Antiracist System Audit

March 30, 2023

Dear MCPS Community,

I am writing to update you on the progress we are making to address the findings of the Antiracist System Audit. 

Montgomery County Public Schools presented a report written by the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium (MAEC) in October of 2022. The report provided, powerful, revealing and, concerning insight of our school system based on input from more than 130,000 students, staff, and family members.

We launched the audit because we have racial disparities in almost every measure of academic achievement in MCPS. These disparities have been part of the MCPS story for decades and continue to impact our schools every day despite many efforts to eliminate them. Our students, staff, and families deserve better. 

We have gathered input and feedback from the community at every step of this process. Our equity team has provided opportunities to engage students, families, and staff through 16 Community Conversations where stakeholders have come together to understand the audit findings and provide feedback to shape  the long-term action plan.

Our action steps since the findings in the report are broken up into three categories: 

• System-wide actions

• Domain-specific actions

• School-specific actions

I invite you to review the work we have done in each category. These steps will lead to a long-term, comprehensive action plan. We will present this plan to the Board of Education and community on Thursday, May 11, 2023. 

If you have not already, I encourage you to visit the Antiracist System Audit webpage to read the full report or the executive summary, and to better understand all the findings, recommendations, and work being done. 

Thank you to our students whose voices have helped inspire the audit, everyone in our community who took the survey and attended community conversations, and the MCPS staff leading the audit work. Addressing racism and racial disparities can be a hard topic to tackle for schools, but not impossible. We are working to ensure an antiracist and culturally responsive school district where all students, families, and staff feel safe, valued, seen, and successful.

In partnership,

Monifa McKnight, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools