Hampstead parents have appealed the Carroll school board?s redistricting plan, following the lead of Westminster parents.
Andrew Smith, a parent of elementary school students in Hampstead, filed the appeal to the state Board of Education after the county board refused to exclude the 42 Hampstead students from redistricting. He is asking the state to do for Spring Garden Elementary in Hampstead what the county did for the Charles Carroll community when it reversed its own vote.
The board planned to pull fewer than 90 students from three Westminster schools to help fill the new schools after county enrollment projections fell below expectations.
But after persistent complaints from parents and children, and a small rally outside the county schools building, the board voted in November to let the Charles Carroll children stay. Parents then rescinded their appeal.
The redistricting is planned to fill two schools in North Carroll: Manchester Valley High, which is entirely county-funded at $80 million, and Ebb Valley Elementary. Both are slated to open within two years.
Manchester Elementary is below capacity, with 577 student enrolled this year in a school that has room for 593, schools officials said.
It had 585 when the school board made its initial redistricting decision in 2006, officials said.
Schools Assistant Superintendent Steve Guthrie said that combined with two other schools in the area, the redistricting is justified because it provides enough students to warrant state funding for the new elementary school.
“We?ve always had in our mind that Spring Garden was going to be used,” Guthrie said.
Without the space brought by the new schools, planned development in Manchester and Hampstead would be stifled, said Jim Doolan, schools director of transportation and chair of the redistricting committee.
Enrollment in new schools must be 50 percent in the first year and 100 percent by the seventh to receive state funding, Doolan said.
