AACPS primarily consists of 79 elementary schools, 19 middle schools, and 12 high schools. AACPS maintains 2 centers of applied technology, 2 charter schools, 3 special education centers, 1 alternative high school, 1 middle school learning center, and 1 center for emotionally impaired students known as the Phoenix Center. Many AACPS schools have garnered recognition for their academic programs, with appointment as National Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence and Maryland Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence. These schools are marked below with symbols representing their National-level and Maryland-level awards.
AACPS elementary schools serve students from Kindergarten to 5th grade. Some schools also offer a Pre-Kindergarten program for younger students who are "economically disadvantaged or homeless". Among AACPS's elementary schools are:
Public charter schools
Chesapeake Science Point Public Charter School is a magnet school for math and science. The school was founded in 2003 by the volunteer non-profit Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation, after the Charter School Law was put into effect in July 2003, authorizing the establishment of charter schools in the state of Maryland. Admission to CSP is via an application and lottery basis. The Monarch Academy is another charter school in Anne Arundel County. It is similar to Chesapeake Science Point, but located in Glen Burnie.
AACPS headquarters are in the Parolecensus-designated place, near Annapolis. The Carol S. Parham Building houses the Board of Education, school support departments, professional support facilities, and meeting spaces. The school system is governed by a nine-member Board of Education. Eight members of the Board are elected to four-year terms, and one student member is voted to a one-year term by the general student body. The Board appoints a Superintendent of Schools to administer the school system. The current superintendent is Dr. George Arlotto, who has served in this capacity since 2014. Previous superintendents include:
Anne Arundel County Public Schools made headlines in March 2013 when school officials suspended 7-year-old Josh Welch for chewing a Pop-Tart pastry into a shape they thought resembled a gun and pretending to shoot his classmates. The Welch family, represented by attorney Robin Ficker, subsequently appealed to the district to have the two-day suspension removed from Josh's record, but the appeal was denied. The Welch family appealed the decision to the county school board, which upheld the suspension after a 2014 hearing. The Maryland State Board of Education also ruled to uphold the suspension. The suspension was again upheld in county circuit court in 2016, with an 11-page ruling that cited "the student’s past history of escalating behavioral issues" and confirmed that "a suspension was appropriately used as a corrective tool". Shortly after this ruling, the parents' suit was closed by mediation in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals with an "undisclosed settlement". Officials at the school and the county maintained that "the case was never about a pastry or a gun, but rather an ongoing behavioral problem. They said that the boy disrupted the classroom repeatedly and that the suspension was a last resort."
