SUPERINTENDENT RECOMMENDS PLAN
Proposal would leave no north county schools over state-rated capacity
Anne Arundel Superintendent Mark Bedell is recommending that the Board of Education adopt a redistricting plan that will “put students first” and leave no school in the northern part of the county over its state-rated capacity.
Bedell’s recommended redistricting plan was announced Wednesday afternoon — the same day the school board voted down a controversial proposal to ban flags that do not “promote national, state, and local government pride.”
Bedell’s plan redraws boundaries at 48 of the 58 schools in the northern part of the county. This two-phase process first examines the following north county school feeder systems: Chesapeake, Glen Burnie, Meade, North County, Northeast and Old Mill. Boundaries for two new schools, Old Mill West High School and West County Elementary School, both set to be completed next year, also will be drawn as part of the redistricting process.
“This has been an enormous amount of work for all those involved in this process,” Bedell said. “Throughout this part of the process, we put students first in all the decisions we have made.”
Anne Arundel County Public Schools launched the first of three phases of a three-year redistricting plan at the beginning of February in hopes of alleviating overcrowding in county schools.
The plan was presented to Bedell and the board in early January at their redistricting workshop. Redistricting will start in the northern part of the county because of higher enrollment patterns over the next 10 years. The second phase will begin in early 2025 after the northern process has concluded.
The school system posted a web tool, found at aacps.org/redistricting, that allowed viewers to access assessments of two other potential redistricting scenarios and the statistical impact on student capacity and enrollment. Bedell’s proposed plan follows neither of those scenarios, said Bob Mosier, spokesperson for the school system.
Overall, Bedell’s recommendation leaves only 15 schools with a capacity between 90% and 100% and zero overutilized schools (those that have reached 100% capacity or greater). If the school system decided to not pursue a redistricting plan, Mosier said that the northern part of the county would have 27 schools that were reaching state-rated capacity. Seven of the northern county schools would have reached 100% of their capacity and six would have reached over 110% of capacity.
Bedell’s plan proposes a few major changes to how the northern feeder systems — and their families — will operate. The plan will alter geographically assigned schools at some point in the educational process for about 6,400 students. This number is fewer than predicted in either of the scenarios developed by the school system’s consultant, Bedell said. Sixteen of the redrawn boundaries include changes in middle-to-high school patterns.
Two of the major changes will involve what the school system calls a “split articulation,” where boundary lines are drawn on specific residential areas. MacArthur students who live in the Van Bokkelen and Frank Hebron-Harmon elementary attendance areas will be assigned to Old Mill West High School rather than Meade High School. Cockran Middle students who live in the Oakland Elementary or Woodside Elementary attendance areas will attend Old Mill High School as opposed to Glen Burnie High School where these students now go.
Students entering the 12th grade for the 2024-25 school year will have the option to remain at the high school they are currently assigned, under Bedell’s recommendation. However, they are required to register as a “legacy student” in a portal. These students are also expected to provide their own transportation.
More than 2,700 comments were left on the proposed redistricting plans, Mosier said. Data provided by school system staff show that 25% of all survey comments addressed concerns about the amount of distance traveled to school. Bedell said that he and his team were receptive to those comments and tried their best to reduce distance traveled in the plan.
Over the past few months, the school system received a lot of feedback from families in the Chesapeake cluster regarding Mountain Road, Mosier said. Parents expressed their concerns about the road being a high-traffic area and posing potential safety risks.
In an interview earlier this month, Bedell said that he shares those concerns. In response, he recommended that students at Freetown Elementary remain at Marley Middle and Glen Burnie High School, making no changes to the current school attendance patterns there.
“I’ve been very adamant that I have concerns about that one-way-in, one-way-out road, so I think all of that’s being taken into consideration,” he said.
In the same interview, Bedell said that he and his team are hoping to have every bus route running at the beginning of the school year. As the school board continues to address school transportation challenges, Bedell said they are keeping the vans that helped the school system transport students that qualify under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and children with disabilities.
“What I’m not certain of is if we have the ability to have a bench [of drivers], so that has been the difficult part,” he said. “We’re ... in the low 30s, now with routes that need to be filled, but here’s the problem: You just don’t know because of the variance. At the end of the summer, people are making decisions on if they’re coming back or not and it’s very hard to predict.”
Bedell’s plan would also reduce the utilization of Chesapeake Bay Middle School from 70% to 59%. This reduction presents an opportunity for the school system to examine using the available space for extra administrative or storage space in the future. Mosier said that it would be “premature” to say what adult office or storage space would go there, adding that it’s a potential option.
The school system will need four additional buses to accommodate the opening of Old Mill West High School and West County Elementary when a plan is implemented in 2024; however, no additional buses will drive on Mountain Road in Pasadena. This decision is consistent with a study done for Anne Arundel County and the State Highway Administration that indicates concerns about safety and vehicular load, Stanski said.
A public comment period is now open until Aug. 16 to allow for more feedback on Bedell’s recommendation. Comments can be submitted at aacpsredistricting.org.
The school system will be holding a workshop on July 26 to discuss the proposal. The workshop will be streamed live at aacps.org/youtube. It will be open to the public, but no public comment will be taken.
The board will vote in August on which proposal to take to a public hearing. The board is scheduled to vote on a final plan in November.