Not long after joining Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) last year, Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor starred in “It’s a Snow Day!”—a music video set to the tune of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin. Wrapped in a scarf and wearing a holiday red MCPS sweatshirt, Taylor drops marshmallows into a cup of hot chocolate and sings about school closing. It’s not his only music video, either. A second one was released just as high schoolers returned from spring break this year, urging seniors to finish strong. 

“They are really emblematic of the culture that we’re trying to create, which is one that brings joy back to school,” Taylor says of the videos. It’s a stark departure from the “ivory tower” attitude that Taylor says preceded his tenure. The message is clear: He’s accessible, and he’s not afraid to poke a little fun at himself, either. Like much of the work he is doing at MCPS, his videos are designed with hospitality in mind. 

When Taylor joined MCPS, the district needed a new story. The institution had been making headlines, but not for its achievements. The previous superintendent had been fired amid news stories of financial mismanagement, allegations of a harmful work culture and a mass staff exodus. Students’ lagging academic performance and behavior gained media attention as well. The district has even come under fire for defending its right to include LGBTQ+ books in their curriculum; it is an appellee in a case on the matter that is currently being deliberated by the Supreme Court. 

But in the year Taylor has been at MCPS, this clear-eyed optimist has taken a hard look at the challenges facing the district and created an ambitious strategic plan to win back the community’s hearts and minds. 

A Happy Accident

Taylor’s road to the superintendency began in college, quite by accident. “I got into education as a business major who was late to sign up for classes,” Taylor explains. “The only class that was available was a reenactment of the 1962 Freedom Rides.” Students studied the Civil Rights Movement in the classroom for one week, then hit the road to reenact the peaceful protest. Taylor’s was the only white face on the two-week excursion into the deep South, which facilitated an honest and open conversation about race. 

“It really did have a huge impact on my life and set me in a very different direction,” Taylor says. “I always thought history was great, but when I got done with that trip, I appreciated it even more, and I completely switched gears.” So he changed his major from business to secondary education with the goal of becoming a history teacher.

After graduating, Taylor taught social studies for five years. He describes his assent into administration as another happy accident. “Foolishly, at staff meetings, I always said yes to doing things. You need a student government sponsor? Okay! You need somebody to help with athletics? Okay! You need somebody to help with testing? I’ll do it! Then one thing led to another,” Taylor jokes. 

Saying yes eventually landed him in the role of assistant principal at the school where he had been teaching—Landstown High School in Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Although he was busier than ever in his new job, he still got to interact with students every day. Taylor recalls those years as a building leader fondly. “I really enjoyed the work, and my own kids were having fun. They were raised on concession stand pizza at tennis matches and soccer games,” he says. So he continued to say yes, which eventually led him to his first superintendent role at Middlesex County Public Schools in Virginia–and several districts later, to the top job at MCPS. 

Given MCPS’s troubles, you might wonder why Taylor did take the job in the summer of 2024. For starters, he’s an alum of the district. (In fact, he’s the first superintendent in the district’s history to call MCPS his alma mater.) And although his children are no longer in school, he lives in the community and has nieces and nephews who attend MCPS. That personal connection has stirred a level of passion he hasn’t felt since he was a principal, lugging his kids to games every Friday. MCPS is his home turf, and making the district feel like home to its stakeholders has become his mission. “I grossly underestimated how emotional an experience this would be. It has really lit a fire inside me,” he says. 

Shrinking the District

“In 2011-12 Montgomery County Public Schools was arguably one of the best school districts in America,” Taylor says. But in the intervening years, district leadership had developed a “what-we-say-goes” mentality. According to Taylor, the central office talked down to its families and staff before he joined the district. Once he took the role, he realized the culture of the institution was the first thing that needed fixing. “It was in tatters,” he says. “More so than the technical aspects and the financial pieces—and even the curriculum issues and the instructional challenges—the cultural pieces were really the Humpty Dumpty that needed to be put back together.” An avid reader, Taylor happened upon a copy of Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara and discovered his North Star. He asked his school leaders to read the book, and they began having guided conversations about ways to exhibit unreasonable hospitality at MCPS.

Taylor knew that one aspect of creating a hospitable environment at MCPS would be making services accessible. That’s why  he decided to “rightsize” the central office. The number of office positions had multiplied throughout the years despite financial difficulties and relatively flat student enrollment. According to Taylor, the central office had become inefficient and ineffective. He initiated a reorganization, which will eventually eliminate 82 positions and save the district a little more than 7 million dollars. He also wanted to revamp the ethos of his central office from “What we say goes” to “How can we help you?”—transforming the central office into central services.

With more than 160,000 students, MCPS is the 15th largest school district in the nation. Taylor realized that providing everyone—especially students and staff—with adequate support would mean shrinking the district to a size where service wouldn’t be elusive. One way he has gone about accomplishing this is being immediately accessible to all principals on a first-name basis. He regularly checks in with them via text so the distance between them is short. “Now, the district is not layers and layers of bureaucracy. They can text me and get ahold of me if they need to,” Taylor says. 

And in line with his decision to transform the central office to central services, he has mobilized 180 central office staff members to clusters based around high school feeder patterns—essentially carving MCPS into 13 smaller districts. Cross-functional teams oversee these mini districts, all of which include a director, as well as instructional specialists, HR and compliance professionals, a mental health worker, and a security coordinator. While these teams still technically work out of the central office, Taylor says they are typically deployed to schools four days a week. “They have complete ownership over the performance of their schools. They’re going to see people routinely in classrooms, and provide direct feedback and support. They’re attuned to the needs of their schools,” he says. “So no one falls through the cracks in terms of support.” 

