Overcrowded hallways and aging facilities make it difficult for children to learn and teachers to teach.
Those were the sentiments of Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith a few years ago while addressing a local legislative delegation.
But according to residents of the Loch Raven High School community, Smith has yet to come full circle applying his comments.
Resident George Ward said he was mainly concerned about his inability to obtain “a copy of a $2 million feasibility study” done in the county that would enable major construction expansion at Loch Raven. Ward said it was his understanding that school officials intended to add about 400 additional high schoolers.
Loch Raven, at 1212 Cowpens Ave., is located about one block from the 695 Beltway ramp.
“Parking is already atrocious,” Ward said. During the week “every parking space is taken up on the school parking lot and in the school?s vicinity, and it stretches over to Cromwell Bridge Road,” he said. “If you add 400 students, I know all of them won?t be driving but for those who will be, it will just make the current traffic congestion worse.”
Baltimore County Public Schools has the second-oldest inventory of school buildings in the state, and as of September 2007, Loch Raven, which has a capacity of 975 students, enrolled 1,098 students.
Laurie Mitchell, who resides two blocks away from Loch Raven, said overcrowding is a big issue for county schools, period ? “especially the elementary,” she said. “If you add 150 cars a day [from student drivers] going to Loch Raven, that would certainly make the area more congested with traffic.”
While county executive spokesman Don Mohler confirmed plans for a 400-seat addition to meet the needs in schools located in the northeast and central areas of the county, schools spokesman Charles Herndon said the residents could have been talking about a BCPS study conducted about two years ago that looked at the needs of its high schools.
“That study looked at the status of all our high schools and how the county could best use schools that were available,” Herndon said.
