Back To School!

Students, teachers, staff and parents, welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! I know this year will be a great one, and I look forward to seeing you at school visits and events this fall. Below are resources to help ensure your start to the school year is smooth.

Buses

By now, we’ve all heard the exciting news that bus drivers are in place for all routes. This is huge, considering what we’ve all been through the last couple of years. Be mindful that we are still building a bench of substitute drivers, and there is still a possibility of uncovered routes when drivers call out sick. All bus schedules can be found at www.aacps.org/buses.

New this year is a targeted communication system for the entire community that will notify you if your student’s specific bus is running late or out of service. The system provides email and text message notifications in either English or Spanish to those who register. Subscribers are asked to provide the bus number and school for which they wish to receive the notification. Messages will be sent at 7:30pm the night before a school day to alert users of delays and cancellations for the following school day. Messages will also be sent beginning at 6:00am on each school day and periodically through 8:45am as updates are entered from bus contractors.

Subscribers will receive one message per delay or cancellation and will receive an additional message if there is a change in that bus’ status. At 12:30pm on each school day, messages will be sent to subscribers to remind them of afternoon-only impacts to bus routes. All bus disruption information will continue to be posted online. To subscribe, visit www.aacps.org/busnotifications.

New K-5 Math Curriculum

Reveal Math, a new math curriculum for elementary school students, debuts this year and is designed to develop the problem-solvers of tomorrow with rich instruction and real-life connections. The vision behind adopting this new math curriculum is to provide an accessible, high-quality math education through a community of learners who continually find the beauty of math and all the opportunities math affords in one’s everyday life. Hands-on instruction and aligning with STEM opportunities are cornerstones of Reveal Math. For more information about this exciting new curriculum, visit www.aacps.org/page/1532.

Back to School Events

All back-to-school events can be found at www.aacps.org/btsevents.

The 2023-2024 School Year Plan

A comprehensive document, the 2023-2024 plan is an example of the engagement efforts that are on track to continue throughout Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) Superintendent Mark Bedell’s tenure to ensure that diversity of voice is present and considered in all that AACPS does and is a transparent look at our progress and projections for the next school year. As Bedell has stated repeatedly, every child has the ability to belong, grow and succeed within AACPS. A link to this document can be found at www.aacps.org/backtoschool.

It's More Than Just Lunch

Applications for free or reduced-price lunch can be found at www.aacps.org/backtoschool. Beyond free and reduced-price lunch, qualifying students and families will receive a variety of opportunities with our community partners including free registration for NCAA eligibility, eligibility for select scholarships, and free or reduced-price fees for SAT, ACT, AP and CTE exams as well as college applications.

Tutoring

Our popular virtual homework help and tutoring is back again this year. Evening virtual homework help and tutoring will be available in math, English, science, world languages, social studies, AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) for middle and high school students. Virtual homework help will be a drop-in Microsoft Teams environment, while tutoring is an appointment-driven, small group setting. These sessions will run simultaneously.

K-5 families can avail themselves of virtual family support in math starting on September 26 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:00pm-8:00pm. This is a drop-in service through Google Meet for assistance with understanding grade math concepts or problem-solving techniques.

More information, including middle and high school tutoring schedules, is available at www.aacps.org/tutoring.

As always, I can be reached at 443-534-2660 or dschallheim@aacps.org. Have a great start to the school year!