Maryland is putting $14.7 million behind an unusual bet: that the people already working in its schools — teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, substitutes — are the state's best shot at filling empty classrooms. The money, distributed through the state's Grow Your Own Educators Grant Program, will support 845 educators statewide as they work toward becoming fully licensed teachers in the same school roles they already hold.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools will receive $3.6 million, the largest single award in this round, according to WMAR2 News. Frederick County Public Schools will get $3.1 million, St. Mary's County Public Schools will receive $3 million, and Howard County and Charles County school systems will each collect about $1.5 million. A consortium representing seven Eastern Shore districts will share approximately $1.1 million, while Worcester County Public Schools was awarded more than $829,000. Governor Wes Moore said the state's goal is to strengthen schools by helping the people already inside them.
A Debt-Free Path Built Into State Law
The Grow Your Own Educators Grant Program was created to address ongoing teacher shortages and build debt-free pathways to teacher licensure, and this second round of funding focuses on high-need teaching areas including special education and early childhood education. The program traces back to the Maryland General Assembly's House Bill 1157 in 2024, which set a statutory phase-in for the fund rising to $5.4 million annually by fiscal year 2028, according to the Department of Legislative Services. Moore later signed the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act in 2025, which expanded the Grow Your Own program further.
Educators who take the state's money aren't just handed a free credential — they sign a service pledge committing to teach full-time for at least three years in a high-needs school, grade level, or subject area within the district that currently employs them, per the Maryland State Department of Education. State Superintendent Carey Wright said the grants help school systems develop future educators from within their own communities. The first round of Grow Your Own funding was announced in December 2025, and Maryland school districts have now received grants across both rounds of the program.
Local Districts Are Building Their Own Versions
Individual districts are shaping the state dollars into locally tailored programs. Under Charles County Public Schools' Round 2 grant, 75 conditional teachers across three cohorts can obtain tuition-free licensure through Notre Dame of Maryland University, earning up to 45 credits for classroom experience so they can finish their degree in just 12 to 15 months, according to The Southern Maryland Chronicle. Charles County had previously received $2 million in earlier grant funding to support a registered teacher apprenticeship program.
Frederick County Public Schools, meanwhile, used an $855,646 Grow Your Own grant awarded earlier this year to partner with McDaniel College in Westminster, enrolling conditionally licensed special education teachers in a post-baccalaureate certificate program, according to the school system. That partnership echoes an earlier McDaniel tuition-free deal aimed at the same statewide shortage. Participating districts are also incorporating recruitment efforts to increase diversity within Maryland's educator workforce, and one team-teaching model being used allows teachers to combine classes and grades while rotating among group instruction, interventions, and study groups.
Vacancies Are Falling, But Some Subjects Remain Hard to Fill
The grant push comes as statewide teacher vacancies have dropped sharply. Vacancies fell from a peak of 2,144 in the 2022–2023 school year to 1,619 in 2024–2025 and then to 886 in 2025–2026, according to the Maryland State Education Association. Even so, U.S. Department of Education tracking found Maryland faced shortages across 28 distinct subject certification areas during the 2023–2024 school year, up from just 17 shortage areas five years earlier, as reported by Maryland Matters.
State grant guidelines also give priority consideration to districts with formal plans to recruit and retain male teachers, who made up only 23% of Maryland's public school teaching force in late 2025, according to the Office of Governor Wes Moore. The push for debt-free licensure pathways is layered on top of the state's Blueprint for Maryland's Future law, which mandates that districts raise minimum starting teacher salaries to $60,000 by this year, up from a statewide average starting salary of $54,439 in 2025.
This latest round follows a $19 million expansion of Grow Your Own funding that Moore awarded in April to 13 school districts supporting more than 620 educators, including $6 million to Montgomery County Public Schools and $3 million to Prince George's County Public Schools. Moore has also proposed a record $10.2 billion for K-12 public education in his fiscal year 2027 state budget, a nearly 6% increase over the $9.7 billion allocated the prior year, according to WBAL-TV. Whether accelerated, 12-to-15-month licensure pathways can maintain instructional rigor while the state chases its salary and diversity goals remains an open question for districts now putting the money to work.
