Moving students from Anne Arundel High School to Meade High School will backfire once additional personnel begin filling out the Fort George G. Meade military base, parents said during Wednesday?s School Board meeting in Riva.
Parents from the Archstone Seven Oaks community in Odenton implored the Anne Arundel County Board of Education not to send their students to Meade High School as proposed in Superintendent Kevin Maxwell?s redistricting plan.
The plan goes against the recommendations of the West County redistricting committee.
Sending their students to Meade would only be a temporary fix, parents said. The Fort Meade area faces an influx of new jobs due to the federal government?s Base Realignment and Closure plan.
“I?m concerned about making our students leave a secure environment to go to an environment which will most likely be overcrowded again,” Lavell Jones said.
Maxwell proposed sending the students to Meade because a new elementary school will open in Odenton next year, requiring new boundaries and a different feeder system. Also, Arundel High School is overcrowded by about 300 students.
“BRAC isn?t only going to send families to Meade, it?s going to affect schools all over the county.
We have looked at BRAC and we are doing as much as we can with the information we have,” Maxwell said.
Meade gets an undeserved bad rap from parents, said student Board Member Brittany Walker, who lives in Seven Oaks and previously attended the school.
The school has the elite International Baccalaureate program, and representatives from Fort Meade are working with the school to improve science facilities.
Members of the Board of Education will be able to propose alternate redistricting plans during the next board meeting.
If you go:
The Anne Arundel County School Board will meet at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at the Board of Education headquarters on Riva Road.
