Blueprint board staff will soon have an office to call home
For more than three years, they've had a high-profile and an outsized impact on the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, but there's one thing the Accountability and Implementation Board has not had in all the time: a home.
That changes this fall when the board's 10 employees are scheduled to move into an office space on West Street in Annapolis, after largely working virtually since the board first met in November 2021.
The board on Thursday approved a 10-year lease with Annapolis West Limited Partnership for a 3,012-square-foot office on West Street in Annapolis. The action follows Board of Public Works approval on Feb. 26 of an initial annual lease agreement of $119,124 for the space, increasing every year until it reaches $155,430 by the final year of the lease.
In this fiscal year's budget, the board has $140,000 for office space, supplies and equipment.
While the lease includes services such as electricity, water and sewer, cleaning supplies and snow removal, it says the AIB will be responsible for about 6% of any increase in those expenses during the first year of the lease. Board employees will also be able to rent up to eight parking spaces attached to the building, at additional cost.
In addition the 10 current employees, the office advertised for an additional four workers, said AIB Executive Director Rachel Hise — three education policy analysts and a financial data analyst.
Hise said the board could take occupancy of the space sometime in the fall. She also said a 'limited number' of people could be able to attend meetings are held in person in the new space. Except for the occasional joint meeting with the state Board of Education, the majority of AIB meetings have been held online.
The lease was the biggest bit of business in a busy, four-hour — virtual — meeting Thursday.
In other business, the board extended the time for local school officials to submit a comprehensive math plan to the state Department of Education. The plans, which had been due by June 30, 2025, will now be due on Sept. 30.
The extension is designed to let the department draft new guidance and technical support to school systems as they develop their plans.
It comes as state performance on the math portion of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress improved slightly for fourth- and eighth-grade students from 2022, when the state ranked 42nd for both grades. The state moved up to 39th place for fourth graders in 2024, and 38th for eighth graders that year.
The average math score for fourth graders rose from 229 to 234, while the average for the state's eighth graders slipped from 269 to 268 in 2024.
The board also heard a presentation from representatives with NORC at the University of Chicago, which was approved in January to perform an interim evaluation on the overall Blueprint plan. Jenna Scott, co-principal investigator and vice president at NORC, called the state's Blueprint plan 'bold and critical.'
'We've worked with states that I think are forward-thinking in approaches, but this is different,' she said. 'I think the systems-change aspect makes it particularly unique.'
The nonprofit research organization plans to speak with various school officials and other stakeholders and review documents to assess the implementation progress for an initial report due in June.
That will be followed by a year of surveys to assess the successes and challenges of the Blueprint plan and assess administrative data through the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center. The center produced a report last year that included trends on new teachers trained in and out of the state, longevity of teachers and graduates of early childhood programs.
An interim evaluation report is due by Dec. 1, 2026, which will be the basis for an AIB report to the governor and General Assembly by Jan. 15, 2027.
Once a report is completed next year, Margaret 'Meg' Hargreaves, principal investigator and senior fellow at NORC, said seven presentations on the Blueprint assessment will be conducted through May 2027.
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