Kathleen V. Hanks
From: Lynn Mumma
Dear Board of Ed,
I write in full support ofthe redistrictingplan. I am deeply concerned aboutthe negative impacts thatresult from socioeconomic and racial segregation and am very proud to be a member of a community that is working to address this trend.
Thank you for taking on this challenge.
Lynn Mumma 9377 Breamore Ct. Laurel
Sent from my iPad
Dear Board of Education Members:
Thank you for listening to the community during this redistricting process. I have some additional thoughts and data to share with you regarding Pointers Run.
Executive Summary: I present an alternate plan that better manages capacity utilization at PRESand CES and maintains consistent school feeds. 1. Move Polygons 189 and 1189 (including Beazer Homes River Hill Enclave) to CES 2. Move 1192 (Clarksville Overlook) to DOES (or CES - see note below') 3. Keep 64, 1064, 129, & 1129 (including Robinson Overlook) contiguous at PRES
compare our alternate plan with moving Pointers Run polygons (64, 1064, 129, 1129)to CES.
Ke^i Pointers United at PRE5
2C2U2021 ivi isa _25222323 I 2023:2024 | 23Z4 2325 PTOj -s un, Proj '. Utl pro] ?6Uti Pro-J tUtl. Prnj; XUtl PKESi-Iinu 761 102. 3)6 75; 1M. 2S 834 lU.llt 873 116.9K S71 117. 1K ita. '-isa, 11S2) CES(p;L5 su 95,4'i 546 lai. E"; 53S SS. 1K 532 SB lot 511 S7. 8t US, ;l83)
Move Polntari United to CES
2B20-2021 2MI 2B22 :ai 1321 2023-2024 J;Z4. 232S PM .i Ul'! Pro] » Uff Proj Ut: PTJ Ut.' £Sl. Ut.! [>l»[S;mn.t 752 101. 3S; 779 1X7K 7S5 U6.SX «21 1U. 3X 823 ! llJ. Wt S4. 1064, 129, ;U9)
CES (pi l.l 554 10'Z. IK 5S3 l:'7,4!t ';.) 112.5K 6?4 111.2K 651 1U.7K 64, 1064, t2S, 1128)
Remain at PRES over CES Our neighborhood's goal is to keep our four polygons (64, 1064, 129, and 1129) together at one of our neighborhood elementary schoolswhich we can bikeor walk to, Pointers Run or Clarksville. It appears that Clarksville ES lacks capacity for all four of our polygons.
The 2019 Feasibility Study, notes, "Clarksville ES [under SWOption #1;64, 1064, and 129 to CES] is projected to be within target utilization through SY 2024-2025, however, the deficiencies in the school's floor plan restrict its ability to function at the higherend of utilization range' (p. 82). Therefore, CES cannot operate at or near 110% maximum utilization per policy 6010. III.S. Forall four ofour polygons to remain together at a neighborhood elementary school, we need an alternate solution.2
TheSuperintendent's Plankeeps our polygons together but suggests we move to SwansfieldElementary School two villages away - the fourth closest elementary school to our neighborhood - one that requires a
., -underetand thalresi, dents°f this poiygon askedto change to CMSat the 10/10Board Hearing. Sincethey only have17 etemen. t.a. ^, a"dl2 mlddte. sch°°! students, a shift to CES-CMS-RHHS would also work in terms'of'minmai'Impa'ct on" ?T.P;!(;i!y-^?-a. tl°". LC.°n^ist. ent sch.?°' ?ecls' a"d woujdaii9" them with neighbors in 189and 1189. .."is 'mp°rtant t°. "°tethat much_like Polygon 1192, Polygon 1129only has17 elementary school students. Thisis a small addition to thegrouping of64, 1064, and 129that would not have much impact on capa'cit'y utilization.' significantly longer bus ride, with no safe option to walk or bike. This move also splits us offas an island, and creates a small feed of 14% to Clarksville Middle School.
More importantly, the Superintendent's Plan moves the Robinson Overlook development - the first affordable housing in River Hill - away from Pointers Run or Clarksville. Redistricting these students to Swansfield does not promote equity and is misaligned with CR97-2019and the related APFO exemption.
An Alternate Solution: 189 & 1189 at CES: 1192 at DOES An alternate solution that better addresses overcrowding at PRES and creates a more consistent school feed is to move polygons 189 and 1189 to Clarksville Elementary. This would strengthen their feed to CMS and RHHS. They are often slated to move to Dayton Oaks (2019 Feasibility Study SWOption # 2 had 189 moving to DOES; both 189 and 1189 were suggested to move to DOES in 2017). Clarksville Elementary is much closer and more desirablefor those residents; in fact they requested this move back in 2017 as an alternative.
Polygons 189 and 1 189 are not part of the Village of River Hill; they cannot walk or bike to PRES via Guilford Road given the lack of a sidewalk or shoulder. Importantly, Polygon 189 is ths new development of the River Hill Enclave by Beazer Homes which is effectively displacing the students from our well-established, 25 year old neighborhood out of our village elementary school.
In addition, moving 1192 to Dayton Oaks (as suggested in Feasibility Study SW Option #2 and the Superintendent's Plan) keeps this area contiguous with their neighbors, improves capacity utilization at PRES, and results in a more consistent feed (DOES-LKMS-RHHS). Moving to CES-CMS-RHHS is also a viable option for this polygon.
I ran the enrollment numbers using the projections in the 2019 Feasibility Study and as the table above shows, moving all four of our polygons to CES would make CES overcrowded in just a couple short years. With the addition of 189 and 1189, CES remains within target utilization for the foreseeable future. Note that given the building floor plan, PRES has the ability to function at higher utilization capacity than CES. Therefore, with 189, 1189, and 1192 at other nearby schools, PRES stays within target utilization or within acceptable utilization for years to come.
Conclusion Polygons64, 1064, 129, and 1129 are part of the Pointers Run neighborhood and should not be divided from the rest of the Pointers Run neighborhood of 190, 1190, and 295. We can and often do walk to school.
I wanted to present you with an alternate solution for our area that better balances capacity utilization at PRES and CES, results in more consistent school feeds, and keeps the added FARMS diversity from the Robinson Overtook development in Pointers Run as originally intended.
The primary objective is that our four polygons remain together at either PRES or CES, one of two village elementary schools. I believethe option presented here manages capacity at both village elementary schools and keeps our four polygons together as one unit.
Thank you again for all your hardwork and dedication to our community and our kids.
Sincerely, Andrew Goldberg Polygon 64 October 10, 2019 Dear members of the Board of Education,
I oppose the superintendent's redistricting plan. I specifically oppose the portion ofthe plan that redistricts Polygon 1256 from Fulton ESto Laurel Woods ES. I fully understand the superintendent's important objectives. I urgethe Board to adopt one ofthe numerous alternate solutions Maple Lawn School Unity Action Group had submitted, which achievethose goals without creating numerous other harms. The harms include the following:
Harm #1 Community
Our area of Maple Lawn (Polygon 1256) is not only being split away from our neighborhood school, but we're being torn awayfrom this close-knit community. Maple Lawnwas designed to be a single community, approved bythe Howard County Planning Board, and we live day to day as a single community literally surrounding the schools.
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Polygon's 1256, 259, 1259and 115comprise the community of Maple LawnMaryland. The Superintendent's plan cuts out a portion of this community to be redistricted miles away, isolating Maple Lawnchildren from each other and creating an isolated island that is not contiguous with school district boundaries. This splits the Maple Lawn neighborhood across 2 separate school districts (Fulton ESand LaurelWoods ES)and also splits the LaurelWoods ESinto 2 separated geographic districts. Maple Lawnshares Howard County's goals of having neighborhood schools with contiguous boundaries and walkable distances. These objectives are not achieved with the current plan.
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The Maple Lawn Polygons are unlike other groups of polygons in Howard County. In the Maple Lawn community, I share the walls of my home with neighbors on each side, we sharegreen spaces, playgrounds, mailboxes, a community center, and a walkingpath to the neighborhood schools.
In contrast, other polygons within Howard County have homes with their own singular mailbox, playscapes on their backlawn, and large expansiveyards owned byeach detached home. Included in those Howard County Polygons are tt's 1007, 7, 2221, and 1221.They have 147 non-FARM elementary school aged children for 20-21 school year according to the "data-enroll-projections-proposed. xlsx" found on the "Proposed Enrollment Projections by Polygon" link on the HCPSS Board Docs site under, 'Superintendent Recommendation to the Board" dated August 22, 2019.
