3-28-2024 4:06am

LOCAL REDISTRICTING

Students Shuffled Between Schools In Baltimore County Redistricting

Nearly 400 students must change schools because of redistricting. These Baltimore County neighborhoods have school changes.

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — Nearly 400 Baltimore County Public Schools students will change schools this August.

Nineteen school attendance boundaries were redrawn in the central part of the county. The Baltimore County Board of Education approved the school redistricting plan after a year-and-a-half of research and public input sessions.

Officials said the redistricting was necessary to reduce overcrowding in some schools. This plan doesn't solve overcrowding everywhere, but it improves the conditions and delays the need for school construction projects.

"The purpose for this boundary study was to relieve schools projected to be overcrowded and to maximize use of available space in schools until more seats can be added in the region through the capital program," BCPS chief operations officer Jess Grim said, according to WBAL.

Here's how full each affected school will be after the redistricting:

Carroll Manor Elementary: 102% capacity
Cromwell Valley Regional Magnet Elementary: 98%
Halstead Academy: 90%
Hampton Elementary: 88%
Jacksonville Elementary: 82%
Lutherville Laboratory: 106%
Mays Chapel Elementary: 90%
Oakleigh Elementary: 98%
Padonia International Elementary: 94%
Pine Grove Elementary: 99%
Pinewood Elementary: 101%
Pleasant Plains Elementary: 96%
Pot Spring Elementary: 92%
Riderwood Elementary: 89%
Rodgers Forge Elementary: 102%
Stoneleigh Elementary: 100%
Timonium Elementary: 115%
Warren Elementary: 98%
West Towson Elementary: 88%

"Some schools are still slightly over capacity," BCPS Director of Strategic Planning Paul Taylor said, according to FOX 45. "But this is what the committee thought was the best at this time. They understood that more seats are needed in the region. So in the future, we will hopefully do a capital project to add more seats, and then we'll do another boundary process to redistribute them."

The school board approved map C2 with one amendment. That was the map that the redistricting committee recommended on Feb. 27, WYPR reported.

WYPR said the map originally sent 24 homes in the Towson neighborhood Fellowship Forrest to a different school than the rest of their community. WYPR reported that a March 6 hearing urged the school board to keep the community together, and the board agreed to correct its maps.

"I think it's important to keep those neighborhoods together. And I think it's also important to try to disrupt the least amount of students as possible," redistricting committee member Magali Christopher told WYPR. "Now, that little handful of houses gets to go with the rest of their neighborhood to West Towson."

The Baltimore Banner reported that this is the fifth redistricting study in the last two years. It's also the second time in four years that Hampton Elementary has gotten new boundaries, The Banner said.

"Public schools are the glue of the community, especially elementary schools," Hampton parent Robin Campbell told The Banner. "When you start moving them around, especially frequently, that just disrupts so much of the community, and it shouldn't happen."

An unofficial map of the new school districts is posted here. It just needs to update the Fellowship Forrest change, but it's accurate otherwise. BCPS hasn't yet published the finalized map.

More information on the Central Area Elementary School Redistricting is posted on this webpage. That website will soon have the final map and an interactive feature where families can see how they are affected.