Second Senate panel needs more time to assess Blueprint measure

The clock may be ticking on a plan to reform Maryland’s sweeping education reform plan, but the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee will not be rushed.

The so-called “Triple E” committee held a nearly two-hour work session Monday when it entertained a series of amendments on policy portions of the “Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act,” those dealing with various state and local school system initiatives and teacher programs.

Sen. Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery), chair of the committee, said the goal is to possibly vote on the Senate version of the bill Tuesday, but the committee must first weigh several amendments that were presented Monday.

The deliberation comes after the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on Friday voted on the financial elements of the bill in a meeting that lasted about a half hour.

Amendments put forward Monday include a 17-page proposal offered by Sen. Karen Lewis Young (D-Frederick), a member of the Budget and Taxation Committee, whose amendment mirrored a Blueprint bill she sponsored earlier this year. That bill was heard by Triple E but was not voted on as a standalone measure. Part of it comes from a proposal released in December by the Public School Superintendents’ Association of Maryland.

Senate panel’s vote on Blueprint bill straddles House, administration versions

Another amendment offered Monday would include 3- and 4-year-old prekindergarten students who are diagnosed with a disability or who are “from a home in which English is not the primary spoken language” among Tier 1 students, who receive core instruction.

Another would clarify that an assistant principal or principal would not count as a teacher for purposes of the career ladder in the Blueprint.

Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore), who serves on the committee, submitted another proposal, similar to Lewis Young’s, to reduce pay bumps that teachers would receive for earning National Board Certifications, which have to be renewed every five years.

The Blueprint law would give a teacher $8,000 for the first certification, another $7,000 for the second certification and $6,000 for a third. The amendment proposed Monday would cut those amounts to $4,000 for the first and second certifications and $3,000 on the third.

Carozza offered two additional amendments: To allow school systems to request a waiver of the rule that requires all teachers start with a $60,000 salary as of July 1, 2026; and to establish a stakeholder work group to conduct a two-part assessment on Blueprint funding modifications and to analyze overall public school funding on items such as special education, transportation and employee benefits.

“My concern from the start was we need to pull in the local school superintendents, the boards of education, the counties. Because in the end, they have to implement this,” Carozza said after the committee meeting. “We can’t pass all these costs on to the counties and the local school systems.”

The Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Education Act was proposed by Gov. Wes Moore to delay or reduce some of the expansions of school programs that were scheduled in the Blueprint, the state’s 10-year, multibillion-dollar reform plan that is now in its third year.

The Moore changes were made in the face of the state’s projected $3 billion budget deficit for fiscal 2026, and the ongoing complaints from some local school boards that they needed more flexibility in how and how quickly the plan is implemented.

The House on March 11 adopted a version of the plan that rejected many of the governor’s changes and hewed more closely to the original Blueprint plan, particularly its proposed delay in “collaborative time” — giving teachers more time out of the classroom — and community schools, which are located in low-income neighborhoods.

The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on Friday agreed with some of the House version and some of the proposals laid out by the governor, insisting on community school funding but allowing for a delay in the start of collaborative time.

Whatever the Senate passes, Feldman said it will likely have to go to a conference committee with House members, who has passed a slightly different version of the bill. All of that would have to be accomplished with less than two weeks left in the legislative session, which is scheduled to end on April 7.