Board Chooses New MCPS Superintendent

Joshua P. Starr, the Stamford (CT) Public Schools superintendent, will be the next Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent, pending final contract negotiations and state approval.

The county school board announced Starr as the finalist in a public meeting on Monday evening.

“We are pleased, we are in fact delighted, that Dr. Starr is joining us,” said board President Christopher S. Barclay (Dist. 4) of Takoma Park, adding that the new superintendent will come to Montgomery County and have several public meetings before officially assuming the job on July 1.

Starr has been superintendent of Stamford Public Schools, a 15,000-student system with similar demographics to Montgomery County, since 2005. He worked in the New York City Department of Education as the Director of School Performance and Accountability and started his career as a special education teacher in Brooklyn, NY.

Speaking on a conference call, Starr said that he felt his experience running Stamford’s school system would be “scalable” to Montgomery County.

“The Stamford demographics are almost the same as MCPS, but I have a more complicated political system,” Starr said, adding that he had been successful in getting budgets passed without additional cuts for the past two years.

“I’m not interested in making any sweeping changes,” he said. “I’m interested in helping to deal with the next level of how can we reach the children who we still need to reach.”

In a letter to his colleagues in Stamford today, Starr said that he was “deeply grateful to all of you for making my six years in Stamford among the best in my life.” 

Starr’s recent budget, , amounted to a total request of $229.6 million, and was passed quickly by the city.

Budget woes—such as —have affected Stamford as well. Starr’s budget, which included cutting 12 special education positions, .

The 41-year-old superintendent “impressed” the board with his research on MCPS, said board member Patricia O’Neill (Dist. 3) of Bethesda. He was one of three finalists invited for in-person interviews with the board earlier this month.

“Dr. Starr is a fine person and a good school person,” said outgoing county schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast. “And he’s coming up with a staff that’s close to his age.”

Starr, who has his own Twitter profile, said he was interested in social networking as a way to collaborate with students and parents. He also said that his three children would attend county schools.