Howard County middle school students are now part of the school redistricting effort

The Howard County Board of Education held a straw vote Thursday night, moving forward with a redistricting plan, after delaying the vote last week.

If the board officially votes it in at its next meeting, the plan will move around 146 elementary and middle school students.

School district staff will draft motions based on the plan the board went with, for the board to vote on at its Dec. 4 meeting.

Picking a plan

After more than nine months since the Howard County Public School System's redistricting process started, the Board of Education is now backing what was known as Scenario IV-B.

This scenario helps bring down Bryant Woods Elementary School -- one of the schools that triggered this process -- to nearly 82% capacity next school year.

But, the board also moved to include two polygons, 268 and 1,268, in the plan to now shuffle 24 middle school students from Harper's Choice Middle School to Wilde Lake Middle School to increase the school feed.

Board members were hoping to hear from those communities Thursday night, having a public hearing on redistricting included in the meeting's agenda.

"I was really looking forward to hearing [from families], unfortunately, no one showed up. It's caused some concern for me," board member Linfeng Chen said.

The board ultimately voted 6-1 to move forward with this plan, with board member Jacky McCoy as the sole no vote.

Concerns raised

Before the straw vote, McCoy had concerns about the impact of resources on Harper's Choice Middle if fewer students went there.

It's one of HCPSS's community schools, which are schools that help offer more resources.

"In the classroom, it's great to have 15 kids. But, if you've got five with really serious needs, then my question is, how do they get their needs served if our staffing won't be sufficient?" McCoy asked at the meeting.

School district staff went on to say that smaller schools are more expensive, but there are staffing plans to ensure students are still fully cared for.

Another cost concern raised by several board members was the impact of exempting students from redistricting.

Initially, board member Jen Mallo moved to exempt rising 7th and 8th graders from the process. However, she ended up rescinding it after discussion of unintended costs, like transportation.

The board ended up not voting on any exemption on Thursday.

HCPSS superintendent Bill Barnes said all exemptions come with some kind of cost.

"We've learned that lesson in past redistricting efforts and have been working to overcome some of those things to manage costs," he said.