FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. - The Anne Arundel County Public Schools will hold a public hearing Monday on the redistricting of four Fort Meade elementary schools.
The meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Meade High School auditorium, will be an opportunity for parents and other community members to provide public testimony on the proposed redistricting plan to reduce overcrowding at Manor View and West Meade elementary schools and fully utilize additional classroom space at the new Pershing Hill Elementary School.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell, who has endorsed the proposed plan, presented the plan to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education in December.
The board must adopt a redistricting plan by April 30 for it to take effect in August when the new Pershing Hill opens.
"[The proposed plan] provided the most relief in terms of overcrowding, and it kept neighborhoods together," said Sarah Bonise, Fort Meade's School Liaison Officer and a nonvoting member of the redistricting committee that devised the plan.
At a public briefing Feb. 15, Chuck Yocum, the county school system's specialist in student demographic planning, presented current student enrollment and projected utilization figures for 2015 for each of the four schools. The figures take into account the influx of families expected to arrive at Fort Meade due to the Base Realignment and Closure process.
Manor View has a capacity of 549 students, but enrolled 608 students last year. Its projected utilization rate for 2015 is 142 percent.
West Meade has a student capacity of 292 students, but enrolled 399 last year, with a utilization rate of 131 percent.
Pershing Hill, however, has a student capacity of 733 students, but enrolled 198 students last year. Its utilization rate is 26 percent.
Meade Heights Elementary School, which is located off post on Reece Road, has a student capacity of 514 students, but enrolled 279 last year. Its utilization rate is 65 percent.
Yocum said Meade Heights was not included in the proposed plan because the majority of its students are not military children and the installation did not want to bus Fort Meade children off post or bring nonmilitary youngsters onto the post.
Meade Heights is also being set aside for children who will live in Parkside, a new housing development scheduled for future construction.
The proposed plan would turn West Meade Elementary School into an early childhood center -- the second in the county -- that would only serve pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and early childhood intervention students who are now assigned to West Meade, Manor View and Pershing Hill, or who live within the current established boundaries of those three schools. The center is also scheduled to open in August.
The new Pershing Hill and Manor View would serve students in grades one through five. Children who live in the Heritage Park North community on post will be redistricted from Manor View to the new Pershing Hill.
If the proposed redistricting plan is approved by the board, Manor View's utilization rate will be 89 percent, while West Meade will be 85 percent. Pershing Hill's utilization rate will be 72 percent.
"The best decision was reached for all Fort Meade children," said Britt Aerts, wife of Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Aerts of the Emergency Operations Center at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., and a parent who supports the plan. "My main concern was how the change will impact us and Fort Meade as a whole."
The eight-member redistricting committee, which was made up of parents from each of the four schools, met from September to October. The committee discussed several options to reduce overcrowding -- including a straight redistricting plan and closing West Meade.
JoAnna Bradshaw, a committee member and president of the Pershing Hill Parent Teacher Association, favored straight redistricting because it would keep together siblings who attend the same school. However, straight redistricting would have done little to reduce overcrowding, leaving Manor View and West Meade with a utilization rate of 93 percent and 95 percent, respectively.
Closing West Meade was also not an option, Yocum said, because of the lease agreement between the county public schools, the Army and the Department of Defense regarding the use of the land on which the school is built.
If West Meade is demolished, the military would have the option of taking the land for its own use. This would prevent the county from building a new school at the site, thus worsening the overcrowding problem.
Committee member Kim Walton said she embraced the idea of turning West Meade into an ECC after Lisa Rice, principal at Ferndale Early Education Center in Glen Burnie, gave a presentation on the school's efforts to educate the youngest students. Ferndale is the first center of its kind in the county.
"We were impressed," said Walton, the parent of three children at Manor View. "[The children are] in their own little world with a school just for them where the teachers and the principal are focused on their needs."
Some parents, however, are reluctant to support the proposed plan because the new Pershing Hill provides classroom space for pre-k and kindergarten students. They question spending money to make West Meade an ECC if space is already available at the new school.
Yocum said the money that was budgeted to demolish West Meade is the same money that will be used to convert the school into an ECC. No additional funds will be used or taken from other schools. He also said it is not uncommon for a school to convert classroom space for different grades. If the new Pershing Hill will serve first- through fifth-graders, the pre-k and kindergarten classrooms can be easily converted for first-graders, he said.
If West Meade becomes an ECC, some upgrades will be made to the school. That includes SMART Boards in every classroom and the installation of age- and size-appropriate faucets and toilets, along with new playground equipment. But due to budget constraints, there will continue to be no air conditioning in the school's multipurpose room.
No improvements will be made at Manor View before 2013 when a feasibility study will be conducted to determine whether the school will be renovated or replaced, said Yocum.
Sgt. 1st Class Terry Strong of First Army Division East said that while he supports the proposed plan, he is concerned about the low parental participation in the redistricting process.
"I'm a little disappointed that more parents didn't come," said Strong, father of a first-grader at West Meade and a sixth-grader at MacArthur Middle School. "They assumed that the new school would be just up the street and their kids will go to the new school."
Bonise also expressed concern about the low parental involvement.
"I have received no phone calls to my office about redistricting," she said, noting the process has been open to the public.
Social Sharing