By Adam Pagnucco.
With both funding and scrutiny rising for MCPS, the State of Maryland has raised an issue that may have local ramifications: MCPS has misreported its enrollment to the state and has therefore received overpayments of state aid. And MCPS is not alone.
The saga began in April 2022, when the Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education (OIGE) released a report questioning the accuracy of statewide public school enrollment data. OIGE audited enrollment from school years 2016-17 through 2020-21 and found the following:
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OIGE discovered 2,973 instances of students who were deemed eligible for state funding but did not meet the attendance or enrollment requirements in COMAR [Code of Maryland Regulations]. 995 of these students had no documented attendance at any point during the year.
Despite the noted discrepancies representing only a small percentage of the overall enrollment counts for Maryland schools, they represent at least $23.4 million ($12.9M state, $10.5M local) in funding that was misallocated to LEAs [local education agencies] over the five-year period reviewed. Further, systemic issues identified at selected schools indicate that additional discrepancies likely exist.
Over 92% (2,757) of the discrepancies were self-reported by LEAs to MSDE [Maryland State Department of Education] in subsequent reporting. However, MSDE did not identify or act on these discrepancies during the reporting process or during the state aid program audits completed.
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These overall findings coincided with a rash of corresponding reports on individual school districts. One report released in January covered MCPS. On MCPS, here is what OIGE wrote pertaining to school years 2016-17 through 2021-22:
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OIGE discovered 604 instances of ineligible students being included on MCPS’ enrollment counts for state aid, which resulted in over $4.4 million in misallocated funds to MCPS.
The errors in eligibility determination were a result of attendance not always being properly recorded, and school staff not properly withdrawing chronically absent students in the short timeframe available to Local Educational Agencies.
Further, MCPS has not initiated effective county-wide initiatives to identify schools with attendance accuracy and withdrawal processing issues. As such, the number of annual discrepancies has increased during the investigative audit scope.
Despite the noted discrepancies representing only a small percentage of the overall enrollment counts for MCPS, a failure to correct identified shortcomings could result in further funding misallocations in the future.
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OIGE “selected a risk-based judgmental sample of 179 students” from five high schools: Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill, John F. Kennedy, Montgomery Blair and Northwood. Of this sample, OIGE found that 43, or 23%, “did not meet the state aid eligibility requirements in COMAR.” Twelve of these students “had no documented attendance on or before September 30” and 31 students “should have been withdrawn on or before September 30 based on their last documented day of attendance.”
Why is this happening? OIGE wrote: “Regarding the students with no documented attendance, OIGE found that MCPS’ student attendance is not always recorded accurately. The process for withdrawing noshows begins with school personnel running reports in the student information system during the first few weeks of school to identify students without any documented attendance. However, PPWs [pupil personnel workers] at several schools stated that students are often incorrectly marked present because the student information system defaults to present when a teacher does not actively record attendance. As a result, no-show students do not show up on any reporting identifying students for withdrawal.”
OIGE further wrote: “MCPS Office of Accountability stated that there was no coordinated central effort to improve attendance records accuracy during the reviewed investigative audit period. The Office of Accountability provided reminders to attendance secretaries to contact teachers having issues, but accountability for accurate attendance was mainly at the school level.”
In other words, MCPS knew this was a problem and did little about it, allowing millions of taxpayer dollars to be improperly allocated to the school system.
That’s not all. OIGE also found problems with enrollment reporting in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. Minor issues were found in Dorchester County and Talbot County.
There is a huge geographic equity issue here. Since enrollment is a part of state aid formulas, school districts who overreport enrollment will get increased state aid at the expense of school districts who report accurately. MSDE and OIGE should audit all 24 Maryland school districts to identify the ones who should be made whole. Elected officials who represent the districts that have accurate enrollment reporting should be especially interested in making this happen.
There is also the possibility that the problem at MCPS is much larger than what was found in the audit’s 179-student sample, which OIGE acknowledged. Recently, MoCo360 reported that “nearly a quarter of all Montgomery County Public School students are currently considered ‘chronically absent.’” MoCo360’s article contained this gem: “School board member Grace Rivera-Oven (Dist. 1) recently visited John F. Kennedy High School in Glenmont, where she said she was told the truancy rate averages 50%.”
State aid is clearly impacted by faulty enrollment reporting. What about county taxpayer money? Are taxpayers paying for students who don’t show up? If they are, what is happening to that money?
At this moment, there appears to be more questions than answers as the data is incomplete. But with county tax hikes being passed to direct more money to schools, government officials in MCPS and beyond owe it to taxpayers to make sure our money is spent transparently and effectively.