That’s because the funding formulas used by the blueprint are based on the previous school year’s student count. As such, the policy creates a lagging effect, which Clabaugh said is holding FCPS back.

Dr. Sirgo thinks FCPS has done a good job working with the blueprint, but says when designing a policy for an entire state, one size doesn’t always fit all.

Complying with the policy can prove difficult, Clabaugh explained, as changes in employment throughout the year can push schools out of compliance. “If you have a school with a small multilingual learner population…you might have one teacher,” Clabaugh explained. “If that teacher happens to leave mid year, complying with 75% is almost impossible.”

While the MSF policy is supposed to act as an accountability measure, ensuring money is spent on the students who need it, Dr. Sirgo says the issue has been turned into more of a math problem. “We can tell you that we’re spending our money in our schools to serve our kids, and our staffing formulas tell that story,” Dr. Sirgo said.

Pre-Covid Policy

As much as Clabaugh loves spreadsheets, she said looking at school funding and accountability from this lens won't answer the questions of today. Especially when focusing on policy decisions that are -at times- over a decade old.

In particular, Clabaugh pointed out how the Blueprint’s policy does not effectively look at continuum of care. She pointed out that the needs of multilingual students from one school to the next can be very different. “It doesn’t give the schools the ability to do what they need to do to meet the needs of the students,” Clabaugh explained.

In order to meet the needs of Frederick Schools that do have significant populations of students relying on school programs, Clabaugh recommended the addition of another tier to help catch those students.