The Maryland Senate is moving forward with changes to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education plan, charting a middle ground between a revamp sought by the governor and minimal tweaks sought by the House of Delegates.

Much of the Senate’s changes were described as a difference in the “pacing” of the Blueprint’s programs by Sen. Guy Guzzone, chair of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, which moved the plan forward Friday.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, and lawmakers have been re-evaluating parts of the Blueprint, with an eye both to changes in educational strategies and ways to save money while the state is in a budget crunch.

Here’s what’s in the adjusted plan approved by the Senate committee:

• Setting a four-year pause in a program to give teachers more time out of the classroom to work on planning, known as “collaborative time.” This is the same as the governor’s request, but different from the House’s one-year pause.
• Tweaking the complicated school funding formulas so that per-student funding for children in poverty and those learning English is not affected by pausing collaborative time. This is different from the governor’s request, but similar to the House’s decision.
• Restoring funding for community schools, which provide extra services for students and their families in high-poverty communities, that the governor sought to freeze. This is in alignment with the House’s decision.
• Setting funding for a student mental health program — confusingly called the Maryland Consortium on Coordinated Community Supports — at $100 million per year. That’s greater than the House’s $40 million per year of funding.

Guzzone, a Howard County Democrat, said in an interview that restoring the planned increases in funding for community schools was important to lawmakers.

“If this is ultimately going to succeed and we are going to lift up every child, that’s the place where that’s going to happen, where kids are underprivileged in financial ways,” he said. “So it’s really hard to go there” for cuts.

Other elements of Moore’s education proposal will be reviewed by another Senate committee on Monday. Those include additional funds to recruit teachers, pay teacher relocation expenses, add coaches to help educators with their teaching skills and for a “Grow Your Own” program that helps school employees become certified teachers.

The latest revisions will go to the full Senate for approval, likely later next week.

Then in the final days of the 90-day legislative session, senators and delegates will need to hash out their differences before they can send the bill back to Moore for his signature or veto.