Norbel School Building Sold

The building that used to house on Old Washington Road has been sold, according to county tax officials. While officials confirmed that the land recordation process was in progress, they said further information would not be available for several weeks.

Norbel was a private in July 2011.  

The location on Old Washington Road has been discussed by some as a possible answer to overcrowding in Elkridge-area public schools but on Friday, Howard County Board of Education chairwoman Sandra French said that the school system, to her knowledge, did not purchase the building.

"The board was not to asked to approve such a purchase, and it couldn't be done without our approval," French said. "There might be talk about it among staff but it hasn’t been brought before the public, which it absolutely must" before a decision would be made by the school board. 

On Friday, a Patch reader noted that the building had been sold in which Patch asked readers to pick locations for future Elkridge schools. 

"Norbel School has been sold. I am glad someone [has] seen the potential of this beautiful property besides the vandals..." T.L.G.

Two other readers hoped the Norbel property could solve the "land shortage" some see as the problem that the school system has had in  for projects in Elkridge.

"The location of the former Norbel School," Steffi.

"The Norbel School site would be fine for another middle school or elementary school," Robert Judge.

In fact, the property housed Elkridge public school students before.

The land at 6135 Old Washington Rd. was conveyed to the Howard County Board of Education in 1928 by private sellers and was used for an elementary school. The building remained county-owned until 2001, when the government sold the property to Norbel.

The private school for children with learning differences bought the property for $500,000, taking out loans that contributed to the school's downfall. Norbel's attorney said that "years of declining enrollment and crushing debt" contributed to its as of July 1, 2011

At the time, Ken Roey, director of facilities for the Howard County Public School System, said that the building would "'not even come close'" to meeting today's standards for school structures, reported The Baltimore Sun.

Elkridge citizens persisted. In the fall, Leslie Kornreich, whose daughter attends the crowded , collected more than 60 signatures from neighbors in support of building a new school at the Norbel site.

During a with the school board in Elkridge, one Board of Education member said she had re-proposed the site. 

"I have given Joel [Gallihue, manager of school planning] everything about the Norbel School again," said school board member Cindy Vaillancourt,  by overcrowded schools. "It’s been looked at several times and [we] decided that it was too expensive to fix the grading and...[other] kinds of things, but it is [under review] now."