Loose dirt around a malfunctioning sprinkler head. A cone propping open a door. A Dumpster overflowing with garbage.
These images of Severna Park High School prompted Larry Sels to testify before the County Council and School Board about what he called “deplorable” conditions.
“This is shameful, and we are being short-changed,” said Sels, director of the school?s athletic booster club.
Sels said Anne Arundel is ignoring Severna Park High because it is in a more affluent area of the county.
Sels brought photos to the recent council meeting, some of which showed exposed sprinkler heads on Roberts Field. That issue led to a cancellation of a four-team football practice, he said.
He also showed photos of a cone holding a door open on a Saturday. Other photos tried to compare improvements at other schools with less-than-flattering images of Severna Park?s grounds, depicting overgrown grass and broken furniture surrounding a Dumpster.
But Bob Mosier, school system spokesman, disagrees with Sels? claims. Mosier pointed to the board?s recent approval of a $1.2 million upgrade to the school?s HVAC system, which has four different parts and will be receiving a new central operating system.
Mosier said the field?s irrigation system settled into the earth, and the school?s athletic groundskeeper had to dig around the sprinkler head so the water could reach the field.
However, Sels? claims stem from a longer-standing issue of the town?s image as a well-to-do community that receives less county funding in favor of poorer areas.
“The problem has been that Severna Park has to take care of its own,” said Councilwoman Cathy Vitale R-District 5.
But “we have needs in all the [county] high schools,” Mosier said. “We have a $1.5 billion maintenance backlog. … The wealth factor doesn?t play in our decisions.”
