Montgomery County was one of the last major school systems in the country to return to full, in-person learning. On Tuesday, the Board of Education met to review the damage to student knowledge.

"This is a very important discussion that we're having today," interim superintendent Monifa McKnight said during the in-person meeting. "As we share and reflect on the data, it is clear that the pandemic has resulted in a significant learning disruption over the last 18 months. I'm going to say that upfront, and it should not be new information because last year, we identified that as our main priority in our budget and said, 'We want to put our resources in place assuming learning was disrupted by the pandemic.'"

Overall Literacy Readiness - 2018-2019 v. 2020-2021

• Grade 2: 35.3% decline
• Grade 5: 23.5% decline
• Grade 8: 10.8% decline
• Grade 11: 9.2% decline

Overall Mathematics Readiness - 2018-2019 v. 2020-2021

• Grade 2: 20.6% decline
• Grade 5: 25.8% decline
• Grade 8: 14.2% decline
• Grade 11: 2.3% decline

"I think that the data is very sobering and we have a lot of work to do this year," Board of Education Vice President Karla Silvestre stated.

"I don't think there are any real surprises in this data," Board of Education President Brenda Wolff remarked. "Now that we know, but the real question is, what are we going to do about it?"

"I think this makes it clear that it's essential that we keep students in school and learning, and in those instances in which they can't because of quarantine that they're getting really high virtual instruction," Board of Education member Lynne Harris noted.