The Frederick County Board of Education voted Wednesday night to approve a redistricting plan for Linganore Creek Elementary (LCES) to address overcrowding in nearby schools.
The Board voted unanimously to approve an alternate version of the redistricting plan, which excluded any changes to middle schools at this time. They also allowed the Aspen and Aspen North neighborhoods, accounting for 86 students, to remain within the Blue Heron Elementary School (BHES) district after public outcry.
LCES is a new school currently under development with an in-service date of next school year and a capacity of almost 900 students. The building was originally proposed to address overcrowding at Oakdale elementary school (OES), which is 157% overcapacity.
In May, Frederick County Public Schools released a study outlining the factors for drawing the new district lines for LCES as well as what steps would be followed for public comment.
OES is rated by the state to service 730 students, but has 1,148 this school year. Further complicating the matter, four other elementary schools have reached approximately 90% capacity as well. New developments in the surrounding areas could increase those percentages further.
More than 700 students are anticipated to be diverted from OES to LCES, which would reduce OES’s student population to approximately 400. Blue Heron, Deer Crossing and New Market Elementary will also face minor redistricting to balance out the total student population of each school.
In total, approximately 1,000 students are impacted by this vote.
Public Outcry
Families from the Aspen and Aspen North communities attended Wednesday’s meeting to ask the board to not force their 86 children to change schools.
Carolyn Saylors, parent and staff member of Blue Heron Elementary School (BHES), acknowledged there are some small factors that could call for her neighborhood to be redistricted. She argued none of them outweighed the emotions or important reasons for keeping her kids where they are. “I was worried that some of the [board] members…might just go with that part of the decision and not their heart part of the decision,” Saylors explained.
It was in the final minutes of the board’s discussion about the redistricting plan that Board Vice President Dean Rose made a motion which excluded the Aspen and Aspen North neighborhoods from the plan.
The decision has left Saylors feeling like a valued member of the community. She thinks that without so much effort from her neighbors, the board may have simply gone with the recommendations the study provided. “It shows that you can come out and if you care deeply about something and you show that you’re committed to it, that you can make a change in what’s happening in your world,” Saylors said.
Liam Lawrence of BHES is one of those 86 students and says he’s excited to get to stay. “Because our school is a very nice place for everyone and we have great staff and they do a lot of stuff for us,” Lawrence said. “I would miss the teachers, I would just miss the school.”
Temporary Solution
Several board members expressed disinterest in redistricting the Aspen and Aspen North communities. In particular, Rose explained he did not want families to be redistricted every few years.
Rose noted that plans for new housing developments in the affected school districts could cause even more overcrowding in coming years. This meant future redistricting would be necessary. As such, Rose wanted to leave those neighborhoods alone for now. “If something continues to happen and hopefully we get a school site and we have to make a decision between one or the other in New Market, we’re going to have to redistrict again,” Rose explained.
Saylors said her family has experienced redistricting in the past, but explained it had impacted a larger community of people. She was less worried then as so many of her neighbors were also in the same boat. “One of our major concerns with this one is that it seemed to be our small communities being plucked out of where we have made our home and being moved to a new environment,” Saylors explained.
Saylors says she could understand redistricting if it were being done on a larger scale and not just her family and close neighbors.