Photos courtesy of Montgomery County Public Schools

Immigration Support

According to the United States Census Bureau, during the years of 2019-23, 33.4% of residents in Montgomery County were originally from countries outside of the United States. So another area in which Taylor has pushed MCPS to embody hospitality is through the support the district provides to immigrant families. The district website now has a page dedicated to immigration support that begins with a note from Taylor himself, affirming the district’s commitment to protecting students. “To all of our families, please know this: You are part of the MCPS family,” he writes. “Our schools are and will always remain safe places where every child—regardless of immigration status—is welcomed, valued, affirmed, validated, respected, and loved.” 

His letter is followed by an outline of the district’s protocol for protecting students if an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent were to inquire about one of them. It also links to guidance from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on how to proceed if someone is stopped by border patrol, as well as what to do in a number of other frightening scenarios immigrant families might face. Visitors to the page will also find a wallet-sized card they can print, which clearly states noncitizens’ constitutional rights if they are approached by an immigration agent. Finally, it includes a directory of community partners that provide additional services for immigrant families. 

“We are making sure that our families feel cared for by their school system with really intentional, clear messaging and active support. I very much hope that the immigration resources are a reflection of our new normal and what our culture is becoming in terms of how we serve others,” Taylor says.

Photos courtesy of Montgomery County Public Schools

Refocusing on Fundamentals

Under Taylor’s guidance, the organization is not just restructuring its workforce; it is restructuring its grading system and student conduct code. Certain grading practices at MCPS, some of which were implemented during the pandemic and all of which were implemented with the students’ best interests in mind, have since led to massive grade inflation. For example, under the previous system annual grades were rounded up—so if a student received a “B” in the first marking period and a “D” in the second, the student would be given a “B” for the entire year. The district also allowed students to receive a minimum score of 50% on every assignment they turned in, regardless of quality or correctness. 

Taylor says that as it stood, there was very little incentive for students to give their all or continue to improve. It was time for grades to be an accurate reflection of student performance. Therefore, practices such as these are being rolled back, and uniform curricula guidelines are being adopted across schools. 

In a similarly well-meant move by a previous administration—this time to reduce suspensions—the student code of conduct had been weakened to the point that students were rarely held accountable for their actions. For instance, prior MCPS policies made it difficult for teachers to fail students who routinely arrived late or skipped class altogether, making truancy unobjectionable. “I’ll give you another artifact of this code,” Taylor says. “You’d think somebody would get suspended from school for committing arson, right? But at MCPS, it only required teacher intervention—it did not require that a parent be notified.” 

It’s not that Taylor wants kids to be suspended. But as he sees it, the goal of student discipline is not to punish the offender, but to help maintain a safe, hospitable learning environment for all children. Taylor wants to combine restorative activities with accountability for students—which puts suspension back on the table for egregious behavior. He also has plans to establish a student conduct office to train educators to support improved student behavior—another redirection of central office responsibilities designed to better serve his community.

Life Is Like a Tub of Popcorn

During his first superintendency at Middlesex County, Taylor attended business school to earn his master’s in business administration. It’s a degree he argues is worth more than his others combined. Now, he’s laser-focused on how to assess and allocate resources to MCPS school sites in order to get the highest return on investment. As is the case with many districts, every MCPS school receives the same dollar amount per student. But Taylor argues that schools with higher numbers of students receiving free and reduced meals, students with disabilities, and emergent multilingual learners require more support. 

Taylor uses popcorn as a metaphor for this work. (After all, almost every elementary school is filled with the smell of it by lunchtime.) When you look at the bottom of the bag of popcorn, he explains, you’ll find some kernels have only partially popped, while others haven’t popped at all. “These kernels were all cooked in the same oil in the same bag at the same temperature for the same amount of time,” says Taylor. But like popcorn kernels, “each of our kids and each of our schools is different, and each needs different support to fully pop.” 

In the 2026 fiscal year operating budget, Taylor has proposed funding each site differently depending on each school’s student characteristics. For example, instead of each school receiving $100 per student, an “equity add-on,” as Taylor calls it, would provide an additional $75 for every English learner. “My emergent multilingual students may need additional resources in the classroom to scaffold instruction. They may need translated texts sent home. They may need access to a tutor,” Taylor explains. “I put a few extra bucks in the budget to offset that. Same for my students with disabilities. The idea is that we should be accounting for differences in our schools, regardless of federal funds, regardless of all these other funding mechanisms that are really insufficient.” The greater the investment in these schools, Taylor argues, the higher the return on student outcomes.

For Taylor, students come first. “The greatest job that you could possibly have is to get to interact with kids,” he says. However, the rest of the MCPS community is just as important. The way forward, as he sees it, is to focus on the “customer” experience so everyone in the district feels welcomed, respected, encouraged and supported. “There is already a great affinity for the brand that is Montgomery County Public Schools. It’s taken some knocks in recent years, but I think I can win my customers back if we just keep doing what we’ve been doing over the last year,” says Taylor. And if it’s up to him, he’s going to keep doing what he’s been doing for as long as MCPS will have him. “I am literally having the time of my life,” he says. “I love every minute of what I am doing every day.”

Photos courtesy of Montgomery County Public Schools