On Sept. 11, MCPS’s Board of Education released their first comprehensive Antiracist System Audit report after two years of data collection.

The report, which was written in collaboration with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, was done in response to a growing need for school systems to address race-related issues. “Taking on the issue of racism in society is not easy work,” Board President Brenda Wolff said.

The audit covered six areas: Workforce Diversity Analysis, Work Conditions: Progress and Barriers, PreK-12 Equity Curriculum Review, Equity Achievement Framework Progress, Community Relations and Engagement and Evaluation of School Cultures. “This was an audit that was commissioned for us to be proactive in our approach to review how Montgomery County Public Schools take input from our stakeholders – our students, our staff, and our communities,” MCPS Superintendent Dr. Monifa McKnight said.

The Montgomery County Board of Education will utilize the audit to create a comprehensive plan, which will identify and update policies, as well as prioritize ongoing community engagement. The report recommends action in five key areas: coherence, accounting for racial equity work, equity-centered capacity building, continuous data collection and relational trust. The plan is set to release in March 2023.

“As we look at those areas, we want to make sure we are framing the measurements, or the milestones, [from stakeholders] that show our progress towards being an antiracist district,” Equity Unit Director Dr. Anthony R. Alston said.

In order to be holistic in its approach, the audit began by reviewing pre-existing county data, documents, practices, and policies. The report cited data from 2015 through 2021 showing student performance at the elementary school level.

“You will see that Hispanic and African American student performance in the areas of English and mathematics are significantly less than white and Asian students,” McKnight said. “There are gaps ranging from 38 to almost 46 percentage points.”

The Covid-19 pandemic posed challenges for both the audit and students alike, with marginalized communities hit the hardest. Student experiences in the form of Instagram accounts provided the county with anecdotal evidence regarding school environments across all districts.

“There is some form of information from almost all of our high schools where students have posted from different Instagram accounts and they shared their experiences of racism,” McKnight said. “Many of the experiences that you see are not just experiences that are shared by our African American students, but also our Latino students, our white students, and our Asian American students.”

A newly formed Antiracist Audit Steering Committee played a key role in data collection throughout the course of the audit. “This steering committee is representative of multiple staff, student, and stakeholder groups that came together to not just react to what the audit data collections were saying, but to actually help in crafting this audit,” Chief of Strategic Initiatives Stephanie Sheron said.

The Black and Brown Coalition, an organization formed by the Montgomery County branch of the NAACP, was one group represented in the Steering Committee. Montgomery County NAACP Education Chair Byron A. Johns is hopeful that this audit will open the door for MCPS to reform its policies to cater to communities. “We’re hoping that this work will be sustained as our families are desperately in need of it,” Johns said.