W t8'19 Ewotttnwit Sri-. ociy^r Sf*uuc f<. . Th;s tab's shorn the offic';'! xcasz^i .2(51. ZiK school year 2018-19 enrollment and Ptrtyijon tS MS HS SS I MS I r& Etl fS
projeded eiifoli. nents byschool level for 7 y> 29 .tS 52 3JL t2 u -2 23 * :3 1» U :2 ^1 eachpolygon. Cu'. entSi-hool asslgnm. 'ints :E?37 ^& 21 25 57 22 iS for 2019-20 are lis-. tc niixt to the proposed 1221 :& 12 :& ^ -1 K 18 11 -^6 :-.o u 57 : Polygon 7 52 Polygon 1007 57 Polygon 1221 18 vs. Polygon 1256 144 Polvaon 2221 20 Total: 147 The redistricting plan is inconsistent with several elements of Board of Education policy. Policy 6010 Section IVStandards 82 Community Stability: Where reasonable, school attendance areas should promote a sense of community in both the geographic place (e. g., neighborhoodor place in whicha student lives) and the promotion of a student from each school level through the consideration of: (b. ) Areas that are made up of contiguous communities or neighborhoods. Contiguous communities and or neighborhoods are not achieved by moving 1256 to LWES. Harm #2 Illogical Distances Our neighborhood would become an island 5. 4 miles off shore from our new school district. Our commute time will triple, and opportunities to participate in activities at our children's school would significantlydecrease. Maple Lawnchildren would pass by several other Elementary School districts (Hammond, German Crossing, and Forest Ridge) in route to Laurel Woods ES. They would travel over two highways (MD rt 29 and 1-95) to get to Laurel Woods ES. The portion of Maple Lawnfalling into polygon 1256 is closerto 8 other Elementary schools by distance and 10 other elementary schools by travel time, than to Laurel Woods ES. Using the center of Polygon 1256, the corner of Tawes and Trappe Street, the following travel distances are here: ^<..~ See appendix A for more specific detail. We will become an Island. Byfar the most remote island 5.4 miles offshore, 4 to 5 times farther than the other two planned islands in the county. n Daily, children from Polygon 1256 in Fulton, Maryland, would travel on route 216 to Laurel Woods ES, and pass children from N. Laurel, Maryland travelling to Fulton ES. They could waive to each other as they passed. And this would happen again in the afternoon, as the children are taken back home. Again, the children from N. Laurel, polygons 1007, 7, 2221, and 1221 are npn-FARM and total 147, compared to the 144 children from 1256. Besides the wasted transportation costs, valued time from the young lives of these children is lost. Time they could be spendingwith their families, or time spent on schoolwork or other valuable school related activities. The Superintendent's plan proposes to do this to my kids, and all the kidsof the people in 1256, 1007, 7, 1221, 2221 and countless other polygons throughout Howard County, Maryland. To causethem to waste precious time in their youthful lives, time they will never get back, traveling to distant, illogical locations. Elementary schools are supposed to be the closest to our children, not remote like high schools, or intermediate like middle schools. The Superintendent's plan proposes driving them around like they're in high school. Theyare not in high school yet, they are not even in middle school. The redistricting plan is inconsistent with several elements of Board of Education policy. Policy 6010 Section IVStandards Bl Facility Utilization. Where reasonable, school attendance area utilization shouldstay within the target utilizationfor as long a period of time as possible through the consideration of: (d) The number of students that walk or receive bus service and the distance and time bused students travel. The distance and time bused students travel is irrational, as Polygons 1007, ^, 2221, and 1221 are miles closer and Polygon 12, also non-FARM, could walk. Furthermore, Fulton ES is walkable for children in Polygon 1256 and, although just outside the walkable zone one-mile limit, they will walk to neighboring Reservoir High School when of age. Harm #3 Capacity at Laurel Woods The superintendent's plan has my children leaving one overcrowded school, to fill another schoolto 122%capacity. That hurts my children, other Maple Lawnchildren, but more importantly, the children at LaurelWoods ES.All of a sudden, their classesgo from 25 children, to 30 plus. Our children would not benefit from any overcrowding improvements, as they would leave one overcrowded school andfill another school to far overcapacity. The Superintendent's plan itself admits pushing Laurel Woods ESto 115%over its capacity1. brfjdn t.v. B' -*tsie!t^s- Kt-^ ?ti,.. -»<-, W, '.>C(TP. ES S-. ^. -r'. S.f/it'. ', iftt*. il-r., ^'-.. M'<:" 's' fi.; Sf'iWt f.^.ffM C't-'-Wt.tta-i.-ytS ^sa- -as. IfWMt ?--.-'ifrd'. M, HC. - .U . -it *K IJ. -^ES_ . Trf.fc'SE?-". i:.ua y',.fi<-K: ..:t5 ^i<"irr,T.h; M . LA^:*.. ^....-MJ.i .k. \. ^',.. i, ;itS JIL w4!. -f- vsd'^^.. wesc. esi» iE. ^ However, a check for more accurate numbers proves even worse. 1 SeeAppendix F forPages 13 and 14 of the Superintendent's Plan. MPIA results dated 9/3/19 (Appendix B), reflected LWESto be at 577 children, 95% of its listed 609 capacity. The school is even closer to capacity if you include Pre-K. With Pre-K, they are at 97. 5% of its listed 640 capacity, according to the School Profile (Appendix C). 9250 N. Laurel Road . Laurel, MD 2072 }-SQSO .twes. hcpss.oi^i/ Fast Facts Facility opened: 1973 Addttlons/Renovaitions 087 (A). 2005 (roof). 2006 (R). 2008 (A); 2015 (A) Scho<^ Capacfty: 640 Total Enrollment (PreK-5); 607 Official c^int 3/30/18 The numbers listed on the MPIA request were significantly different from the 2019 Feasibility study and the "data-enroll-projections-proposed. xlsx, "2 that we thought they must be a mistake. So we confirmed the new numbers with Laurel Woods ES itself on 9/27/19. The MPIA numbers were not only accurate, but over three weeks later, LWES was even closer to capacity. Here is the breakdown of Laurel Woods ES as of 9/27/19: W/ES3SOf')'27i'a Grade classes Break-tlOi'.n total PfB-K 2 21x2 42 K & 22. t9. 20x3 101 & 20x2, 18x2. 19 9b 2 21X3. 23,22 t OS 3 24 26 23. 25 98 4 22. 24. 2t23 90 5 26x2, 2/x2 )OS Tote: v//o Pre-K bW Capac;!yw/oPrB-K 609 C-rren: Cacaciiy {K-aj 9a. )9-',i Toiai v;' Pre-t( 640 Capac;!y v. !' pre-K 640 C^nent Capaci'. y . w/Pte-K) 100. C3't The most current data shows LWEScurrently at 598 children, 98%of its listed 609 capacity. The school is at perfect capacity if you include Pre-K. With Pre-K, they are at 640 children, 100% of its listed 640 Pre-K included capacity. 2 Found on the "Proposed Enrollment Projections by Polygon" link on the HCPSS Board Docs site under, "Superintendent Recommendation to the Board" dated August 22, 2019. See screenshots bottom of page 2 The Superintendent plans to inject 144 children from polygon 1256 into Laurel Woods ES. Assuming LWESloses 106 children to 6tn grade in 2020, and gains 106 kindergarteners, the addition of 144 more children from Polygon 1256would result in a total enrollment of 742, placing the school at 122% capacity. 122%would make LWESthe most overcrowded school in the entire county accordingto remainder of pages 13 and 14 of the Superintendent's Plan (Superintendent's proposed utilization for 20-21). Not only would LWESbe the most overcrowded elementary school, it would more over crowded that any middle school or high school. The most over capacity of 74 Howard County Public Schools. And it's a Title One school. JiA ?f<-.'w^'i'(. ien«ftl --.. *.. %. ;. ;; . :. »<.. ... -< ~T I .- ...I iyl'^s f . t/.. ! . (-»...' <,. ? .; f. > '^- *. '.. . '< :T:f^ *I. .. . <. -;. -" . . 1 ^>< K±,,'r '.... I. "i f "f -_x :;-t-^ 'af K-. *f . ^.^. x La -*i_l. _- i_:. _.; ^^.._-^'. l, *. ~;; r~K 7:t t <. "i:v~- 4- ^. ':; ;-» ^ r< -^'.. -J. -^ T'> ~- v-'.i ...^. i-h-l. ft t'-^. -r ^. t: ; . - ^ ^ ^;,' .' '-l> .t-. -'-'I^ , iC"t;-' -... '.I ^- . s. ;'. S^+'t ';-'; 'tl. m',. ?Fi,. -. ;U'J . ". "it: A -?. ..,. »",.., ; ~ - T !; l:'"''"'L8ai;' . -i!»: '^.'^ ^ < '':"'* /* ^1'.. '»' . 4 I 1 f "tl, ... " I'-- -1 -t . ' iil,. 'lr la 1 i ^S, n*-;. *". )t. ^I."1 I--I--. 'A . ^ , li '. -'^ . .' 4. . i iA?'S;*. r- t* .." -m The overcrowding would alsojeopardize the Pre-Kprogram. Inthe recent past, other Elementary schools in Howard County have hadto eliminate their Pre-Kprogram asthe school became overcrowded, to make room for K through 5 classes. This is especially harmful to Laurel Woods ES as many FARM families are within walking distance to its Pre-K programs. Whyare the children at Laurel Woods ESbeing targeted for the highest overcapacity? Whyare they beingtold that, despite being an excellent school, and beingat perfect capacity now, that they should be pushed to 122%? Becausethey have a high FARM percentage. Because many ofthe families who send their children there have low incomes. It is not fair and equitable to target them. It is the opposite. Here are some likely questions from Laurel Woods ESfamilies in September of 2020: Why is my child's class now at 30 kids, when last year it was at 25?" . "Whywas our school injected with an additional 144 kids who don't even live near here?" . Whyis my child not gettingthe quality individual attention she got lastyear?" . Why is my child in a trailer this year, when just last year, we were at perfect capacity?" The honest answerto all ofthese questions from the Superintendent will be, 'You were purposely targeted for over crowding solely because of your low socloeconomlc status. And here Is a map to prove it..." K The redistricting plan is inconsistent with several elements of Board of Education policy. Policy 6010 Section IVStandards 81 Facility Utilization. Where reasonable, school attendance area utilization should stay within the target utilization for as long a period of time as possible through the consideration of: (a) Efficient use of available space. For example, maintain a building's program capacity utilization between 90% and 100%. The purposeful push to extreme overcapacity is inconsistent with this standard and harmful to both the children ofthe sending Polygon andthe children ofthe receiving school. Overcapacity isthe reason the redistricting process began in the first place. 