Facilities Director: ‘Every School is a Compromise’

Not a seat was vacant at the  about the potential elementary school on Ducketts Lane—conditions that were common in Elkridge schools, according to parents. 

“Kids have to sit in the hallway or under their desks,” Leslie Kornreich said, after the Aug. 9 meeting between residents and school planning officials in the . Kornreich, an Elkridge Elementary parent, said these overcrowded conditions are evident during group activities. “On any given day, go to Elkridge Elementary ... there’s not room to move around.”

Others commented that it wasn’t just the students who are having a hard time.

“Kids can’t learn, and teachers can’t teach,” said Nancy Pfeffer, outgoing president of the Elkridge Elementary School PTA. “The class sizes for our teachers are outrageous.”

"Our student/teacher ratio is the same at all schools," said Patti Caplan, spokeswoman for the Howard County Public School system, in an e-mail. There are a "range of [class] sizes based on current enrollments," she added.

In the northeastern part of the county, enrollment numbers have swelled.  has 881 students enrolled as of June 2011, and it has a capacity of 662.  has an enrollment of 844; its capacity is 779.

As a result of the overcrowding, the school system determined the need for a new school to open by the 2013–2014 academic year in the northeast.

But residents who live near Ducketts Lane did not necessarily want it to be near them.

“Would you all please consider another site?” asked Myra Gomez, nearing the end of the two-hour meeting. “I still think this is going to be a nightmare for the residents.”

Gomez, a teacher in Prince George’s County who lives on Kara's Walk, later told Patch she was most concerned about traffic. She said she had been in two collisions at the bottom of Ducketts Lane.

Ken Roey, director of facilities for the Howard County Public School System, said that officials will need to conduct a traffic signal study but school must be in session to simulate what the traffic will be like, and school doesn't begin until Aug. 29. Some mentioned that students on Ducketts Lane go to Rockburn so the simulation wouldn't be accurate because they would use Bauman Drive.

Roey said if residents had input for the study, they could e-mail boe@hcpss.org.

Several residents said they were concerned about traffic and privacy, and some questioned how close the school would be to their property. Officials said plans were in the design stage and many questions could not yet be answered.

Melissa Wilfong, of Grimm and Parker Architects, presented outdoor classroom designs that the school would incorporate, in part to make up for moving wetlands from the site. One resident questioned whether schoolchildren would have a view of the  and nearby.

Residents also said they were worried about vandalism and suggested the need for a fence. Wilfong and Roey said they would consider such a proposal.

At the outset of the meeting in Elkridge, Roey planned to present a  site design at an Aug. 18 meeting of the Board of Education. But within the first half hour of taking residents' questions, he said: "Aug. 18 is not happening. Part of that [decision] is listening to your feedback...We want to hear as many voices as possible."

The Ducketts Lane site is 10 acres and contains less acreage than the county's 16-acre requirement for elementary school construction, prompting residents to ask why an exception was being made.

Roey said that this is not the first school to be smaller than the requirement, which he called a guideline.

“ is eight acres … Running Brook is eight acres. I don’t have the list with me...” said Roey, who indicated there were others. "Yes, we would like to have more land, but we have to compromise."

The school is supposed to have 600 students.

“I anticipate that this place is going to open overcrowded,” said Kornreich. “Where are the portables going to go?” she asked.

“That’s something we have to look at,” responded Roey. “The advantage is that if we can’t fit them on the site, then we’d have to redistrict” rather than put portables there, he said.

Bellows Spring, which opened in 2003, has seven portable classrooms. Elkridge Elementary has added four portables since it opened in 1992. Veterans Elementary, which opened in 2007, has four portable classrooms. 

One resident asked what made the Ducketts Lane site appealing.

"I don’t know that it would be No. 1 [on our list]," said Roey, "but it has many desirable features of being a community school ... I would not say that it’s the most ideal site."

One teacher said the school system's problem in finding an agreeable site was symptomatic of a larger issue.

“I keep hearing, ‘It’s got to open by 2013,’ and I understand because we’ve added extra portables to Elkridge Elementary School," said Sheila Dwyer, who has been a special education teacher at for nearly 20 years.

"But, what has happened ... between the community, the County Council and the Board of Education that you are in this position of desperation?" she asked.

“I’m fairly confident that we’re going to do a better job moving into the future,” responded Roey.

The school board members at the Aug. 9 meeting were Allen Dyer, Sandra French, Ellen Flynn Giles and Cindy Vaillancourt.

Dyer noted that no County Council members were present.

"They were the ones that brought that other site near the railroad," he said, referring to , a elementary school. Officials have since turned attention away from that site following a nearby.

Roey said he and Gallihue will present site plans for Ducketts Lane at a meeting Sept. 18.

Roey said that specific issues residents brought up—sidewalk installation on Lori Lane and plantings between their property lines and the school—would be addressed then.

Still, some residents said they were not convinced that officials would follow through with any action. “Because it’s Elkridge, they don’t care," said Gomez.

“If I wait until I found a site in which nobody had a single concern, we would never build schools in Howard County,” said Roey. "Every school is a compromise. We will do our best to make the best of this school site and make it the best learning environment."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that the school system provided sketch plans to the public at 3 p.m. on Wed., Aug. 10.

Correction: This article has been corrected on Aug. 12 to reflect that Howard County Public Schools spokeswoman Patti Caplan did not say that enrollment numbers have swelled; that information came from the feasability studies published by the Howard County Public School System's Planning Division. Additionally, this article has been corrected to reflect that Caplan did not say that the ratio of teachers to students is based on enrollment; she said that "there are variations from the staffing ratios" and "a range of [class] sizes based on current enrollments" but that "class sizes at one school should be comparable to those at all other schools."