Greetings this is Dr.

Sharon Pepukayi, Superintendent of

Talbot County Public Schools.

I have with me for this presentation Dr.

Helga Einhorn, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching,

Learning and Leading and Mrs.

Sarah Jones, Chief Financial Officer.

What you're about to see in the next

slides for this presentation will be the story

of our work, starting with strategic priorities.

The four factors that were considered during our

budget development the main cost drivers that affect

our budget requests, staffing needs and capital requests.

The Board of Education and myself did a deep dive into

the Strive for 25 strategic plan as well as the results

of the climate survey from last spring to establish priorities for

our work for the 23-24 school year.

This slide shows the four priorities that were

stamped Academic Equity and Achievement in math Engaging

Environment for Students and Staff Recruitment, Promotion and

Retention of highly qualified and diverse staff and

Meeting our Blueprint Objectives.

On this slide you could see the four

factors that went into formulating the budget (1) Community

survey (2) Student Enrollment, (3) Student Performance and (4) Blueprint Objectives.

The budget survey results are here on this slide.

We survey our community taxpayers each year to

gauge what they feel should be our priorities.

This graph highlights the top three

priorities from the survey respondents.

The top two are aligned with our board priorities.

You could see the first is around

salary and professional learning for recruiting and

retaining highly qualified, diverse teachers and leaders.

The second one investing in additional resources to

improve student achievement in math and reading and

the third priority was ensuring the highest level

of safety and security at all TCPS buildings.

The next factor is student

enrollment which includes pre k.

The student enrollment number averages the last three

years of our enrollment as we've seen a

slight decline over the last few years.

This slide that represents our special population shows

increase in some of our special populations.

For example, our special education

population represents about 12%.

Our students who qualify for free

and reduced meals is 59%.

Our english language learners make up

15%, totaling our 4504 students overall.

For all of the students here at TCPS, you

could see the trends over the last six years

in the increasing of our students who qualify for

free and reduced meals, english learners and special ed.

Our FARMS students grew from 45% in 2019% to

59% currently our EL 9% to 16% and our

special education 2% growth from eleven to 13%.

Our third factor is student performance data.

The Maryland Comprehensive Assessment program, or

MCAP, is given to students in

grades three through high school.

There was a slight increase in both, but we've set

our post pandemic baseline for the fall of 2023, so

students are getting ready to take another wave of assessment.

This MCAP and we will compare these results,

which we don't get into the fall.

We'll compare the results from our baseline

to what they do this current year.

Because of the lag in results for the

state assessment, we give an internal assessment that

you will see and hear about from Dr.

Einhorn.

English language arts specifically is on this slide and

you could see the comparison from 2022 to 2023.

There were increases in most groups but decreases

with our Hispanic English learners and Asian students.

The slide that shows how we are compared to

the entire state is that we slightly are below

the midpoint in English language arts proficiency for grades

three through eight, 5% lower than the state.

We're up by 1.4% from the previous year.

As a team, we're focused on achieving progress

in student learning, which we hope to see

reflected in this year's MCAP outcomes.

The math slide here shows comparison 2022 to 2023

and it's broken down by our different demographic groups.

This data that you see shows a decline

in some groups but slight increases in others.

Where we fall as a whole state,

you could see our percentages is 18%.

This has been a challenge for us, which

is why it is one of our priorities.

I can speak for the board of education, TCPS

educators, our students and their families in saying that

although our percentage has improved by 2% from the

previous year, these current results are unacceptable to us

and remains a focus of our work.

And finally, a factor for this for

formulating this TCPS budget is the blueprint.

The five blueprint pillars are listed here

early childhood education, high quality and diverse

teachers and leaders, college and career readiness

pathways, resources to ensure all students are

successful and governance and accountability.

The blueprint for Maryland's future was passed

by the Maryland General assembly in 2021

to transform public education in the state.

With these five pillars as a foundation, the

plan seeks to enrich student experiences and accelerate

student outcomes as well as improve the quality

of education for all children in Maryland, especially

those who have been historically underserved.

This is a slide that shows

our budget request 79,930,841.

The chart summarizes the items that are included in

the increase and the cost drivers for each one.

While much of it is related to Blueprint

Objectives, there are other factors beyond our control

such as inflation, retiree funding, and student needs.

Mrs.

Jones will expound on each of

these items in the next slides.

The budget increasing 7,880,475.

Why are we requesting this increase?

It is to continue essential work. Dr.

Einhorn will share what essential work has

been done and what we plan to

continue under each of our priorities.