8 Laurel Woods ESbegan this process at 98%to 100%capacity. Ifthe plan is implemented, it would be at 122%. Harm ft 4 Re-AssigningPercentages Accordingto the projections presented in the Superintendent's proposal, the redistricting of part of Maple Lawn does not result in a meaningful improvement in any achievement gaps existing at Laurel Woods ESand arguably increases their burden by crowding their classrooms. In fact, throughout the Superintendent's plan, no meaningful improvements to achievement are ever proposed. Page 21 and 22 lists test scores for Reading and Math. The Superintendent lists all schools with base test scores and proposed test scores. The Superintendent proposes some schools stay the same, with either no improvement, or 1%to 3% improvement. He also proposes twelve (12) schools to sustain minor decreases of 1%to 3%. But most notably, the Superintendent's plan has nine (9) schools improving tests scores over 3% and eleven (11) schools decreasing scores by over 3%. Essentially, there is the same number of schools with significant increases as decreases in scores. The proposal does nothing to address individual achievement. The plan only moves percentages from one school to another, not even attempting to increase individual children's achievement. This is not the Howard County way. To not even attempt to improve achievement. To only move scores. Change columns have been added to highlight the percentage exchange in the plan. Green indicates an increase over 3% and red indicates a decrease under 3%: PAMCC . Ru^d PAPtCC Mjith Sy^c if> "r Propocu Dut. Harm #5 Political Representation Residents of Polygon 1256 cannot vote for representation in the Laurel Woods ESschool district. We cannot vote for the councilperson, and we will not be able to vote for the Board of Education representative. I live in council district 4, the same district where Fulton ES is located. But Laurel Woods ES is in council district 3. If issues were to arise, which they will, and we complain to district 4 representatives, theytell usthere is nothingthey can directly do because it is not their district. Ifwe complain to the district 3 BOEand/or councilperson, they will not care as much as they should, as they do not risk losing our votes. Harm #6 Frequency of Re-Assignment The redistricting plan is inconsistent with several elements of Board of Education policy. Policy 6010 Section IV Standards 62 Community Stability. Where reasonable, school attendance areasshould promote a sense of community in boththe geographic place (e. g., neighborhood or place in which a student lives) andthe promotion of a student from eachschool level throughthe consideration of: 10 (c) Frequency with which any one student is reassigned, making every attempt to not move a student more than once at any school level or the same student more frequently than once every five years. The movement of Polygon 1256to Laurel Woods ESwould create significantchange for these children twice in less then 5 years: First, beginning of school year 2020, asthey leave friends at Fulton ESto go to Laurel Woods ES, and second, after 5th grade, asthey leave friends at Laurel Woods ESwho would all be going to Murray Hill MS, as Polygon 1256 children go to Lime Liln MS. Harm ff7 Feed to MS from ES The redistricting plan is inconsistent with several elements of Board of Education policy. Policy 6010 Section IVStandards B2 Community Stability. Where reasonable, school attendance areasshould promote a sense of community in boththe geographic place (e. g., neighborhood or place in whicha student lives) andthe promotion of a student from eachschool level through the consideration of: (a) Feeds that encourage keeping students together from one school to the next. For example, avoidingfeeds of less than 15%at the receiving school. Moving Polygon 1256 to Laurel Woods ES results in a very small feed from Laurel Woods ES to Lime Kiln MS (10. 6%) whereas Fulton ES represents 48. 4% of Lime Kiln MS. Middle School s fc^_^. 1a*. 'i, s"i1 :'f;.f,v. :wet '"a, tt.. i'.. ". >'»in't; tA |l^!I:d<'1 '1L'-''.'r''-f'-^T'*'~'- s'^.v^-.f: . <';.;. >». K' ik i'.; £. '^ .r-'»y^\. u. Page 19 of the Superintendent's Plan. 11 Harm #8 Disregard of Community Values The goals from the Community and Online Responses are listed in slide 9 of the Superintendent's presentation. Each one stressed "Neighborhood schools, walkable distances" or "Limitstudent travel time. " My children cannot walk 5.4 miles across two major highways. They could walk, and have walked the approximate mile to our current neighborhood schools. Travel time increasestremendously for my children andfor my family when participating in school related functions. "Boundary continuity" is also not achieved. Our boundary with Fulton Elementary is broken. The boundary option to the north of 1256 is ignored. The boundary immediately to the east is ignored. The boundary next to the east is ignored. All in favor of a school farther than 10 closer Elementary schools. ^ ; I , Limit student travel times; watkable > Limit student travel times; maintain walkable distances Boundary continuity > Boundary continuity * Socio-economic impact The proposal also refers to the Attendance Area Boundary Review Survey and prioritization of Policy 6010 elements. When the community was surveyed, the overwhelming top 3 priorities were: 1. Keeping feeds of students together from one school to the next (Policy 6010 IV. B. 2. a)-65. 95% 2. Maintaining contiguous communities or neighborhoods (Policy 6010 IV. B. Z. b) 59. 59% 3. Transportation considerations (e. g. walkers, bus routes, etc. ) (Policy 6010 IV. B. l. d)-42. 64% For reference, the next highest priority only received 25. 88%of responses. Conclusion My children move from one majority minority school to go to another majority minority school. No improvement. My children go from one overcrowded school to another overcrowded school. No improvement. My children go from a neighborhood school with 12 a short travel time to a school many neighborhoods away with a travel three to four times farther. Worsened. Fulton ES and Laurel Woods ES go from two schools in areas made of contiguous communities to one school made up of contiguous communities, as Laurel Woods becomes an island school. Worsened. Frequency in which a student is reassigned attempting to not move a student more then once in 5 years is NOTachieve for my children in this plan. Worsened. The harms far outweigh the perceived good. We have found numerous alternative solutions to address the capacity at Fulton Elementary School, while also addressing the high FARM % at Laurel Woods ES. These solutions eliminate the countless harms created in the Polygon 1256 portion of the Superintendent's plan. Please adopt an alternate solution and reject the Superintendent's Plan. Sincerely, lan Alexander Dombroski Polygon 1256 Appendix A Travel Times and Distances according to Google Maps Appendix B MPIA results listing enrollment as of 9/3/19 (Page 1 only) Appendix C Laurel Woods ES Profile Appendix D Test Scores (Pages 21 and 22 of the Superintendent's Plan) Appendix E Test scores with Change Columns Appendix F Utilization and FARM (Pages 13 and 14of the Superintendent's Plan) 13 Appendix A & 14 <» w LD ® ® ^ Appendix B Howard County Public Schools Ipward Yuc 201»-a2C :punty Student Membership Summary AsOfDate:9s/3^:-t8 Bw-LW. yy Sc'toot Pr',\ Ft<^ ch31 W, C5 Tot« [ABw.w E »mer;^y Sc^.ooi 4£9\ |8e:)crj>t rif~^y E's'T.wrta.-y nal ISd^»o> i8e""ran Qneye Ei(.meAa'y 775| Siit>i»c* Brvi^^t "Aood* E wrw. i-y S^waS ez a 442| 6u^y PaA Etoj "- ttmary Stf'uo'- K3| |CLr^m,"f^ Un* Sarountyy <»: 1?7 717J |Sd*oe>t iCiaffct/^'»E .^.fw £ fiawrtay Sciwd ?5l ss 90, 6i 1C$| |-<»eis^ E*ff-(nL.riy Sd»Qi S3: TOl 4>8| ^jwrt ^%iodsE^iflwn^ Sc^oc: £3 6^i i»i«tow£amy\'^«ySc^ock 9?| S3 447: |tcne^3o" £ wn^i'^ SAod 25| 70 ^ 473! *^-or Wawtt E.w:ft"j."y 5ct»o( 1*3 123 i>25| . artt-'w. .1 E amec:a'y Sc?-!»bl 12-3 TQ3| t-fr.'ps LaA E'enwAa^y Scfc»' t>3 617 16 ZT ;^>... . <«s. ;c?:-ia5 ;;... - . p...... )., <.. :.. :.'. :;y :..<;..; .. ^^ ;" Kt.-:~.y, ;-'.. ;.. 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'*. ~ .^ JA. rs *.s u^ A. an> 23 Meghan Hill 8413 Kenton Court Columbia, MD 21046 October 5, 2019 The Honorable Kristen Coombs 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Ms. Coombs, Whilemany have expressed concern over the Superintendent'sproposed redistricting plan, I would like to sharemy specific concerns over this proposal andI am asking that you reject this redistricting proposal and find a better solution. I understand that as Howard County's population increases, the demand for redistricting will increase as well. I am not against redistrictmg, especially if it means equity among our schools, but the redistrictingneeds to make sense. This proposal does not make sense. I have two children, ages 6 and 3 and we live in polygon 13. The biggest concern I have is that the superintendent's proposal is in conflict with Policy 6010, IV.B.2.a. which will negatively impact my children's experience going through the Howard County Public School System. Basedon the proposedredistricting, the children in my neighborhood(polygon 13) will be the only area Sum the Lake Elkhom Middle School feed to attend Hammond High School. Middle school andhigh school are such formative times in a child's life that to prohibit continuity of neighborhoods who attend the same elementary and middle schools, but not the same high school would be detrimental to a child's social/emotional development. I am pleading with you to reject the Superintendent's redistrictingproposal and instead create a proposal that allows communities to stick together and not be broken apart. I want my children to go to school with their neighbors. I want our school feeds to make sense. I want you to vote NO to the proposed redistricting plan on November21st. Our children, our neighbors, and the people who voted you into office are counting on you. Sincerely, Meghan Hill ItSCEtVED OCT 1 -0 Name P^^^-l- Pfl-TEL Polygon 1186 Date ^^1 Dear Board of Education Members, I strongly oppose the superintendent's proposed Plan. The plan disregards three top concerns that were prioritized by the majority ofrespondents, transportation considerations, keeping feeds of students together from one school to the next, and maintaimng contiguous communities or neighborhoods. Superintendent's plan goes against all that James Rouse stoodfor in his vision for Columbia, the samevision whichdrew many River Hill residentsto live here. JamesRouse's vision for Co- lumbia was a culturally diverse city where kids could walk to school, meet with their neighbors and bike the many winding paths amongst houses and agriculturally preserved land. Removing children from their community schools and sending them to farther schools, outside oftheir communities will break up the cohesive communities that James Rouse envisioned and that Vil- lage residents embraced. The proposed plan moves our children from our polygon, who attended CES, to Harpers Choice MS instead ofCMS. Attending any school outside of our community will interfere with chil- drens social relationships and social development during formative middle school years. The two schools are on opposite sides of the 1, 021-acre Middle Patuxent Environmental Area. Those forced to commute, will have to drive around the Enviromnental Area via already con- gested Route 108 with a Ugher speed limit, and related higher accidents rate going to school. The proposed plan poses huge burdenfinaiicuilty, psychologically and environmentally. If county has millions of dollars to shuffle our kids around, why not spend it on improving FARM recipients local school and home environment, adding more teachers who can inspire them to learn more, and they deserve GT program as well! There must be a better way. The plan de- prives basic human rights thaiparent havethe right to chooseschool for their kids. Whereis the said democracy and feedom? This plan is against the will of your people. The Superintendent's Planfails to address the main concerns of HC residents, fails to meet Policy 6010standards and does not serve the interests ofPotygon 1186and beyond. I believe it is important that you, as elected members of Board of Education, adhere to the policy and your constituents concernsby opposingthe currentplan andlooking into alternative solutions that does not tear communities apart. Sincerely, RFCEiVFD OCT 1 0 7"19 Name ^\\5^'T-^ T- (>/<'~?