High-quality facilities and a comprehensive infrastructure are fundamental to learning and teaching. The physical environment of school buildings and school grounds is a key factor in the overall health and safety of students, staff members, and visitors.
Safe and clean environments are most conducive to learning and teaching. A robust infrastructure, including central office supports and an ever-improving technological framework, facilitates student learning and high-quality teaching.
Earlier this month, ACPS announced the appointment of Mignon Anthony as chief operating officer, who will spearhead our efforts in these areas in line with our ACPS 2020 Strategic Plan Goal 4: Facilities and the Learning Environment. Anthony will join ACPS on January 17, 2018, bringing with her a wealth of experience in long-term educational facilities planning, extensive community engagement and creative procurement strategies.
She is also highly experienced in managing large-scale, multi-faceted projects, which will be instrumental as we bring the new Patrick Henry School and the new West End Elementary schools online, and as we work to modernize our facilities and build new schools in the years to come.
As part of our annual update to the School Board on December 7 on Goal 4, our division has faced a number of challenges related to school capacity and aging school facilities. We are confident that Anthony’s experience as part of the Joint City-Schools Facilities Investment Task Force, and her experience leading the strategic and operations efforts to modernize the Baltimore City Public School’s aging school facilities, will propel ACPS forward in meeting facilities and infrastructure goals.
As Interim Superintendent Lois F. Berlin shared in her weekly Superintendent’s Chat, our Capital Improvement Program budget is a major component of our improvement plan that will have a significant impact on our ability to meet our goals for providing optimal learning environments for all of our students. So to will the implementation of new school boundaries as part of the redistricting process.
We look forward to continued success in meeting our information technology infrastructure goals, which support teaching and learning through the equitable distribution of resources.
ACPS 2020 is built upon six goals: Academic Excellence and Educational Equity, Family and Community Engagement, An Exemplary Staff, Facilities and the Learning Environment, Health and Wellness, Effective and Efficient Operations.