PRINCESS ANNE — In a bid to stretch taxpayer dollars in Maryland's poorest county, Somerset school officials are proposing to close Crisfield High School and bus its students nearly 20 miles to another half-empty high school here in the county seat.
Parents in the downtrodden seafood town on the Lower Eastern Shore have hired a lawyer and filed an appeal with the State Board of Education in an attempt to save their community school, home of the Crabbers.
Business leaders contend that Somerset's poorly performing schools -- perennial bottom-dwellers in standardized test scores -- should have been overhauled decades ago and stand no chance of improvement without some kind of consolidation. It's time, they say, to boost poorly performing schools that for years have crippled the county's economic development efforts.
Barely a year after county voters rejected a plan to replace the two half-empty high schools with a $14 million central high, a nonbinding referendum that many saw as a vote against closing Crisfield High, a divided school board approved the consolidation plan last week on a 3-2 vote.
Crisfield parents insist they were ambushed when newly appointed board member Ernest Satchell, who heads the fine arts department at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, sided with two consolidation supporters.
"This issue wasn't even on the agenda until these three members sprung it on us," said Jack Paul, a Crisfield parent who led the referendum fight and was elected to the board in November of last year. "I don't think it's ethical to do this without notifying people ahead of time. If you're interested in pushing an issue, you don't have to ram it down people's throats."
Consolidation backers say numbers, not emotion, should determine policy in Somerset. And the numbers are hard to ignore.
Enrollment has steadily declined for 30 years. Scores on standardized tests remain near the bottom of state rankings. Teacher salaries are Maryland's third-lowest, yet per-pupil spending is second-highest.
Last year, Superintendent Michael D. Thomas cut 30 jobs, including five teacher positions, as state funding continued to decline along with slumping enrollment. With fewer students expected in the next few years, revenue will also diminish, Thomas says, because state school aid is based on student population.