£i- Polygon 1186 Date \ Board of Education HowardCounty Public School System 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board ofEducation Members, I am a middle school student, andI am against Superintendent Dr. Martirano's re- districtingplan. Itintroduces longbus rides between som?elementary, middleand highschools whichwill result inhigher air pollution levels, doubledtransportation expenses, andmore casesof motion sickness among some students like me. The time on the bus will also take awaytime before school and after school. This will tightenschedules, which will leadto stress.It alsowill spUtffiends, which could leadto lost friendships andisolation, whichcould negatively impact phycological development in adolescence. Also, theparents in River Hill work haidto allow us to attendour good schools Takingit awaylike that is robbery. If what you are lookingfor is^quity, youshould instead fund programs that help aid students in their studies. Thiswould bemuch more worthwhile andwill eventually givethe county more good schools without affecting the otherschools atthe beginning of this program. Regards, , nM [y\[S^T^ Pff-fQ^ RECEWED OCT 1 0 Name ^J'^£SH PA^'G^- Polygonll86 Date fof^h't Board of Education Howard County Public School System 10910 Clarksville Pike Efflcott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members, I strongly oppose thesuperintendent's proposedPlan. Theplan disregards threetop concerns considerations, keeping feeds that were prioritized by fhe majority of respondents, transportation ofstudents together fmm one school to thenext, andmaintainmg contiguous communities or neighborhoods. Superintendent'splan goes against aU that James Rouse stood for in his vision for Columbia, the samevision which drew many RiverHill residents to live here. JamesRouse's visionfor Co- lumbiawas a culturally diversecity where kids could walk to school,meet with their neighbors andbike the manywinding paths amoi^st housesand agriculturaUy preserved land. Removing childrenfiom their community schoolsand sending them to fartherschools, outsideof their commimitieswill break up the cohesive communities that James Rouse envisioned and that Vil- lage residents embraced. Theproposed plan moves our children from our polygon, who attended CES, to Harpers Choice MS instead ofCMS. Attending any school outside ofour community will interfere with chil- dren'ssocial relationships andsocial development duringfonnative middle school years. The twoschools are on opposite sides of the 1, 021-acreMiddle Patuxent Environmental Area. Thoseforced to commute, will haveto drivearound the Environmental Areavia already con- gestedRoute 108 with a higherspeed limit, and related higher accidents rate going to school. Theproposed plan poses huge burden flnanciaUy, psychologically andenvironmentally. If countyhas miUionsofdollara toshuffle our kids around, why not spend it onimproving FARM recipients'local school and home environment, addingmore teachers who can ^pire themto learn more, andthey deserve GTprogram asweU! There must be a better way. Theplan de- prhwsbasic human rights that parent how the right to choose school for their kids.Where is the saiddemocracy andfreedom? This plan is againstthe wfll ofyour people. TheSuperintendent's Planfails toaddress the main concerns ofHC residents, fails tomeet Policy6010 standards and does not serve the interests of Potygon 11S6 and beyond. I believe it isimportant that you, as elected members of Board of Education, adhereto the policy and yourconstituents concernsby opposing the current plan and looking into alternative solutions that does not tear communities apart. Sincerely, CTA-^^^ (2^-reT- RECE?VFD OCT 1 0 "^ Name Vj. k\J\^ (A) v v PolygonllSfi Date tofs/ff Board of Education Howard County Public School System 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members, I strongly opposethe superintendent'sproposed Plan. The plandisregards three top concerns that wereprioritized by the majority ofrespondents, transportation considerations,keeping feeds of students together fiom one school to the next, and maintaining contiguous communities or neighborhoods. Supenntendent'splan goes againstall that James Rousestood for in hisvision for Columbia, the samevision whichdrew many River Hill residentsto live here. JamesRouse's vision for Co- lumbiawas a culturally diverse city where kids could walkto school, meet withtheir neighbors and bike the many windingpaths amongsthouses and agriculturally preserved land. Removing childrenfiom their community schoolsand sendingthem to farther schools, outside oftheir communities will break up the cohesive communities that James Rouse envisioned and that Vil- lage residents embraced. The proposed plan moves our children from our polygon, who attended CES, to Harpers Choice MS instead ofCMS. Attending any school outside of our community will interfere with chil- dren's socialrelationships and socialdevelopment duringfonnative middle school years. The two schools are on opposite sides of the 1,021-acre Middle Patuxent Environnwntal Area. Those forced to commute, wfll have to drive around the Environmental Area via already con- gested Route 108 with a higher speed limit, and related higher accidents rate going to school. The proposed plan poses huge burden financially, psychologically and environmentally. If county hasmfllions ofdollars to shuffle our kids around, why not spendit on improving FARM recipients' local school and home environment, adding more teachers who can inspire them to learn more, and they deserve GT program as well! There must be a better way. The plan de- prives basic human r^hts that parent have the right to choose school for their kids. Where is the said democracy and freedom? This plan is against the will ofyour people. The Superintendent's Planfails to address the main concerns ofHC residents, fails to meet Policy 6010 standards and does not serve the interests ofPolygon 1186 and beyond. I believe it is important that you, as elected members of Board ofEducation, adhere to the policy and your constituents concerns by opposing the current plan and looking into alternative solutions that does not tear communities apart. Sincerely, I RFCFWFH OCT 1 0 mf" Name \/(^6^A1 ^ ^-T(^ polygonll86 Date ^/^ff'7 Board of Education Howard County Public School System 10910Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members, I strongly oppose the superintendent'sproposed Plan. Ihe plan disregardsthree top concerns that wereprioritized by the majority ofrespondents, transportation considerations, keepingfeeds of students togefher Irom one school to the next, and mamtaining contiguous communities or neighborhoods. Superintendent's plan goes against all that James Rouse stood for in his vision for Columbia, the same vision which drew many River Hill residents to live here. James Rouse's vision for Co- lumbia was a culturally diverse city where kids could walk to school, meet with their neighbors and bikethe many windingpaths amongst housesand agriculturally preserved land. Removing children from their commumty schools and sending them to farther schools, outside of their communities will breakup the cohesive communitiesthat JamesRouse envisionedand that Vil- lage residents embraced. The proposed plan moves our children fi-om our polygon, who attended CES, to Harpers Choice MS instead ofCMS.Attending any school outside ofour community will interfere with chil- dren's socialrelationships and socialdevelopment during fonnative middle school years. The two schools are on opposite sides of the 1, 021-acre Middle Patuxent Environmental Area. Those forced to commute, will have to drive around the Environmental Area via already con- gested Route 108 with a higher speed limit, andrelated Ugher accidents rate going to school. Theproposed plan poses huge burdenfinancially, psychologically and environmentally. If county hasmillions ofdollars to shuffle our kids around, why not spendit on improving FARM recipients' local school and home environment, addingmore teachers who can inspire them to learn more, andthey deserve GT program as well! There must be a better way. Theplan de- prtves basic human rights thatparent have the right to choose schoolfor their kids. Where is the said democracy and fieedom? This plan is against the will of your people. The Superintendent's Planfails to addressthe main concerns ofHC residents,fails to meet Policy 6010 standards and does not serve the interests ofPolygon 1186and beyond. I believe it is important that you, as elected members ofBoard ofEducation, adhere to the policy and your constituents concerns by opposing the current plan and looking into alternative solutions that does not tear communities apart. Sincerely, RFCEWFD OCT 1 0 ^ Name/V^AiP^dlff^/ ^ PA-^IA- Polygonll86 Date '7(2-^(1'? Board of Education HowardCounty Public School System 10910Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members, I strongly oppose the superintendent's proposed Plan. Ihe plan disregards three top concerns thatwere prioritized by the majority ofrespondents, transportationconsiderations, keeping feeds of students together from one school to the next, and maintaining contiguous communities or neighborhoods. Superintendent's plan goes against all that James Rouse stoodfor in his visionfor Columbia, the same vision whichdrew many River Hill residents to live here. JamesRouse's vision for Co- lumbia was a culturally diverse city where kids could walk to school, meet with their neighbors and bike the many winding paths amongst houses and agriculturally preserved land. Removing children from their community schools and sendingthem to farther schools, outside oftheir communities will break up the cohesive commimities that James Rouse envisioned and