BOE Faces Tough Choices
[Photo above, Waverley ES, by Gillian Grozier]
The current Frederick County Public Schools redistricting plan will affect 15,700 students at 10 elementary schools, five middle schools and four high schools, or 38 percent of the student population, according to Paul Lebo, chief operating officer at Frederick County Public Schools. Five elementary schools are expected to be over capacity, even with the opening of Butterfly Ridge. Overcrowding, said FCPS Supervisor of Facilities Planning Beth Pasierb, is the result of enrollment exceeding projections, by 400 students for the 2017 school year alone.
The Board of Education has held three public hearings on the superintendent’s recommended redistricting plan, along with the opening of Butterfly Ridge Elementary School, in an attempt to relieve overcrowding at Orchard Grove, Hillcrest and Waverley Elementary Schools. According to the plan, newly drawn attendance areas will enable Hillcrest to get rid of its 35 portable classrooms, and relieve some overcrowding at Orchard Grove.
But overcrowding at Waverley becomes more acute as enrollment continues to rise, offsetting any benefit to recommended changes in the attendance area. And to complicate decision-making further, BOE President Brad Young has said that Waverley parents have told him they want to “stick together,” and don’t favor the move to a school in another attendance area. Waverley parents want their children to remain in the neighborhood where they can walk to school.
Much of the commentary at the public hearings has been focused on concern for Waverley about issues such as safety and security, resource inequity, poverty concentration, division of the community and opposition to bussing. “There is no good reason to leave Waverley as it is,” says Kyle Bostian, Vice President of the PTA Council for Frederick County who attended one of the meetings.
“We are in a tough position,” Young said, “There is no one plan that can please 100 percent of the people. This happens every time [we redistrict.] There wasn’t enough capacity at Butterfly Ridge, Hillcrest and Waverley to handle students in the immediate area which is why we had to extend attendance areas into other schools.”
Making annual comparisons difficult, the state has changed the formula for equated enrollment for the period under review when used to determine capacity. The formula is based on building capacity and equates to classroom size for different grades: 20 students per classroom for Pre-K, 21 students per classroom for kindergarten, and 23 students per classroom for grades one and above.
From the FCPS table of annual equated enrollment 2004 – 2014, enrollment increases for Waverley rise from 481 in 2004 to 575 in 2014, an increase of nearly 20 percent. In 2016, enrollment rises to 593. Waverley currently uses 17 mobile classrooms. Speakers at the public hearings have questioned why Butterfly Ridge should be opening at only 82 percent of capacity when Waverley is unable to ameliorate its pressing overcrowding problems through redistricting as proposed.
New construction for Waverley ES is included in the FCPS Capital Improvement Program, and funding for a feasibility study to begin this summer is contained in the proposed 2018 County budget. Janice Spiegel, education liaison for the Office of the County Executive, said Rock Creek School, adjacent to the Waverley complex, will be relocated, enabling new construction for the elementary school on the present Rock Creek site. Completion is slated for August 2022. As some parents at the public hearings have pointed out, with five years to resolution, a student entering kindergarten this fall is not going to benefit from any new construction at Waverley during his or her entire elementary school career. [Photo above, new residential construction site by Gillian Grozier]
The public hearing on April 26 at Waverley ES was the largest of the three public hearings with an estimated 150 people (parents and children) attending. Third-grade students spoke eloquently of what it was like to be in a classroom where the lights go out when it rains. Maria Rodriguez, parent advocate and vice president of Waverley’s PTA, described the myriad activities taking place in the cafeteria at the start of each day, from English instruction to band practice to take-home meal assembly.
Other parents spoke as advocates for their children’s education despite the difficulties imposed by poverty or very limited resources. “These folks have come here willing to work hard for what we sometimes take for granted,” said Katie Groth, former school board member and Waverley classroom volunteer. “A good education for their kids is part of their American dream. You have to honor the spirit of this community.”
Adapting to rapid growth is a challenge for other Maryland counties as well, Spiegel said. New home construction is taking place throughout the state. “Final approval of proposed (building) projects found in the FCPS Education and Facilities Master Plan is dependent on county and state funding,” she said. “And building a new elementary school at a cost of around $30 million is a three to four year undertaking from feasibility study and design, to approvals and building construction.”
Recently, advocates are beginning to respond to the situation at Waverley by calling for more action. David Simon, a parent with a kindergarten student at Orchard Grove urged the BOE at the April 26 meeting to “endorse a more fair and even redistricting.” His recommendations are to include more attendance areas to the west, north and east in the redistricting study, naming Middletown, Yellow Springs, and Whittier and possibly stretching into Parkway and Lincoln. The advantages, as Simon states it, will be to minimize future redistricting, consolidate feeder patterns more tightly, and maintain continuity of communities. “I encourage you to stretch your thinking,” Simon told the BOE.
Groth has suggested speeding up the process for new construction. “Start it tomorrow,” she said, after referring to a day recently when 11 new children registered to attend Waverley ES. There were no withdrawals. “I know you have a process,” Groth told the BOE, “but I am not mincing words about the urgency. If you don’t start now, it’s not going to happen.”
A suggestion made at a Board meeting on March 22nd by Superintendent of Schools Theresa Alban, Ph. D, has been to consider a county-wide redistricting study. While the idea has some supporters, others point out that the school district cannot afford such a delay. A county-wide redistricting study would take up to two years.
“There are school districts that redistrict every year,” Young said, “We don’t want to do that. We will look at county-wide redistricting but there is no perfect answer.”
BOE Vice President Elizabeth Barrett suggested bussing elementary students to schools that are underused, such as Myersville or Wolfsville schools. This idea continues to meet opposition from other board members and parents who want to keep their families together.
At the public hearing held on April 5, there was some finger pointing at new home construction in the Waverley attendance area as a major contributor to overcrowding, and, in particular, to the role of the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance for the City of Frederick to slow down but not halt new construction. Waverley View, the multi-phase development on the south side of Rosemont Avenue, on the site of the old Krantz farm and across the road from Waverley ES, is on schedule to begin leasing properties this September. Calls to the developer about the multi-phase site have not been returned.
Young said that the BOE will meet next on May 10 in a workshop session to consider the feedback on redistricting made formally at the public meetings, through emails, or in chatting informally to folks attending the public meetings. The Board will reach a decision on a redistricting plan at their May 24 meeting.
As one Waverley student said: “I would like to have a bigger school so that we can all be inside.”
