FCPS reviews redistricting maps for city elementary schools | Education
The Frederick County Board of Schooling on Wednesday reviewed the draft maps for a redistricting project that will shift enrollment boundaries for elementary, center and superior educational facilities in the city of Frederick.
Waverley Elementary — which was functioning at 145 percent of its point out-rated capacity in September 2021 — is staying replaced on its recent web site. The new making is established to open in the tumble.
Simply because of residential progress on the west facet of Frederick metropolis and the deficiency of solutions for a new faculty internet site in the place, the new Waverley Elementary will be developed to accommodate extra than 1,000 students, even however the college board’s advised maximum dimension for an elementary university is 700 college students.
With no any redistricting to shift little ones from Hillcrest, Whittier and Butterfly Ridge into the new Waverley building, Waverley would be noticeably under potential.
Frederick County Public Universities Interim Superintendent Mike Markoe launched his advisable boundaries to the university board Wednesday night. The most significant modifications will be at the elementary level, although the redistricting will also have a slight effect on boundaries for Crestwood, Monocacy and West Frederick center colleges, and Frederick and Gov. Thomas Johnson significant educational facilities.
The draft redistricting maps would necessarily mean 480 elementary college students will transfer to a distinct university up coming calendar year — or about 20 percent of the combined scholar inhabitants of Hillcrest, Whittier, Butterfly Ridge and Waverley. Most of the change arrives from the approximately 350 pupils who will be moved into the new Waverley creating.
Underneath Markoe’s system, a swath of residential land to the north and west of Andover Lane, and another to the south and east of the recent Waverley constructing, would be added to Waverley’s attendance boundaries from Butterfly Ridge’s.
A chunk of land at the southern edge of Whittier’s attendance boundary would also be moved into Waverley’s, and a portion toward the western edge of Hillcrest’s boundaries would be transferred into Butterfly Ridge.
The district’s planners tried out to use Route 40 as a pure boundary for the new maps, stated FCPS Facilities Organizing Supervisor Beth Paiserb, and tried to preserve neighborhoods grouped alongside one another logically.
Employees also have to account for upcoming advancement in the town by making an attempt to predict the quantity of new pupils that will outcome from developments that are authorised or beneath development.
Hillcrest and Whittier ended up the two in excess of potential at the start out of this college year — 136 per cent and 114 percent, respectively — although Butterfly Ridge, which opened in 2018, was 91 per cent entire.
Even with the redistricting, nevertheless, Hillcrest Elementary is projected to be at 114 percent ability following 12 months. By university 12 months 2026-27, it is predicted to be at 134 percent. There are no options to renovate or include to Hillcrest in the next 10 yrs.
College Board President Brad Young asked workers to prepare a thorough Spanish translation of all redistricting supplies, offered a massive part of the affected families discuss Spanish.
He also inquired no matter whether the district could do something else to address Hillcrest’s overcrowding. Just a couple many years ago, he stated, Hillcrest’s mother or father local community was among the the strongest advocates for a new school in the place — Butterfly Ridge. Now, Youthful claimed, it does not appear to be like they are reaping the benefits of that challenge.
“I just want to see some way of striving to give them some a lot more relief, because they were the impetus in that team of seeking to get this predicament managed,” he explained. “We’ve constructed a brand new elementary faculty, and we have doubled the potential of another, and they’re all still going to be overenrolled.”
