Talk of school boundary line changes has raised a ruckus in Howard County, where school officials are planning to shuffle several hundred students to accommodate the county's growth.
School officials plan to transfer about 250 elementary school students from three districts to fill a new elementary school in Elkridge, scheduled to open next school year. They also plan to move about 500 middle school students to ease crowding and to fill a new middle school in Marriottsville, also scheduled to open next school year.
While these two proposals have not been met by much resistance, the proposal to shift high school boundary lines has. Parents in the Longfellow, Hobbit's Glen and Beaverbrook neighborhoods, which have been recommended to shift from Centennial High School to Wilde Lake High School in 1994, are arguing that the move would hurt their children's education. They cite Wilde Lake's lower test scores as a main factor.
Parents in the Dorsey Hall neighborhood -- recommended to shift to the new western high school in 1996 -- say they shouldn't be redistricted to Wilde Lake because they aren't in Wilde Lake's school feeder system. They say their kids attend Northfield elementary and Dunloggin middle, schools that have never been in Wilde Lake's district.
"This is our community, and we want to stay within our community school feeder system," says Jane Jeffries, chairman of the Dorsey Hall Redistricting Committee.
The two communities are expected to turn out in large numbers to testify at this week's two Board of Education hearings on redistricting. More than 130 parents have signed up to speak, and close to half of them will be discussing high school redistricting.
The hearings are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Howard High School.
What follows is a list of questions that parents commonly ask about the process.
Why are the schools drawing new boundary lines?
Redistricting results from crowding, according to Associate Superintendent Maurice Kalin, in charge of redistricting for 17 years. Redistricting is necessary to accommodate new students and to equalize student populations.
An additional 11,000 students -- or an average of 1,500 students a year -- are expected to attend Howard County schools by the year 1999. Elementary schools will grow by about 33 percent, middle schools by 42 percent and high schools by close to 50 percent.
