Montgomery County Public Schools will not require 60 minutes of daily math instruction in elementary and middle schools next year, following the state's decision to push back its own deadline.
Chief Academic Officer Niki Porter told the Board of Education at its Friday, Oct. 9 session that MCPS would wait for further direction from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) before implementing the mandate.
"The state is still looking at a 2028-2029 school year implementation, but it does give us more time to figure out how we will make that happen," Porter said, according to Patch.
The requirement, part of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future legislation, would apply to students in grades K through 8. That covers schools across the Churchill and Wootton clusters, including Herbert Hoover Middle School. High schools are not affected.
Porter said the delay would have no impact on electives or course offerings for the 2027-28 school year.
State board pushed back the timeline first
The Maryland State Board of Education voted unanimously in August to shift the mandate's start from the 2027-28 school year to 2028-29, according to Conduit Street, a publication of the Maryland Association of Counties. State leaders cited an equity concern: without the delay, some students could receive hundreds of additional hours of math over a school year compared to peers in districts that had not yet added the time.
State stakeholders said the extension also gives MSDE more time to study the quality and type of additional minutes schools should devote to math, rather than simply requiring districts to add time to existing schedules.
Parent pushback reached the board
Board President Grace Rivera-Oven welcomed the delay at the meeting. She said the board had been "bombarded" by emails from residents worried about the policy's effect on electives and schedules.
Statewide, only 27.1% of Maryland students scored proficient in math on the 2025-26 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), according to MSDE data. That figure is up from 21.0% in 2021-22, and elementary math proficiency in grades 3 through 5 reached 35.8% statewide. MCPS ranks sixth out of 24 Maryland districts in math on state assessments, as the Beacon previously reported. Superintendent Thomas Taylor has said he wants the district at No. 1.
How the eventual 60-minute mandate fits into that goal remains an open question. MSDE has not announced a specific date for its next update on the requirement. The 2028-29 school year remains the state's target.
