BOE Close to Redistricting Plan
Frederick County's Board of Education has spent nearly a year discussing redistricting options for Butterfly Ridge Elementary School, opening in September 2018, and surrounding elementary schools. The BOE will vote on a final plan on June 14, then move on to researching county-wide redistricting options.
The Revised Redistricting Study, presented on May 19, forecasts total enrollment at Waverley Elementary School as 696 students for the 2018 - 19 school year, or 158 percent capacity, with Butterfly Ridge ES opening at 82 percent capacity. At the May 24 BOE meeting, Chief Operating Officer Facilities Services Division Paul Lebo and his staff presented additional options for Butterfly Ridge redistricting, Option A and Option B.
Option B calls for Butterfly Ridge to open at close to 99 percent capacity, and Waverley’s enrollment to be reduced to 585 students, putting Waverley ES at 133 percent capacity. With Option B, students now bused to Waverley ES will be bused to Butterfly Ridge ES. Hillcrest Elementary School would be at 90 percent capacity, and Orchard Grove at 100 percent.
Students from the new developments under construction, such as Waverley View and Avalon Commons [now marketed as Overlook at Avalon] will also be bused to Butterfly Ridge ES. All Hillcrest ES students will walk to school. BOE President Brad Young and board members Joy Schaefer, Colleen Cusimano, and Michael Bunitsky are in favor of Option B. Member Ken Kerr is opposed.
Projected students from new developments total 144 to Butterfly Ridge, 97 to Orchard Grove and none to Waverley. The feeder pattern from Waverley is 100 percent to Monocacy Middle School. Under Option B, 1,242 students are impacted.
Option A, which was not given much consideration by the BOE, called for making Key Parkway the dividing line where approximately 200 students on the south side of the Waverley attendance area moved to Butterfly Ridge and approximately 200 students on the north side remain at Waverley. Under Option A, Butterfly Ridge would be at 108% and Waverley at 121% capacity.
“Of the two options, I like Option B,” Young said. “To not use capacity would be irresponsible. But the situation moving forward is going to be fluid.”
Board members and those at the public forums have also discussed the benefits and drawbacks of county-wide redistricting, and will be focusing on that issue soon. Superintendent Theresa Alban, Ph. D reminded the BOE that when Sugar Loaf Elementary School opens next year, a more thorough redistricting plan will be necessary.
“Opening up Sugar Loaf is the time to issue a request for proposal [RFP] to hire someone to look at the whole county,” Alban said. “Carroll County did a county-wide redistricting and spent $100,000 with no community engagement. That is not how the Board has approached redistricting, a huge task in a one-year time frame.”
“We are going to have to do a more significant redistricting,” BOE Vice President Elizabeth Barrett said. Barrett has voiced concern about the proposed redistricting within her own neighborhood of Linton Woods. Under the current redistricting plan, 80 to 90 elementary school students will be bused six miles to Carroll Manor Elementary School rather than stay at Tuscarora ES. Ballenger Creek Pike is the dividing line between attendance areas. “I don’t understand why that chunk is involved in this redistricting when we want to keep the neighborhood together,” she said.
Cusimano talked extensively about her support for equity where “any student can go to any school,” referencing the Loudoun County, Virginia model for its policy on school choice. Alban said that restrictions apply and that school districts do have to impose supports and a framework to make such a policy work. Miller raised the issue of out-of-district transfers and, in particular, the FCPS regulation requiring that out-of-district students reapply each year. In discussions on the impact of Option B, Kerr raised cost of transportation, and said that busing students makes it difficult for parents without transportation to attend evening events. Two parents with children at Kemptown Elementary School said during public comment that the kindergarten class size is now at 29 students in each Kemptown kindergarten class where the target is 22 students.
With these and other educational issues still needing resolution, Young said the Board must commit to prioritizing staff restructuring and salary scales. Bunitsky agreed. “Staffing is the next thing we want to do,” he said. Schaefer added that class size is crucial.
"Class size is an absolute priority of mine,” she said, “and it’s not that I don’t understand how important it is, but we have entered into a multi-year agreement to restructure our salary scale with a start date and an end date to the transition period. We can only do other things once this is done.”
Described by Miller as “the domino effect,” the BOE understands that redistricting issues are not single focus but interrelated, so even a straightforward query about student transportation cannot be answered without a look at complete routing .