that Vil- lageresidents embraced. Theproposed plan moves our children fi-om our polygon, wtioattended CES, to Harpers Choice MS instead ofCMS. Attending any school outside ofour community will interfere with chU- dren's social relationships and social development during formative middle school years. The two schools are on opposite sides ofthe 1, 021-acre Middle Patuxent Environmental Area. Those forced to commute, will have to drive around the Enviromnental Area via abeady con- gested Route 108with a higher speed limit, andrelated higher accidents rate goingto school. Theproposed plan poses huge burden financially, psychologically andenvironmentally. If county hasmillions ofdollars to shufQeour kids around, why not spendit on improving FARM recipients' local schooland home environment, addingmore teacheis who can inspire them to learn more, and they deserve GT program as well! There must be a better way. Theplan de- prives basic humanrights that parent havethe rightto choose school for their kids. Whereis the saiddemocracy andIreedom? This plan is againstthe will ofyour people. The Superintendent's Planfails to address the main concerns ofHC residents, fails to meet Policy 6010standards and does not servethe interest ofPolygon 1186and beyond. I believe it is importantthat you, aselected members ofBoard of Education, adhereto thepolicy and yourconstituents concernsby opposingthe currentplan and looking into alternative solutions that does not tear commumties apart. Sincerely, ( Board of Education 10910ClarksvillePike EllicottCity, MD21042 Dear Board members: Weare Joann E. Barrick and Alan E. Barrick, HowardCounty residents, andthe grandparents of three grand children that are residents ofthe River Hill school district, Polygon #176. We are writing to urge the Board ofEducation to vote NO on Martirano's Proposed Area Adjustment Plan. Ourgrand chiltfren's high school polygon is River Hill, whichis under capacity. Thecurrent plan being considered isto move students from under crowded River Hill to WildeLake High School, also under crowded. Typically, overcrowding is theprimary reason students aremoved from one school to another. This is not the situation at River Hill or Wilde Lake. The River Hill studentsthat are proposed to bemoved are 1-3miles awayfrom River Hill HighSchool and would be sent to Wilde Lake High School that is triple the distance. This would result in disrupting thefamily's daily schedule from morning wake-up time, to earlier busscheduling, to longerbus and family rides to andfrom a differenthigh school, to children and family involvement in student activities due to the distance to another school. The increased transportation times andsafety issues for all the families lives impacted, due to displacement of the students in under crowded schools, is not a logical solution. Our grandchildren and all smdents ofRiver Hill High School currently have access to an excellent education. Whymove these students elsewherein Howard County whenthere is not an overcrowding issue in either school? Please vote NO on Martirano's Proposed Area Adjustment Plan! Sincerely. Joann E. Barrick Alan E. Barrick Polygon#176 Howard County Board of Education, l^am a HowarelCounty Resident in polygon210. Currently my two children are assigned to Triadelphia Ridge Elementary, Folly Quarter Middle, and Glenelg High Schools. Under the various proposals that have been ' presentedas options by the BOE and Superintendent my polygon and therefore my children will be affected by the redistncting process. Specifically, my youngest child will beforced to move, in her 5th grade year, from TRES to Bushy Park ES. Following this one year move, shewill move up to FQMS as originally planned. This unnecessary move makes no sense. The feed from BPESto Folly Quarteris a small feed, whilethe feedfrom to FQMSis a largefeed. There is novalue in moving a small numberof children awayfrom established relationships withfriends, teachers, support staff, and community inthis case. Children do notjust build relationshipswith teachers in a singlegrade. Both of my children have maintained relationships with every elementary school teach since Kindergarten. They have relationships with office staff, the Principal andVice Principal, counselors andeven the custodial staffbecause they havea senseof community andstability in theirschool. The redistricting plansfor polygon 210are detrimental to theelementary school students andtheir families and should be modified to allow elementary students to remain at TRES. Additionally^there is noprovision forchildren in 5thgrade who are forced to move. Ifthe board chooses to go aheadwith these changes (thatdo notmake sense orsolve the real problem), 5th graders should havethe option to stay in their current elementary school forthe last year. 5th grade is an important year andthe last one before a major shift as the student moves to middle school. Forcing these children to learn a newschool with newteachers andways of doing things, andcompletely removing theirsupport system thatthey have spentthe last5 years building is detrimental to theireducation andwell being. Moving to middleschool and leaving behind everything you know is hard enough. Students should not be forced to make such an unnecessary changethe year before moving to middle school. They are relying on the teachers and staffthat theyknow and trust to helpthem transition to middleschool. Itis cruel and unnecessary to take these children awaylom theteachws anclstaff theyhave sperit so muchtime building relationships withwhen they need them the most in this pivotal year. Students should not be forced to make such drastic changes in their 5th grade year. l^urge the Boardto makethe rightdecision formy family and polygon 210, butmoreover I urgethe Boardto do the rightthing for Howard County andmake decisions thatwill last. There isno debate regarding the overcrowding problem in Howard County. The issuesthat have led upto the current probFem cannot be reversed butas a Board you dohave it withinyour power to notmake the problems worse. All ofthe plans being considered atthis time profess to solve the overcrowding problem. One ofthem also claims'to'soFve'the real and perceived segregation problems inthe county. However, not oneof the plansactually solves'either of these problems. All theydo isshift the problems around bydisrupting the lives ofthousands offamilies" lnsteadof cl, isru,ptionin. the 2020. school ysar. only to befollowed by additional disruption a coupFe'yearslater, theBoard should consider better options of building needed capacity where the populations exist. Build schools where theyare needed, workwith the County Council to approve responsible building, ensure'that adequate infrastructure andupgrades arein place before allowing building, and leave politics''outof'the" decisions. I oppose_the redstricting ofpolygon 210from TRES to BPESdue to the unnecessariness andthe small feed from BPESto FQMSand the lack of ability for 5th graders to beallowed to bypass-these~changes. Respectfully, Rachel Lindberg, Polygon 210, Glenwood Kathleen V. Hanks From: Kim Birnbaum I found out by chancethat this email is the only onebeing used to collect testimony. THis is most unfortunate, howare people supposedto fmd outthis?! I only foundout whentelling a friendto submittestimony andput the regular BOE email and another friend corrected me. I hope you will check if testimony was submitted there too. I also attendedthe meetingMonday night but wasnot allowed in to the mainroom becauseI hadn'talready signedup to testify, so I wasdirected to anoverflow room in anotherbuilding, whichwas locked. A custodian let me in and I proceeded to the room, where I was told I could stand whenever someone testified with something I agreed with and they would tally it. Noone was testifying in support, though, so I could not stand and be counted. It is human nature to be more vocal when we don't like something and I fear that these very vocal opposers are not an accurate representation of overall public opinion. My written testimony is below. Original message From: Kim Bimbaum We HAVE to redistrict due to overcrowding and the county's growth, which is largely in the east. While we are moving kids around anyway it makes sense to also look at the impacts diversity wise. Will it be enough to offset concentrations oflow income andconcentrations ofminority students? No. But if it helps we should do it. Will it be painful for some? yes. Should we look at those situations individually to see if it can-be avoided while in keepingwith the larger goal, absolutely. Still, some ofus will betaking one forthe team, but bythat I meanthat changeis hard. Its hardstarting in a newschool, knowing fewkids, maybehaving a longerbus ride, etc. butthe benefits to our community as a whole areworth it notjust for students who are ethnic minorities or who are lower income who benefit from increased school resources & more opportunities, but for every kid to experience a more diverse and more equitable school. That experience is one I treasured as a product of Howard County public schools andwhy my husband & I chose to raise our kids here. All ofour schools are very good, every last one. Thoughtful redistricting is oneway to ensurethat continues, so thatgaps narrow instead of widen. J. Kim Bimbaum (mother of2 HCPSS students.) Kathleen V. Hanks From: ssseands ssseands I agreethat Superintendent Martirano's proposed redistricting plan will help effect equitable opportunities for all its residents, regardless ofbackground or socioeconomic status. Brian Johnson Polygon 174 Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone Kathleen V. Hanks From: Brian Johnson I agreethat SuperintendentMartirano's proposed redistricting plan will help effect equitable opportunities for all its residents, regardless ofbackground or socioeconomic status. KalynaNedilsky Polygon 174 Sent from my iPhone To: HCPSS Board of Education From: Summer Pearson, Polygon 308 Re: Feedback Attendance Area Adjustment Plan Date: October 10, 2019 I would like to thankthe Board for receiving comments from those of us whom the Attendance Area Adjustment Plan affects. I would also like to applaud our Superintendent for being a visionary and beingconsistently committed to equality. I am an African- American single mom oftwo incredible sons who are thriving at Dunloggin Middle School. I moved to Howard County to ensure my sons had consistent accessto a robust, supportive, and safe learning environment. Our move to Howard County and the ability to remain in Howard County is a financial challenge for me (there are several other nearby counties with lower rent options), however I believe in investing in my children, even when it causes hardship. I hope that the education they receive in Howard County will open doors for