Students who live around the new elementary school in Gambrills will finally know where they?llbe going to school next year.
A redistricting proposal was approved by the Anne Arundel Board of Education on Wednesday.
“The community put a tremendous amount of effort into formulating the recommendation and tried to take into consideration all of the schools,” said Claire Louder, chairwoman of a community committee that made recommendations to Superintendent Kevin Maxwell.
“It?s been very difficult for the kids who didn?t know where they were going to school next year.”
Louder recognizes that redistricting is always a tough situation, but stressed that even her own son, a third-grader at Crofton Elementary, would be affected by being sent to the new school.
“As a family that?s had to move, I know that kids can move and they survive ? especially when they?re moving with their friends,” Louder said.
The school, yet to be named, will be on Nantucket Road and is nearing completion, said school system spokesman Bob Mosier.
The plan for the 2008-09 school year is to:
? Redistrict from Four Seasons Elementary School all communities on the east side of Route 3 to the new school;
? Redistrict the Walden community from Crofton Elementary School to the new school;
? Redistrict a portion of the Piney Orchard community to Four Seasons Elementary;
? Redistrict students not living in the community of Piney Orchard, but attending Kiddie Academy, from Piney Orchard Elementary School to Four Seasons Elementary;
? Feeder systems for students in the new school will be Crofton Middle and Arundel High schools.
Not everyone, though, was as optimisitc.
Jeff Andrade, a former deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Postsecondary Education, who recently moved to the area, said an alternative proposal the school board considered was a better option for many reasons.
“Nearly 200 children who have been attending their neighborhood school, Piney Orchard Elementary, would be moved to Four Seasons Elementary which is twice as far away from their homes than the current school,” he said in a letter to the board.
Andrade and others are determining whether to file an appeal to the state Board of Education, meaning they would have to show the board?s decision was based on arbitrary, unreasonable, or illegal actions.
School officials said the redistricting would help alleviate crowding at several schools.
“Generally, to build a new school you need to have schools around you that are overcrowded,” said Chuck Yocum, the school system?s student demographic and specialist.
These are just projections of how some of the schools will be affected:
? Crofton Elementary: 732 to 552 students;
? Piney Orchard Elementary: 699 to 505 students;
? Four Seasons Elementary: 697 to 501 students.
