At a time when Harford County is rushing to a build a new $30 million elementary school to relieve systemic overcrowding, the school official in charge of construction says some existing schools that are underused may eventually have to close.

Joe Licata, chief of administration for the school system, told a group of local business leaders last month that the closure of some schools is a possibility, when the school system implements a long overdue redistricting plan being developed to coincide with the fall 2011 opening of the new Red Pump Elementary School north of Bel Air.

Both the construction of the Red Pump school and redistricting are driven by the overcrowding of many elementary schools in the greater Bel Air area, including Fallston, Forest Hill and Fountain Green.

The overcrowding problem has been driven by residential development in the areas served by those schools prior to the tanking of the economy.

Still, many schools away from the center of the county are underused in terms of their enrollment to their capacity, a situation that is likely to accelerate following redistricting to balance enrollment.

Utilization goals

In an interview Tuesday, Licata said the closure of some elementary schools might be considered.

“In 2011, when we implement the comprehensive redistricting, there will be several elementary schools at under 65 percent capacity,” he explained.

The goal of the redistricting plan, which will need to be approved by the school board no later than March 1, 2011, is to have all elementary schools operating in the 85 to 95 percent capacity level.

Licata said the state requires school systems to look at situations where enrollment at a school drops below 65 percent.

“We are required to look at it and see if there is something we can do to improve enrollment in that building,” Licata said. “What has caused that or what can you do to improve that?”

Ten elementary schools are operating at or above 100 percent of their capacity, and 10 are operating in the 90-percent range. The other 12 have utilization rates from 57 to 89 percent.

Four targets

In 2011, four elementary schools are predicted to be operating below 65 percent.

Roye-Williams Elementary in Havre de Grace is projected at 52 percent capacity; Norrisville Elementary at 62 percent; Deerfield Elementary in Edgewood at 63 percent; and Darlington Elementary at 63 percent capacity.

According to Licata, the school system could potentially close any of these schools, one of which, Deerfield, is in the process of getting a replacement school built on the same site.

Deerfield’s replacement school is 80 percent complete and will cost $36.3 million, according to Teri Kranefeld, manager of communications.

Darlington is the smallest of the county’s 32 elementary schools with a capacity of 192 students, according to the school system. The next smallest school, Norrisville, has a capacity of 252 students.

Conversely, Roye-Williams, with a capacity of 752 students, is one of the system’s largest schools but, at 57 percent enrollment to capacity, is also the most underused.

Consolidation

In addition to those four schools, six schools in regions surrounding them are projected to be operating at under 75 percent capacity in 2011: Edgewood Elementary, George D. Lisby at Hillsdale Elementary in Bel Air, Hall’s Cross Roads Elementary in Aberdeen, Havre de Grace Elementary, Joppatowne Elementary and North Bend Elementary.

Licata said the school system will try to combine students at underutilized schools in a reasonable way that will allow it to recover a building that can be used for something else.

If the all the students from one underutilized school can be transferred elsewhere, that school will be closed and used for a special program or leased to someone else who has a use for it.

“We always do that in a redistricting,” Licata said, adding that during the last comprehensive secondary school redistricting process, the school system was able to increase the enrollment at Aberdeen Middle School from the 60s to 76 percent of its capacity.

“Hopefully, we would be able to do the same thing,” he added.

Rare occurrence

But the actual closing of a public school in Harford County has not occurred since the closing of the Highland and Slate Ridge schools in northern Harford nearly 40 years ago.

If the students at underused schools can’t be combined at a central building, the other option the school system could explore would be what Licata calls the “domino effect.”

The “domino effect” involves multiple moves where students are taken from one school to another, and then a different group of students at that school is moved somewhere else.

But, Licata also cautions that neither redistricting maneuver may be successful.

“Do we have a reasonable strategy to move kids into a building under capacity that is practical? If so, then do that,” Licata said. “If not, we need to make the decision whether to keep a building open with a full staff.”

New schools defended

Even with the possibility of some underused elementary schools closing, Licata insisted the school system still needs Red Pump Elementary and will also eventually need to build at school at the Campus Hills site off Schucks Road.

“In the long term, we still think we are going to need Campus Hills at some point,” Licata said, adding that with BRAC coming to fruition and building growth eventually picking back up, enrollment countywide will continue to increase.

As of Sept. 30, 2009, the start of the current school year, 17,161 students were enrolled in the county’s elementary schools, which is 94 percent of their gross capacity. The total is down 893 students from Sept. 30, 2008, when 18,054 were enrolled and the utilization rate was 95 percent.

“We don’t have a lot of room to work with,” Licata said.

The redistricting plan should bring relief to the most overcrowded schools, including Prospect Mill Elementary, which is operating at 134 percent, Emmorton Elementary, operating at 128 percent, and Forest Lakes, operating at 124 percent.

Red Pump Elementary School will bring a new attendance area to the county and Licata projects it will bring countywide enrollment at the elementary level to 90 percent of gross capacity.

“We have an excess of 603 students in that region, so geographically Red Pump will bring immediate relief to that region,” he said.

“People ask why we are building new schools,” Licata said, adding that the answer is “geography.”

“We have places in the county where there is under enrollment and over enrollment, but the distance is so far away, it is not practical to move students across the county.”

user comments (2)

user dianedelaware says...

I don't know about Slate Ridge, but Highland School closed 26 years ago. I would have thought they both closed at the same time when North Harford Elementary School was built.

Posted 4:11 PM, 02.03.10

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user prettygoat2003 says...

Roye-Williams school is so close to APG if it is operating at such a low capacity maybe they should give parents who work on APG but may not live in the area the option to transfer their children to there. I would hate to see this school close since my kids attend it. If it were to close I would hope that my kids would transfer to Havre de Grace Elm. since that to is said to be under capacity.

Posted 12:49 AM, 02.04.10

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