them to attend great universities, and set them up to realize success in and beyond college. I am certain that I am not alone, becauseI havemany neighbors who are also sacrificinggreatly to remain inthe county for their children. I had the honor of working for HCPSSfor 2+ years and was amazed to witness up close the resourcesand support available to the students atthat school. Wewere very fortunate, andyet I am acutely aware that all schools in Howard County are not created equally, and that some students are not receiving the best that our County has to offer. This is unacceptable in2019. I have looked for affordable housing options manytimes in other neighborhoods (especially the Centennial HighSchool neighborhood), but remain discouraged that I am unable to afford a neighborhood that will provide my sons accessto one of the best high schools in the County. Howard County districting as it exists now is inequitable in that neighborhoods with families ofgreat resources are districted more heavily in schools that are thriving, and those of uswith less resources are left with schools that are not performing as highly asthe others. Furthermore, I am appalled to see how segregated many ofour schools are in a County that boasts about its diversity. Therefore, I fully support the Superintendent's vision and plan, andbelieve nowis always the righttime to dothe rightthing. Bothmy sons are also inspired byand supportive ofthe Superintendent's plan. It will be uncomfortable for many, and challenging for some, but EVERYCHILD in the county should have access to updated facilities, dedicated staff, great resources, a diverse student body, and robust class and extracurricular offerings. I have noticed that many of my neighbors do not speak as publicly as others, perhaps because we represent so many single parent and working immigrant families where parents are often stretched to make ends meet. Please understandthough that our community's silence does not mean that we are not concerned. We are interested and fully committed to a better education for our children too. I ask the Boardto be bold and unwavering in its mission to ensure every single child in this county can say without reservation that they received the best education available. To: Howard County Board of Education From: Communities West of Cedar (CWC) - Polygons 66, 1066, 134, 1134, and 2134 We, the undersigned, are families districted for Clemens Crossing Elementary School (CCES), WildeLake Middle School (WLMS), andWilde LakeHigh School (WLHS). Weunderstand redistricting is necessary to reduce overcrowding and support a plan that balances diversity and community stability as outlined in HCPSS Board Policy 6010. However, the Superintendent's proposal to move our five polygons from CCES to Swansfield Elementary (SES), does not appear to achieve this balance. It results in a decrease in the FARMS rate at CCES from 13%- 10%. This moves FARMS rate even farther away from county average while having a negligible impact on SES FARMS. The proposed moves for our polygons alone do not align with Policy 6010; the proposed moves for our community do not result in meaningful impacts to either facility utilization or diversity, and negatively impact community stability. We have long been a part ofthe CCES community and our children have built their social and emotional bonds within that community. Further, CCES is not overcapacity andjust lost over 100 students in the 2017 redistricting. We offer the following points to support our position that moving our five polygons does not appear to make any significant demographic changes to either the sending or receiving schools and is counter to a number of6010 policies. Policy 6010 Considerations Policy 6010 Section IV.B.2: Community Stability states: "Where reasonable, school attendance areas should promote a sense ofcommunity in both the geographic place (e. g., neighborhood or place inwhich a student lives) andthe promotion ofa student from eachschool level through the consideration of: keeping sto-ong feeds from one school level to the next (less than a 15% feed is unacceptable), keeping contiguous communities or neighborhoods together, and minimizing the frequency withwhich any one student is reassigned. " Themoves proposed for our community do not align with the Community Stability pillar of Policy 6010, as it would result in a feed of less than 15%, does not minimize the frequency ofmoves, and does not promote a sense of commumty. 1) Keeoine Strone Feeds: During the 2017 redistricting process, we supported the move from Harper's Choice Middle School(HCMS) to WLMSsince the change addressed facility utilization concerns and improved a previously small feedfrom elementary to middle school. Dueto the change, every childat CCESmoves to WLMSwhich helps provide stability for students at a critical point in their social-emotional development. Community stability andstudent health, to include mental health. ?.°?t. l??eto beaconcem for our community. Weask that anymoves minimize dismptions to WLMS and CCES, which were both affected by the last redistricting process. Several plans so far have proposed moving students from CCES to SES. All ofSES currently feeds to HCMS. As of last year, our polygons feed to WLMS. The proposed move will recreate the small feed that was fixed during the 2017 redistricting process, only in the opposite direction. In the Superintendeut's plan, only 11. 1% of students at WLMS would come from SES, assuming the two other polygons he proposes to move from HCMS to WLMS are redistricted as proposed. If not, the feed is even smaller. 2) Minunizine the Effects of Consecutive Changes: The 2017 redistricting process decreasedCCES enrollment by approximately 1 1% andresulted in approximately 109 students and their families moving from CCES to PRES. Facility utilization is not a current concern. The move required many changeswithin the CCES community such as changes to the PTA, after school groups, and sports. Clemens is where we have built our community bonds and fostered friendships; it is notjust our school, but our family. In 2017, we recognized the disruption to the community was necessary to alleviate overcrowding at the elementary andmiddle school level. However, multiple changes within a short time span will compound disruptionto communities, families, andstudents. Werequest that the BOB minimize moves for communities such as ours, which were affected by the 2017 redistricting process. 3) Balancing Community Stability Against Demoeraphic Characteristics of Student Population To balance the impacts on community stability, any proposed plan must make a substantial differenceto the diversity andinclusiveness ofHCPSS'sstudent body. Policy 6010 Section IV.B. 3. Demographic Characteristics of Student Population states: "Where reasonable, school attendance areas should promote the creation ofa diverse and inclusive student body at both the sending and receiving schools." It is clear moving our community on its own does not meet the Demographic Characteristics of Student Population standards as there would be a negative effect on CCES FARMs and a negligible effect on SESFARMs. Inthis instance, the negative effect oncommunity stability would not be outweighed by demographic changes. Regardless ofwhatever Plan is adopted, we request that children be grandfathered to the maximum extent practicable. At a minimum, rising 5th and 8th graders should be allowed to remain at their current schools, as requiring these students to make multiple moves within a short timeframe would be unnecessarily disruptive to students at a critical point in their social and emotional development. Similarly high schooljuniors and seniors should be allowed to remain at their current schools sinceit is a pivotal time for their careerand college planning. Conclusion The undersigned families representing the Communities ofWest Cedar request thatthe School Board consider the points outlined herein and do not approve any proposal which doesn't achieve the outcome it is designed to and which does not align with Policy 6010. Dismption to our children and our neighborhood should only occur if there is prospect for real change. Moving our five polygons does not appearto make any significant demographic changesto either the sending or receiving schools. Thank you for the countless hours of service you have dedicated to your community and for your commitment to ensuring that Howard County continues to rank as one of the top school districts in the nation. Communities of West Cedar Karen and Mike Pang (Polygon 134) Amy and Patrick Gowan (Polygon 134) Damon Hurbon (Polygon 1134) Elwood and Andriani Buck (Polygon 66) Don and Lisa Scata (Polygon 66) Shaki and Kareem Mitehell (Polygon 2134) JessicaChhatre (Polygon 1134) Gordon and Krystal Moreland (Polygon 1134) JamilaHoward (Polygon 66) Shellie and Mike Mingo (Polygon 134) Tammy and David Pullen (Polygon 134) Tracy and John Hollida (Polygon 66) Denise and Paul Giuliano (Polygon 134) Briony and Patrick Jenkinson (Polygon 66) Anjani Chandra (Polygon 1066) Mike and Heather Maloney (Polygon 1134) Teresa and Travis McHugh (Polygon 66) Christina and Hitesh Patel (Polygon 134) Andrea and Kelly Sykes (Polygon 1134) Lisa and Bill Alcom (Polygon 66) Nawal and Basheer Laaris (Polygon 134) Edie and Pete Manney (Polygon 1066) Diane and Jay Soriano (Polygon 134) Russ and Ashlee Netherton (Polygon 134) Laura and Matthew Cavanaugh (Polygon 1066) Julia Griffiths (Polygon 134) Preet Sandhu and Gurdeep Grewal Manjit Sandhu (Polygon 1134) David MagdoffandPamela Velez-Vega (1066) Jonah and Betsy Kunh (Polygon 1066) Brittany Lloyd (Polygon 1134) David Plasse (Polygon 1134) David and Ali Hynes (Polygon 1066) Anna Levin (Polygon 1066) Kathleen V. Hanks From: CindyW Dear BOB Voting Members, I'm a resident ofPolygon 200 andam writing to testify againstthe proposed redistricting ofthe Polygon, namely being moved from RHHS to Glenelg HS. I have one senior and one sophomore currently enrolled in RHHS, the sophomore will be directly impacted by the proposal along with a number ofother high school kids in the neighborhood. Two very important reasons for my strong opposition against the redistricting proposal: 1) The current redistricting proposal does not provide any information about a busing route to Glenelg for Polygon 200, this is a major concern. As many ofyou might know, Rt 32 between Linden Church Road (our exit) andRt 70 is currently undergoing expansionthat will last into summer 2022, traffic will likely behectic and difficult to manage during their time period. Adding a bus route from our neighborhood will contribute to alreadyoverloaded traffic for Rt 32, creatingtime management challenges for the student. Perhapsmore importantly, busing on a constmction road poses potential safety concerns. At