Some parents frustrated with Baltimore County's plan to redistrict 3 elementary schools

The Baltimore County Board of Education is considering a proposal to change the boundary line for three elementary schools in the southeast part of the county.

The district says Chase and Seneca Elementary Schools are over capacity. The plan would evenly distribute students between those two schools and Oliver Beach Elementary.

Parents say the boundary study is flawed because it used old data to make these suggestions.

The school district says the committee in charge of redrawing the school zone map was only given the current school enrollment data in November at its last meeting. 

The Board of Education will host a public hearing on the new boundaries on February 25 at Stemmers Run Elementary School at 6:30 p.m.

The board is scheduled to vote on the boundary map March 10.

Parents call for a "redo" of the study

Parents are now asking the district to reconvene the committee so it can carefully consider the current data and consider the impact a decision based on dated information could have on their children.

"Redo this study, we need all the new, updated information to make the best decision for everybody's child," said Morgan Wood, a boundary committee member and parent of an Oliver Wood Elementary School student. "If it could have been arranged and the numbers would have been different, we could have easily possibly kept communities together."

What is the proposed change?

The school board is considering a boundary change to balance out attendance at Chase and Seneca Elementary Schools, which it says are overcrowded.

Under the proposed plan, 122 students will be shifting schools and most of them will go to Oliver Beach Elementary.

Questioning why the data was late

The district admits the community-led boundary committee wasn't given the current school year data until it was available in November.

"They did know at the last meeting that the utilization numbers would change, although we didn't have them locked in a graph at that time," said Dr. Jess Grim, chief operating officer for the school district.

Many school board members questioned why the committee wasn't given the data until November. 

The district says enrollment numbers need to be confirmed by the state before they can be made public. 

Before Tuesday's meeting, the school district provided the statistical breakdown of enrollment per school, which was not provided to the committee during its review.

"It seems counterproductive that we start this process, and we don't have we start with one set of numbers, and then we introduce another set of numbers. When the process is almost complete," said Rod McMillion, a Baltimore County Board of Education member.

Parents from southeast Baltimore County say they are frustrated that the committee wasn't provided with the current school year enrollment data until the end of the voting process. They say that the school board must move forward anyway.

"These updated numbers render all efforts put forth for the boundary study, null and void," said Matthew Chambre, an Oliver Beach Elementary School parent.

"We need to reconvene the committee and allow them to actually look at the six or seven courses of action that they actually went through ensure we're actually balancing the schools properly," Matthew Powers, an Oliver Beach Elementary School parent, said.

Parents want changes in the process

Parents say there need to be changes in this process moving forward, starting with providing up to date data for the committee.

"I will make the request to the team. Should we be in another boundary study that has a similar situation that that information, the statistical information comparison, is updated and provided as a part of the fourth meeting," Superintendent Dr. Myriam Rodgers said.

"If they can start a little bit later to have the accurate data, I think it'll save everybody else some trouble and some headaches later down the road," Wood added.