Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) is a K5-12 public school system serving the residents of Frederick County, Maryland. The system includes several schools to serve the educational needs of the youth in Frederick and the surrounding areas of Frederick County. The district consists of sixty-seven schools as of the 2014–2015 school year. As of the 2017–2018 school year, there were 42,204 students and 5,771 employees in the district. Staff Frederick County Public Schools District staff members, spread throughout the district's sixty-seven schools and central office, totaled a number of 5,490 in the 2013–14 school year who were. Out of the 5,490, 2,654 of the staff members were teachers and 2,836 were classified as other staff members according to the United States Department of Education’s NCES (National Center for Education Statistics). There were 114 school counselors throughout the district. The number of teachers in the district was 2,654 which is larger than the statewide Maryland average of 2,367.77 and the 199.14 national average of teachers per district in the United States. Teachers are spread throughout grade levels PreK- Grade 12. The district had 34.6 preschool teachers and 146 kindergarten teachers. A fraction of the total number of teachers (1,421) were elementary school teachers spread throughout all elementary schools in the county. In middle and high schools, there were 1,047 teachers. There were 788 instructional aides in the district to assist in the academic setting. In the district administration side of staffing there were 144 district administrators and 108 district administrative support working in the system in an administrative capacity. In the school administrative side there were 149 school administrators working in the district which includes principals and assistant principals. About 278 members of staff were classified as school administrative support. According to the Maryland Department of Education’s school report card, as of the 2016-17 fiscal school year there were 5,771 employees in all of FCPS. There were 2,940 teachers, 140 principals and assistant principals, 145 counselors, and 860 instructional aides. The remainder were office staff, bus drivers, food workers, custodians and central office/administration. In the district 71.4% of all teachers have an advanced degree and 24.0% have a standard degree of some kind. 3.5% of all classes in the district are without a highly qualified teacher. The teacher to student ratio is 64.7 teachers in the system per 1,000 students and 10.5 professional staff per 1,000 students 2016–17 school year. Budget