- Garrett County Public Schools
- Core Priorities of the GCPS Strategic Plan 2024-2027
GCPS Strategic Plan 2024-2027
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Core Priorities of the GCPS Strategic Plan 2024-2027
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Priority One: Staffing
Recruit and Retain High Quality Staff
In Garrett County, we have a highly talented staff of 565 full-time benefited employees including 306 teachers who educate approximately 3,400 students. Of our teaching staff, 5.7% are National Board Certified (NBC) and the average teacher tenure is 14.9 years. Each year, 8.26% of our staff transition out of their roles. As we implement the Maryland Blueprint, a key priority is improving staff retention, particularly in critical areas such as special education.
To address this, we are developing a Career Ladder that offers competitive pay, a balanced school day with dedicated time for teacher planning and collaboration, and an enhanced evaluation system that meets the needs of all teachers. This Career Ladder will reflect our local context and values while clearly outlining role descriptions at each of the four levels as well as the pathway for staff to progress between them. As part of the Career Ladder, we aim to identify talented teacher leaders who will provide job-embedded learning for our staff. Through the Career Ladder, we will also incentivize our teachers to pursue and earn National Board Certification.
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Priority Two: High-Quality Instruction
Provide All Students with Access to High-Quality Instruction and Support
Garrett County Public Schools has made tremendous progress in shifting core classroom instructional practices toward the Science of Reading. We fully trained all Pre-K3 through 2nd-grade teachers as well as intervention, special education teachers, and elementary administrators. This work in literacy has provided a strong foundation for moving towards Science of Learning aligned practices in other subject areas.
Looking ahead, we are focused on strengthening our core and supplemental instruction. In the summer of 2024, we convened a committee of school staff to develop a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) Playbook intended to provide guidance, tools, and resources to schools around identifying and supporting students who are not on track to being college and career ready. Over the next three years, district and school leaders will be working towards full implementation of the playbook and MTSS model by providing professional learning around how to use our Cycle of Continuous Improvement to strengthen core instruction as well as our interventions using evidence based practices.
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Priority Three: Partnerships
Foster Collaboration Between Schools, Communities, and Families
Garrett County Public Schools offers a range of quality programming for students from cradle to career. We currently offer universal Pre-K4 to all students who desire to attend and have begun to increase access for eligible three-year-olds by exploring innovative models such as collaborative classrooms with Head Start. At the secondary level, we have worked with local institutions of higher education (Garrett College, Frostburg University, West Virginia University, and Allegany Community College) and local businesses to increase access for our high school students to dual enrollment courses, apprenticeships, and Career Technical Education (CTE) programs. We have also redesigned our secondary master schedule to allow for the greater flexibility needed to enable students to benefit from these programs.
Looking ahead, we still want to reach more eligible students. In PreK3 this means offering high-quality private and public programs so that caregivers have access to quality options that are close to home. At the secondary level, we need to continue building our Advanced Placement and Apprenticeship options.
