Building Better Schools for Our Kids and Our Future

Nick Stewart is the only candidate in this race who has served within the Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) system, as Vice Chair of the School Board, and he understands what it takes to deliver results for students, families and educators including teachers and support professionals.

While the school board sets policy and the superintendent manages daily operations, the County Executive cannot sit on the sidelines. With 55% of every county dollar funding BCPS, the County Executive must lead in ensuring that our schools work—and work well—for every child.

Education isn’t just another line item in the budget. It’s the foundation of Baltimore County’s future. The tragedy of our age is that 74% of children in Baltimore County live in poverty, with 50% living in extreme poverty. Moreover, 25% of high schoolers living in poverty have attempted to take their own lives. School may be the best meal these children have and educators can be powerful role models. We must do more to ensure our children are given opportunity, safety and health. It starts with a school district that is accountable, compassionate and engaged. 

Nick’s Plan to Strengthen Our Schools:

• Recruit and Retain High-Quality Educators: Successful schools start with high-quality teachers and high-quality support professionals. We must support our educators by increasing and protecting pay, reducing our unsustainable class sizes, expanding career pathways, and restoring the professional autonomy educators deserve. We must finish the work of building rewarding career paths into leadership, tenure and more so that the passion of the vocation translates into a beneficial long-term career.
• Re-evaluate Academic Goals: We must end the era of teaching to the test and ensure teacher performance is evaluated by thoughtful classroom observation and reviews of student work. Our testing practices must be calibrated to help us understand the state of the schools and improve county resource allocation to address factors like poverty, special needs, transiency, etc. Setting measurable academic goals with calibrated testing efforts will ensure that BCPS leaders are held accountable, teachers are given the freedom to teach, and our students are given the space to succeed.
• Ensure College and Career Readiness: We need to rebuild college and career readiness programs from the ground up in the County so that our web of programs is effective and easy to access, rather than duplicative and difficult to understand. That means developing a comprehensive online interface for students and caregivers so that they can easily identify the opportunities that make the most sense for the student. Meanwhile, we should leverage AVID and the Early College Access Program, expand the P-TECH program and the BCPS Work-Based Learning program so that we meet and exceed our state-mandated college and career readiness goals.
• Sponsor an AI Workforce Education Taskforce: The taskforce would combine resources from BCPS, universities and industry partners to understand how AI will reshape our economy and industries. It would ensure we have resources to meet the needs of our economy right here in the County and that our graduates are prepared for an AI-enabled job market.
• A Culture of Mentorship and Engagement: Nick will spend at least one week a year as a substitute teacher at a different school across the county. He will also visit every BCPS school on the anniversary of his swearing-in as a mentor to students. He expects his senior staff and employees of BCPS Central Office to do the same.
  • The One Hour Initiative: Nick will lead the charge for every BCPS parent to volunteer at least one hour per school year in their child’s school to empower our schools to be the center of our communities.
• Enable Full Transparency and Accountability: We will reimagine Education Stat as SchoolStat, a public-facing, educator-informed performance dashboard that empowers teachers, support professionals, parents and taxpayers to understand what’s working and what’s not. It will also allow them to be part of a decision-making process using disaggregated data and state-of-the-art interfaces.
• Fix School Overcrowding: Unsustainable class sizes can be addressed by continuing school construction and renovation projects, eliminating space shortages once and for all.
• Expand Access to Free Full-Day Pre-K: Universal Pre-K will help parents—especially women—stay in the workforce without childcare barriers.
• Invest in Community Schools: Community schools offer wraparound services for students, families and underserved communities. Housing insecurity is a key factor in academic underperformance. We need to continue and expand critical programs like rental assistance grant programs so that our families are more secure, leading to more successful children.

Baltimore County can’t afford to fall behind. With Nick’s leadership, we’ll prioritize students, support educators and make BCPS a system that truly works for every family.

For more on Nick’s vision for strengthening Baltimore County schools, check out his op-ed below:

Maryland leaders must safeguard education investment | GUEST COMMENTARY

Facing looming budget shortfalls, Maryland shouldn’t be too hasty to cut education funding, Nick Stewart and Abby Beytin write.

Baltimore Sun