PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — In their first Board of Education (BOE) presentations of the 2026–2027 school year, Interim Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome and Student Member of the Board (SMOB) Allison Jones focused on goals, community, and positivity.
Newsome said the district onboarded 258 new licensed professionals and support staff, got new laptops for sixth and eighth graders, and secured $1 million in grants for security and facility improvements.
Newsome highlighted the excitement of teachers and students coming back to school and said he was proud of the many new staff members who’d been recently onboarded. He spent the first few weeks of the school year visiting schools and checking in with students, observing everything from ninth grade orientation to pre-K teacher training to sixth graders learning to open their lockers for the first time.
“I just want to share that I believe our schools are a reflection of the community they serve,” Newsome said in remarks after his presentation. “I’ve never seen a low-performing school in a high-functioning community.” He said children are a reflection of the adults in their lives and encouraged everyone involved in the school system or supporting students to remember that we’re role models and to model compassion, kindness and civility.
Jones said she’s kicking off her tenure — and her senior year — by creating a student advisory committee that will meet monthly to discuss issues that are important to them. She’s also checking in with all the schools in the district and their student governments and coordinating a visit to the county by the state SMOB, O’Marie Barns.
One major project Jones has in mind is encouraging student awareness of what is happening at the BOE.
“Students aren’t as aware of what’s happening at this level,” Jones said. “I want to find a way to put it out to them, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on,’ just so they’re in the know.”
Newsome and Jones will provide reports at each BOE meeting.
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Here’s what Calvert County taxpayers should have heard: “My job is the ensure I use the taxpayers’ money to teach Calvert County public school students how to read well, write well, and do mathematics at as high a level as each student is capable.”
What we heard instead was bureaucratic gobbledygook.
Until we rescue government education from the professional administrators, we’re simply navel-gazing.