a minimum, a busing option and safety study should be conducted before any redistricting decisions are made. 2) Moving schools during the most important high schooljunior year poses serious challenges for students and parents alike, it means significant unrooting offamiliar environment and student not being able to rely on their very important relationships with their teachers, potentially damaging students' success. I strongly encourage all BOB voting members to.take into consideration the above reasonings and vote against the redistricting proposal for Polygon 200. Thank you for your attention and consideration. Chen Wang Resident ofPolygon200 5687 Chandoly Ct, Clarksville, MD 21029 410-570-8105 October 9'" 2019 Dear board of Education members, my name is Gillian Ross, I am a resident of Polygon 1100, and a parent of two children currently attending Waterloo Elementary school. I am submitting this testimony in opposition of the proposed redistricting presented by the superintendent on August 20th 2019. While I applaud the intention of balancing utilization, advancing equity by addressing the distribution of students participating in free and reduced meals program (FARM), and planning for the high school redistricting, the proposed plan will not be effective in addressingthese intentions. Takingeach point at time: 1) The first goal of the proposal is balancing capacity in the utilization amongst schools, the proposal solution still appears to be unbalanced. For example, currently both Phelps luck Elementary and Waterloo Elementary have 95% utilization which is ideal. Under the new proposed plan it will be 103%and 105% respectively and projected to be reduced to 101%and 104% respectively by 2024 to 2025. The projections are not necessarily accurate (as has been proven historically) but the small increase in student population per school does not seem to warrant moving 46% and 36% of the student populations from these schools respectively. That is an incredibleamount of changefor very little increase in student population. Would it not be more suitable to provide resources, such as portable classrooms at crowded schools until the new schools are built? 2) The second goal of the proposal is redistribution of FARM. Waterloo Elementary currently has 24% FARM, Phelps LuckElementary currently has63% FARM.The average FARM in Elementary schools in Howard County is 27%very close to the Waterloo FARM percentage. The new plan changes Waterloo Elementary to 44% FARM (well above the average) and reduces Phelps luck Elementary to 36% FARM, still significantly above average. There are currently 14 Elementary schools in Howard County with less than 10% FARM (7 with lessthan 5%), only one of those 14 is receiving FARM to increase to above 10% (Clarksville to 17%) the other 13 have a change in FARM of 1%or less. Only 8 Elementary schools (out of42) in Howard County are changingtheir FARM percentage by more than 10%. Byfar the largest changes are Waterloo Elementary and Phelps Luck Elementary. Using Google Maps driving directions, my polygon 1100 iscurrently a 3. 9 mile drive from our current Elementary school Waterloo, the same distance from llchester Elementary to Phelps LuckElementary. Note the distance from llchester Elementary to Waterloo is only 3 miles. Rockburn Elementary to Phelps luck Elementary is 4. 3 miles, Waterloo Elementaryto Rockburn Elementary is 1.8 miles. Worthington Elementary is 3.3 miles from Waterloo Elementary, and 2. 9 miles from Phelps luck Elementary. The reason I bring this up, is that these schools llchester Elementary, Rockburn Elementary and Worthington Elementary are all currently in the 5 to 6 % FARM rate and still planned to be after redistricting. Ifwe really want to advance equity by moving students in Elementary schools Waterloo, and Phelps Luck it would be worth considering integratingthese with the aforementioned schools with low FARM percentages into the student population. All these schools are closer to my Polygon than my current school (Worthington 1. 7 miles, llchester2. 9 miles, Rockburn 3. 8 miles) and2 ofthem just asclose as my polygonto PhelpsLuck Elementary, 2. 6 miles. I am not bringingtogether this pointto try and propose myschool district from a distanceperspective for my polygon, ifso I would suggestVeterans Elementary(0. 6 miles from my polygon 1100),or Northfield Elementary (1. 6 milesfrom my polygon 1100). am merely pointing out that these distances have been consideredfeasible for the past 8 yearsfor my polygon to Waterloo Elementary, and therefore should still be considered feasible when considering advancing equity. 3) The third goal of the proposal is planning for the high school redistricting. Polygon 1100, under the current plan would not be impacted for middle school or high school, so this should not applyto my polygon, yet the Elementaryschool is being impacted significantly. The new High School is not to be occupied until 2023. The first new Elementarywon't be occupied until 2022 and then another in 2024 and then another in 2026. It is very likely when the new schools are occupied redistricting would need to occur again. It seems to be premature to move students before the newschools are opened. Instead usingthis time to considera plan that addressesall the 3 intentions, and provides more time for Neighborhoods to come to terms with the changes, seems like a better path forward. Thiswould allow for one well thought out redistricting plan and one change instead of multiple plans that barely have any impacts on the 3 intents. would also like to addressthe goalsthat the Wheatfield neighborhood(polygons 1100and 100) has with regardsto redistricting. Wewould like to keep our community whole bystaying with our neighboringcommunities in the 103 corridor of Stonecrest and Brampton Hills. It is important for our children to grow up with the ability to attend after school clubs and play with friends that are within walkingdistance. Ifwe create islands(as this plan hascreated in other neighborhoods) and provides weakfeeds this hurts the ability for our children to develop and maintain long lasting friendships. The dramatic change of moving halfthe school for both Phelps Luck Elementary and Waterloo Elementary will have a big impact on the students at these schools. Those remaining in the school will still feel like they are in a completely different school In my community we would like to maintain our feeder to Ellicott Mills middle school, which is 0. 3 miles from polygons 1100and 100.We need to keepour feeds from Elementaryto Middleschool andto High school strong. There is clearly an issuewhere there is more requirement for schools in the eastthan the west of Howard County. We need to consider a shift of the current land bank for schools, so that schools are built in the east where needed and not in the west. This will prevent unnecessary long busjourneys for students and lower costsfor HowardCounty. Thank you for taking the time to read my testimony. I know that there is a lot to consider and that there is no right answer. However there are many wrong answers. From my observations the new plan from the superintendent isa wronganswer and more time is neededto providea better plan. applaudthe intent of the plan, but the current proposal fails to meet the stated goals. Thank you for your time, Gillian Ross gillianross@iemail. com Dear Howard County Board of Education Members: We are Jodi and Dave Dalpe. We live in Columbia, in the Pointer's Run neighborhood within the Village of River Hill. We have three young children, two of whom attend Pointers Run Elementary, with the other child being a toddler. We moved here from NewJersey in 2018to be a part of one of the best communities in the United States and because we believe in the vision of James Rouse. One of the many reasons that we chose Columbia and Howard County was for the excellent schools and educational opportunitiesthat existfor children here- not only in River Hill, but across HowardCounty. We moved here knowingthat our children's current assignedschools would likely changeat least oncegiven the county's history of redistricting, with Jodi having experienced that herself growing up in the Village of Dorsey Search, when she was redistricted from Centennial High School to Wilde Lake High School. That likelihood was, and is, fine with us. The superintendent's current plan would redistrict our children from Pointers Run to Swansfield ElementarySchool. We believethat ourchildren's lives could be enriched bythis change,despite the disruption and inconveniencesthat it would bringto our lives, and wewould embracethe changeas part of a comprehensive plan to improve educationaloutcomes forthe members ofour community who are struggling. However, this is not that plan. As presented, the superintendent's plan fails to address the following factors, each of which significantly contributes to the disparities in educational opportunities available to children in Howard County: 1. Overcrowded schools; The current plan reduces the number of schools that exceed 110% capacity from 21 to 16. This barely makes a dent in the problem. The current plan seems to have relegatedthis criticalgoal infavor of attemptingto improve equity, whichwe could support if part of a more comprehensive plan that also sufficiently addressed overcrowding. 2. The role of educators and administrators in Improving outcomes: It is very difficult to understand how we can expect to improve outcomes without a plan that details what we will be doing differently at the educator and administrator levels to drive those outcomes. 3. Root causes of inequality: The superintendent's plan correlates high FARMs rates, which serve as a proxy measurefor low-incomestudents, with poor outcomes. EssentiallyIt pointsto socloeconomic inequality as a cause of poor academic outcomes in certain schools located in pans of Howard County with highconcentrations of low-income families. Wedon't disagree. But the proposal lacks a plan to address the issues that have led to this lopsided distribution of wealth throughout the county in anyway, starting with the waywe develop housing in our county. We believe there is great value in having students go to school within their local communities and in havingthem attendschool with their neighborhood friends from elementaryschool through high school. Thesegoals were part ofJames Rouse's vision and are memorialized in Policy 6010. Redistricting students awayfrom their local communities will bringsignificant disruption for all families in Howard Countywho are impacted inone way or another. Ourfamily would embrace that disruption and forego the benefits of having our children attend school locally, provided that the return on that investment is a net gain for the overall community, of which we consider ourselves a part, in the form of improved educational opportunities and improved outcomes for our neighbors who struggle. Since the superintendent's proposal does not achieve that, we respectively recommend that the Board of Education take the following actions: 1. Reject the superintendent's proposal as it stands. 