School System Gets Ready For Transformation 2026: Equity and Excellence Strategic Plan

By Tiffany Young

Dr. Monica Goldson, Chief Executive Officer for Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS), is the dedicated and dynamic leader of the 20th largest school district in the nation. A product of the public school system, she has spent her entire career serving students in the same community where she was raised and where she chose to raise her own family. Dr. Goldson addressed The Greater Prince George’s Business Roundtable on July 13.

Prince George’s Suite: While the school system is on Summer break, what’s happening?

Goldson: It's summer and for most people, it's time to rejuvenate for the upcoming school year, but there are a lot of PGCPS employees working to support our K through 12 free summer school programs for credit recovery and for accelerated learning. We have staff who are passing out meals daily to families who are still in need. We are repairing our building for the start of the new school year, and we're planning to make sure that the upcoming school year is better than the last one. For the 2021/2022 school year.

Prince George’s Suite: What are some plans for the next school year?

Goldson: We're happy to be able to go into the upcoming school year with some sense of normalcy and being able to adapt to everything that keeps coming at us from the pandemic. Despite the challenges I do want to share some of our points of pride. We have a historic investment in public education with 10 schools under construction by the end of this school year, including a new student high school building and we just completed Cherokee Lane Elementary School, which I'll be going to in a few hours.

Prince George’s Suite: What have been some academic or organizational changes?

Goldson: We leveraged our lessons of the pandemic to improve our educational opportunities. Despite the learning loss discussion around remote learning, we launched an online campus to serve our middle and high school students who still wanted that form of teaching and learning and those students have all been successful. We've improved our environmental sustainability efforts through an amazing climate action plan that we will be implementing starting this year and for the next 15 years to do a real true climate-friendly PGCPS environment, our new strategic plan entitled transformation 2026, and it's anchored in equity to guide our decisions, priorities, and resources over the next five years.

Prince George’s Suite: Can you tell us about the infrastructure enhancement?

Goldson: For the six schools that are under construction through alternative construction financing or what people mostly known as P3, all six of those schools will be ready in the fall of 2023. That is next school year. There'll be 8,000 new seats for students that school year. Most new buildings are Drew Freeman Heights, a new middle school in the delta area and that in the Southern part of the county has now been named Colin Powell K-8 Academy. Social infrastructure deal of the year and best deal in North America by IJ global and we were honored in New York this year and we were also named as a 2021 school infrastructure project of the year by the P3 Award.

Prince George’s Suite: What were some top accomplishments in the 2021-2022 school year?

Goldson: The conclusion of the school year we had over 7,000 graduates who had accumulated over $200 million in scholarships. Increase in our graduation rate and we also were able to have a decrease in the number of students who dropped out and actually a five year low with the number of students who dropped out. We had an increase in the number of Hispanic students who remained in our schools. In addition, we also received an award for our language immersion program from the National School Board Association and from the college board received an AP computer science female diversity award for DuVal, Eleanor Roosevelt, CIMT North and South for the number of young women who were taking advanced placement exams. We concluded the school year we're planning for next school year. As I shared earlier we'll be opening a new Cherokee Lane Elementary School.

Prince George’s Suite: What are the priorities for the 2022-2023 school year?

Goldson: Our focus for this school year will be on school climate and culture, mental health support and focus on mathematics instruction. We will announce our second phase of the blueprint schools. We are hoping to have six more schools that we will announce this fall. Six or more that we will announce this fall for new construction. We were able to improve staff compensation for four out of our five labor bargaining units. Historic pay increases that they have not seen in over 25 years.

Prince George’s Suite: The new strategic plan discusses a transformational workforce. What steps are being taken to achieve that?

Goldson: We are in recruiting season, getting more teachers and staffers. I normally have my background that says come teach with us. If you know anyone who wants to be a member of our professional family please do not hesitate to reach out to me and we will make sure they give you a personal call to join PGCPS. Nationwide, there's a growing gap between the demand for K-12 teachers, but we are working vigorously to make sure that we close that gap. Most recently I did an op-ed in matters around really helping to close that gap and needing support from the state to think of the non-traditional ways to help us to do that.