News

The Instructional Support Center, formerly the Teacher Support Center is opening soon with new hours and expectations for the 2024-2025 school year. 

The Instructional Support Center (ISC) will be open on Tuesday, August 13 and Wednesday, August 14 from 12-3 p.m. We are in the process of shifting to a new scheduling system to better accommodate teacher needs. For Aug. 13-14 only, no scheduling will be required to use the laminator and poster maker, with the following restrictions:

• Staff will be limited to 15-minute use of the laminator and poster maker.
• Quantities will be limited to one class set or resources.

Scheduling details for the remainder of the 2024-2025 school year will be shared in the coming weeks.

The ISC will be closed during inservice week and will reopen for the school year on Tuesday, Aug. 27. ISC operating hours for the 2024-2025 school year will be Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4-7 p.m. Please note, the ISC will be closed any day schools are closed.

Due to staffing, budget, and liability constraints be advised of the following:

• The ISC will be manned by classroom teacher leaders.
• The ISC will only be accessible during the designated operating hours. NO ONE WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE CENTER at any other time.
• Staff can access the ISC via the right side entrance, and will need to be buzzed in. Directional signage will be prominently displayed.
• When bringing materials to the center to laminate, staff may only make materials for one class set. Staff may not make resources for their whole team, office, or program.
• The color copier will only be used for instructional purposes aligned with curriculum that are pre-approved by the ISC staff.  
• ISC resources are explicitly to be used by teachers and paraeducators creating instructional resources for students.
• HCPSS offices and programs should work with Print Services for their instructional materials.

The 2024-2025 salary and step information is now available for employee review. Please use the attached Workday instructions to generate and review the “Compensation Review” report with your compensation information. Contact the Office of Human Resources at humanresources@hcpss.org with questions.

NOTE: Leave balances may be accessed by viewing Time Off in Workday. This information reflects leave balances for the 2024-2025 school year.

The Maryland State Retirement Agency (MSRA) has changed their requirements for FY25 that may impact your biweekly pension deduction. To comply, HCPSS must make changes to our Maryland pension deduction schedule. See attached for full details.

Changes to Number of Pension Deductions

• Months are worked (not paid)
• 11-month workers have no change
• 10-month and 12-month workers have no change in annual contribution; however, your per pay contribution will be lower as the annual contribution is spread over more periods, as noted above.
• Deduction dates can be found on Canvas/Workday Community Deduction Schedules
   

This message provides HCPSS staff with an annual update about the Low Performing Schools identified for the 2024-2025 school year and the impact of these changes on National Board Certified (NBC) teachers. Learn more about Maryland’s Blueprint for the Future and the NBC teacher pay.  
 

What are the Low Performing Schools for the 2024-2025 school year? 

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) created two categories of Low Performing School identification:  

• State Defined (Required) - schools identified as 1-star and 2-star schools in 2019 and 2022 accountability. HCPSS had no State Defined schools in 2022-2023 & 2023-2024.  
• Local Flexibility (Optional) - bottom 10% of local schools in the state accountability system. At the March 24, 2022 BOE meeting, the Board voted to designate all of the Local Flexibility schools below for the incentive pay.  

The HCPSS schools designated as locally Low Performing Schools for the 2024-2025 school year are:  

• Cradlerock Elementary School (Continued Local Flexibility) 
• Harper’s Choice Middle School (State Defined) 
• Lake Elkhorn Middle School (State Defined) 
• Oakland Mills Middle School (Continued Local Flexibility) 
• Wilde Lake Middle School (Continued Local Flexibility 
• Long Reach High School (New Local Flexibility) 
• Oakland Mills High School (Continued Local Flexibility) 
• Homewood Center (Continued Local Flexibility) 

How Does This Impact HCPSS Staff? 

Swansfield Elementary School is no longer identified as a Low Performing School for the 2024-2025 school year. HCPSS NBCT staff, in eligible roles, at Swansfield Elementary School: 

• Continue receiving the $7,000 incentive pay if they are currently eligible in 2023-2024.  
• Not receive the $7,000 incentive pay if they achieve NBCT status as of December 2024. 
• Not receive the $7,000 incentive pay if they transfer into the school or are hired by the school during the 2024-2025 school year.  

Background on NBC Teacher Salary Increase 
 

The Blueprint increases the salary by $10,000 of National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) who are actively teaching in Maryland public schools. For the purpose of identifying which NBCTs will receive the $10,000 income supplement, Maryland House Bill 1300 (p. 122) defines “teacher” as “a certified public school employee who is primarily responsible and accountable for teaching students in the class.” 

NBCTs staying or moving to a Low Performing School will receive an additional $7,000 added to their salary. As long as they stay at that school, an NBCT will continue to earn the salary increase, even if the school shows improvement and is no longer identified as a low performing school. A new list of possible schools for designation will be provided each year by MSDE. The HCPSS Board of Education will then make decisions on which schools will be designated as low performing. 

While HCPSS honors and supports the Blueprint distinction and incentives to recruit NBCTs to work in low performing schools, NBCT certification isn’t the only distinction that determines teacher mastery or responsiveness to students and community. For this purpose and aligned with provisions in the teacher contract and HCPSS policy, staff selection remains a school-based decision. NBCTs who express an interest in transferring to an identified school will be considered along with all other transfer candidates and will not receive special consideration due to their NBCT status. 

• Any desired supplemental digital tools that are not currently on the approved/not approved tools list should be submitted using the new Digital Tools Request form found in the Service Request (SR) System by May 30. 

  Additional Information: A digital tool is an interactive website, application including Google services, or software that requires an account with a username and password. HCPSS categorizes digital tools as Supplementary or Essential.  

