Janice Moore, president of the Rodgers Forge Community Association, said it was last October when she first heard her community of 1,777 townhouses might be divided in the process of drawing boundaries for the new West Towson Elementary School.

Then, she called it a “worst case scenario.”
 
Now, it’s the primary option.

At a community forum at Loch Raven High School on Jan. 6, school officials unveiled four potential scenarios for boundaries affecting West Towson, Riderwood and Rodgers Forge elementary schools — three of which would split the Forge.

“This is not fair,” said Moore. “Hampton and Riderwood get to stay on the periphery, while they dump on us like the bastard stepchild — yet we have performed impeccably even when our school is almost 100 percent over capacity.”

“It is bad enough that the school is facing the redistricting that will break up the current school family,” she said, “but to break up our community family is not acceptable.”

Barbara Walker, central area assistant supervisor for Baltimore County Public Schools, acknowledged that there’s no perfect answer when it comes to new boundaries to relieve overcrowding in Towson’s elementary schools.

But “we looked for the best answer,” she told the 350 or people who showed up for the forum.
The four options under consideration were produced by a West Towson Boundary Study Committee composed of seven school system representatives and 15 community representatives.

The committee began meeting on Oct. 28 to map out boundaries for Riderwood and Rodgers Forge elementary schools, as well as the new 451-seat West Towson Elementary, scheduled to open August 2010 in the 6900 block of Charles Street.

Walker said the mandate was that the new boundaries had to reduce overcrowding at Riderwood and Rodgers Forge without overcrowding the new school.

“It was  very intense experience for the committee,” she said.

Any of the four scenarios will reduce overcrowding theoretically.

For Rodgers Forge Elementary — which has a capacity 396 but a current enrollment of 718 — scenarios would reduce enrollment to between 381 and 399, depending on the option chosen.

For  Riderwood — which has a capacity of 463 and an enrollment 542 — the options would trim enrollments to between 490 and 512.

“No scenario could take Riderwood below capacity,” Walker noted.

All the scenarios also place West Towson at or under capacity, between 416 and 451.

But Walker acknowledged that how many students actually show up in August is “an unknown.” For instance, she said, people who put their children in private  schools or magnet schools because Rodgers Forge was so crowded may opt to return to the school.

“We have no way of knowing how many students in this area are in private school,” Walker said.

Split decision

Two of the scenarios — dubbed “A-1” and “E-1" (see images attached to this story), would have children in hundreds of houses on the north side of Stevenson Lane, as well as those on Stanmore Court and Stanmore, Lanark and Brandon roads, attending the new West Towson school, even though Rodgers Forge Elementary, in some cases, is 20 feet away on the south side of Stevenson Lane.

A third scenario, “Scenario I,” includes the north area of Rodgers Forge in the Rodgers Forge Elementary district — but cuts off homes west of Blenheim Road, and sends children living in at least 120 houses on Dunkirk and Murdock roads to the new school, even though they could also walk to Rodgers Forge Elementary in a few minutes.

A fourth scenario, “Scenario G,” is the only option that keeps Rodgers Forge intact, but it almost didn’t make it to the final list, according to Stu Sirota, a member of the boundary committee who represented Rodgers Forge Elementary PTA.

In fact, Scenario G was cut from a list of almost a dozen options, Sirota said, because “the rest of the committee believed that the irregular shape of it could be perceived by others as gerrymandering to exclude the Rodgers Forge apartment complex from the district.”

But he found the other three options “totally not acceptable,” he said, and worked hard for Scenario G’s inclusion, noting that it conformed with the Rodgers Forge historic district.

“I feel  the idea of community cohesion is a very important concept,” Sirota said. “You meet people, you see your neighbors there, you talk, you share information and it keeps your neighborhood strong.”

Sirota said his ideal scenario would have put Rodgers Forge, Rodgers Forge Apartments, Schwartz Avenue and Pinehurst and Gaywood roads in the district attending Rodgers Forge Elementary.

But that would have put the school over capacity, and thus was unacceptable to the school system.
Sirota said he isn’t sure that should be the priority. He said there are many people who would feel comfortable with the school having as many as 420 students — as opposed to more than 700.

“But not the school board,” he said.

Forum draws mixed reviews

The Jan. 6 community forum on new school boundaries was the first opportunity for the public to review the options being considered.

But the forum did not present an opportunity for participants to speak directly to the West Towson Boundary Study Committee. Instead, participants were directed to the cafeteria and broken into groups of up to eight people.

Each person was given forms and a pencil and asked to rank scenarios in an order of importance, considering: appropriate use of school capacity, relief for overcrowded schools, economic diversity of school population, keeping communities whole, removing relocatable classrooms and maximizing walkability.

Another form asked participants to rank preferences for balancing enrollment within the West Towson cluster, and to make suggestions about other methods if they wished.

The form also asked them to rank how strongly they felt about splitting neighborhoods to achieve balance of enrollment, and which of the four scenarios they preferred. The form provided about two inches of space to comment on that choice.

"It's exciting," said Walker. "There is no other county in the area that does it this way."

The forum drew mixed reviews.

"I felt I had real input," said Marienka Sokol, who has a third-grader at Rodgers Forge Elementary and a youngster who will enter kindergarten in August. "I do much better when I can write things out.

"It also gave me a real appreciation about how complicated the process is."

But Janice Moore expressed concern that three of the four scenarios would split her community, and said she was frustrated by not being able to speak to the committee to plead her case.

"I would have told them they are killing my community," she said.

Next Steps
After presenting the options for the West Towson, Rodgers Forge and Riderwood school boundaries last week, the West Towson Boundary Study Committee will choose one scenario on Jan. 20 to recommend to the Baltimore County Public Schools Board of Education.
 
In the interim, citizens can write to Barbara Walker, central area assistant supervisor, c/o BCPS, 6901 Charles St., Towson MD 21204.

Walker will present the recommendation to BCPS Superintendent Dr. Joe Hairston on Jan. 26. Hairston, may modify or change the recommendation, and will then present his finding to the Board of Education on  Feb. 9.

From there, the board is scheduled to hold a public hearing Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. at Loch Raven High School, then make a decision on March 9.

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