  More information, including currently approved tools, can be found on the HCPSS Digital Tools public website and the Digital Tools Canvas community. If, after reviewing the information, you have questions regarding the approval process for digital tools, please email Julie Wray.

  • When staff submit a request through the SR system, principals/supervisors will need to sign off. A supervisor might deny a request because the tool is not instructionally appropriate or requires a purchase that is not within the school’s budget. 
  • Following supervisor approval, the tool is reviewed for data privacy, accessibility, technology, and curriculum standards.
  • Throughout the workflow, the submitter will receive updated emails regarding the status of their submission.
  • Forms submitted after May 30 may not be approved for the start of the next school year and will be reviewed as time allows.  
  • Staff are reminded that P-cards cannot be used to purchase supplemental digital tools.
  • Supplementary Digital Tools: HCPSS authorizes digital tools to be used as supplementary (non-essential) enrichments to staff and students’ educational experiences. Parents have the right to opt their students out of these digital tools. Examples include Khan Academy, Kahoot, and Plickers.
  • Essential Digital Tools*: Essential Digital Tools are digital tools that HCPSS considers necessary to deliver educational programs and operational services that support the system's goals. Examples include, but are not limited to, those linked on the student landing page, hcpss.me.
    
    *School-based staff should not request essential digital tools. These are requested by curriculum staff. 

HCPSS Acting Superintendent William J. Barnes on April 22 announced the recipients of the school system’s annual principal and teachers of the year award:

• Principal of the Year: Dr. Joelle Miller, Centennial High School
• Teacher of the Year: Jeanette Swank, Ellicott Mills Middle School
• Teacher of the Year: Jessica Nichols, River Hill High School

Each recipient was named during surprise visits at their respective schools, and will be recognized at an upcoming Howard County Board of Education meeting. The three also serve as the HCPSS nominees for Washington Post Principal of the Year, Washington Post Teacher of the Year (Swank) and Maryland State Department of Education Teacher of the Year (Nichols).

Read more about these outstanding staff members online.

Staff should be aware there is the potential for meaningful emails to be directed to staff members’ junk folders.  

Because email providers and their users are inundated with unsolicited email, providers use various strategies to try to help their users focus on the email that are important to them, and to block or sort malicious and/or unwanted correspondences. One effective strategy is an automation that sorts messages that have a high likelihood of being spam into a Junk or Spam folder.  At times, this automation may lead to meaningful emails to be directed to a junk folder. 

Recommendations: 

• Check your Junk mail folder regularly.
• Teach your account which emails are junk and which are relevant. Over time the algorithm used will be more in tune with your wishes. 

Please contact HCPSS Technology Support at techsupport@hcpss.org if you require technical assistance.

Staff emailing external recipients should be on the lookout for bounce back messages and seek alternative means of communications and/or try again later if bounce back messages are received. 

Staff are seeing an increased number of bounce back messages when emailing some external addresses that say “Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups: <email address>...Your message couldn't be delivered. Despite repeated attempts to contact the recipient's email system it didn't respond.”  Reports have shown that some yahoo.com and aol.com addresses have been impacted and there may be others. Microsoft has confirmed that a third-party anti-spam service is blocking a portion of Microsoft’s servers to protect organizations that use their services. Microsoft is working with the anti-spam service to rectify the issue. 

Please email HCPSS Technology Support at techsupport@hcpss.org if you require technical assistance. 

Using unknown USB drives poses a significant security risk, as they may contain malware or other malicious software. 

To safeguard our network and protect your data, please adhere to the following guidelines: 

1. Avoid Connecting Unknown USB Drives: Refrain from plugging in any USB drive that you find or receive from an unknown or untrusted source. If a community member needs to share files with you, suggest they place the files in a secure online location, such as Google Drive, and use the sharing permissions to provide access. 
2. Report Suspicious Drives: If you come across an unattended or suspicious USB drive, please follow your school’s regular lost and found procedures so that owners can potentially find their lost USB drive, and if not dispose of the drive. 

A new resource: USB Attacks: Small Devices, Big Threats, has been added to your KnowBe4 library. The resource can be accessed by navigating to the Staff Hub > Services > KnowBe4 Cybersecurity Resources > Library. 

By following these guidelines, we can collectively enhance the security of our systems and ensure a safe working environment. 

Please contact HCPSS Technology Support at techsupport@hcpss.org if you require technical assistance.

The Get To Know series was created to help staff learn more about HCPSS leaders in schools and offices with whom they may not typically interact. HCPSS leaders answer a mix of personal and professional questions in an effort to let all employees get to know them better. 

Why did you choose to work in education?
As a student at University of Maryland, I led lobbying efforts to improve access to education and that fueled my passion to get involved in public service. That led to a career in public policy at the federal, state and local levels and in each of those roles, the most rewarding work I did was around education initiatives and I believe I have now come full circle.

While I'm not an educator, my job is to ensure that our educators, support staff, administrators, and students have the resources, services and access they need to ensure a high quality of education and supports. Whether it's enhancing existing programs or supporting a new program, opening a new building, or even navigating an emergency situation, I get to see the positive impact of our work every single day. 

What is the best professional advice you've ever received?
Senator Barbara Mikulski had some of the best guiding principles and I continue to use at least three of them on a regular basis:

• Always be clear about "What is the objective we seek?"
• We cannot always guarantee an outcome but we must guarantee an effort.
• Do not explain an abstraction with an abstraction.

What is something you like a lot that would surprise people?
Ketchup on pasta. I will probably regret putting this in writing. 

What is on your bucket list?
I love music and would love to learn to play the guitar.

What is the most interesting place you’ve ever been?
Rio de Janeiro. Beautiful city with a lot of culture, history and amazing food. I would love to go back and spend some more time there.