2. Workwith the HowardCounty Counciland Executiveto establishgoals for reducing poverty, addressing housing inequality and improving educational outcomes for students in Howard County who are imparted by the first two challenges. Establish a task force with representation for all stakeholdergroups andgive them enoughtime to developa workable planthat would achieve these stated goals. If the plan includes redistricting students, those transitions should ideally occur in conjunction with new school openings which will require redistrictlng anyway. 3. Forthe 2020-21school year, proceed only with redistrictingefforts that materially reduce overcrowding while adhering as closely as possible to Policy 6010. Please keep our four polygons together (Polygons 64, 1064, 129 and 1129) in one of our Village's two neighborhood elementary schools: Pointers Run or Clarksville Elementary. In short, we consider ourselves citizens of Howard County and of Columbia. We believe all students and families should have access to the same educational opportunities. Our community faces significant challenges that need to be addressed jointly as part of a comprehensive plan. We would support having our children redistricted to any school in HowardCountyas partofsucha plan. We respectively ask the BOE to collaborate with our county government to begin working toward that goal. Sincerely, Jodi & Dave Dalpe Polygon 129 Kyle N. Remick, MD FACS Colonel (Ret. ), US Army Polygon 1202 October 9, 2019 TO: Howard County Superintendent and Board of Education SUBJECT: Testimony AGAINST Superintendent's Redistricting Proposal I retired this month from the US Army after 25 years of active duty service and over 40 months of deployment. With my wife of 18 years and with five school-age children, we chose to grow roots In Howard County and make this our permanent home because quite frankly we love it. There are many who are highlightingthe practical repercussions ofthis plan to include our children's emotional health, the increased financial burden on a budget already stretched thin despite recent increased taxation, the logistical burdens of time available for busing and after school activities, transportation assets, actual road driving times, and effects on traffic volume and patterns. I endorse all of these practical concerns as sufficient reasons by themselves to REJECTthis specific proposal. Regardingequity, I believeit would bevaluable to havea plannedand intentionalcommunity discussion in terms of educational resources and opportunity for all our children in Howard County. There is an unpleasantirony in the factthat we live in thethird richestcounty by medianincome In the country but nevertheless face issues with equity. Furthermore, a discussion of equity unearths the apparent issue that already high and ever increasing taxes are inadequate, or perhaps are adequate but not used appropriately, to fund a budget that provides equal opportunity and resources for all children In our county. Thisreveals a clearfailure notof the BOEbut of the HowardCounty government to strategically plan for our future and to create a strategy that intentionally and rightly places the citizens of Howard Countyahead of undueinfluence of politics, land development lobbyistsand other corporate financial interests. Ifthe goal is to address equity and best use of our tax dollars across the county, I challenge the HCExecutive and Council to betrue to their charge of leadership for the people byformally studying thisissue and then providinga written andverbal reportto usthe citizenry. Onlythen, canour community have an honest and open, evldence-based discussion. To the BOE:Do not betricked or persuaded to believe that voting "no" to the Superintendent's plan, or . no" to any current redistricting whatsoever this year. Is a vote against equity. You may choose to be againstthis plan and still believe we need intentional study and discussion regarding equity. My strong no stems NOTfrom the contextof equity but from the Superintendent'schoice that appears to fonward his own political agenda at the expense of our open and free democratic process. He inserted hisproposal only after the conclusionof the tax-payer funded feasibility study, breakingthe implicit trust ofthe citizensin the redlstrictingprocess laid out initiallyby our elected officials. I find histiming, his rejection ofthe feasibility study recommendations, his Incoherent district modifications. and his political agenda to be disrespectful to the people and to the idea of an honest and transparent local government. In HC, we say that we "choose civiljt/'. This motto also applies to you, our elected officials. Your votes will demonstrate whetheryou are an honest broker of civility or not. Yourvote will demonstrate what you believeto betrue aboutour society and government. Doyou believeyou are better informedand wiserand therefore knowwhat is bestfor the people regardlessof the will ofthe people? Doyou believe you are entitled to subvert the democratic processes established within our local government? would hope your answerto both questions is a resounding "no". Realize thatthe citizenry ofthis county aretaking note, and I urgeyou to demonstrate respectfor usand for the officesto whichyou were elected. Sincerely, j^^-t -/Z^i Kyle N. Remick, MD FACS Citizen of Howard County Maryland October 9, 2019 Dear Board of Education members, my name is Linda Bowers and I live at 8611 Honeysuckle Court, Ellicott City, in the Wheatfield neighborhood. My home resides in polygon 100 with polygon 1100 encompassing the remainder of the neighborhood. I am a retired PepsiCo executive where I was responsible for forecasting over 200 million cases annually and achieved gold standard results. I am currently an adjunct instructor for the English Language Center at HCC and at the University of Maryland in the Robert H. Smith School of Business. I have followed the redistricting process since 1995 when I purchased my home. I am in a unique position because I served for two years on the former SBLCin 2003 -2004 and was tasked with populating Marriott's Ridge High School. While on the SBLC I took my role very seriously. I drove to areas of the county to understand the communities we were moving and I created spreadsheets to assist board members during their evaluation of proposed plans. I also interviewed everyone I met at PTA activities, sporting events and at the grocery store, I wanted to understand how the different communities felt. My husband was the President of our Homeowners association and we both worked tirelessly with our Wheatfield neighborhood to successfully align individuals from the VFW, Y, and HCPPSto procure land for what is now Veterans Elementary school, a school our neighborhood should be attending. My children are now adults but I can't sit back and watch another board make another mistake with redistricting. I have reviewed the feasibility study and am extremely concerned with many of the current recommendations. I realize that many schools are over-crowed and many are underpopulated. I also know that the school system has not redistricted without the opening of a new school. In the past projections were mistakenly thought to be accurate. Duringthe population of Veterans Elementary school, the projected growth was thought to be in the west, seats have sat vacant since 2006 in the west when the decision was made on the Veterans attendance area. You all are being tasked with moving children in anticipation of what the population will look like in 3 years and a lot will change, particularly in the northeast quadrant. The current plans at all levels are moving many students unnecessarily. Move 300 here, pull another 300 into a school and then round the population out with another group of children. The plans all add additional fixed costs to the transportation budget. I have heard people complain that the current plans are social engineering. In the past FARM, Feed and Capacity were given equal weight. Dr. Martirano hasadmitted that hisgoal isto focus on equity. "This recommendation marks a turning point in how we look at attendance area adjustments. While previous boundary review processes focused more narrowly on capacity utilization, my proposal is in alignment with our Strategic Callto Action, leadingwith equity as our driverto provide all students with full access and opportunity to receive the best educational services and supports, " Martirano said. Who's definition of equity? Webster s dictionary defines equity as: justice according to natural law or right specifically: freedom from bias or favoritism. The current plans are far from bias or favoritism. Redistricting is hard at all ages and from my experience parents have a hardertime than the children. Whydo parents have a hardertime? In many ofthe proposed changesyou are moving people out of their community and their local or neighborhood support system. When I was on the SBLC the communication I received from parents is that they hate the piece meal redistricting that is done to populate a school. Many parents, including myself, would like to seethe HCPSSshake up all areas and realign schools and neighborhoods without the gerry -mandering of attendance areas. When I sawthe number of students being moved in the current feasibility study I was excited to seethe results, hoping that we werefinally realigningstudents to their neighborhood schools instead of busingthem across the county past several closer schools. Unfortunately, Dr. Martirano's plan is more of the same thing with many more disruptions. Howard County is alreadyan extremely diverse community andthe schools are Just as diverse. My recommendation at this time is to utilize the well vetted plans ofthe Attendance Area committee. Whilethe plans are not perfect a dedicated group of individuals discussedthe plans ail summer and parents diligently monitored the plans. The last minute over the top plan is suspicious and many feel it is politically motivated. Providingportable classrooms and resources for the schoolsthat need them, and waiting until a school is ready to be opened is the best course of action before you disrupt over 7, 000 students. The land bank listed below is very concerning. It appears that we have land for a MS site in the west and all other land is in the middle of Columbia. You must obtain [and for Northeast schools. Currently there is no dedicated land in the NE which is where you have the growth. Where are the proposed schools in the feasibility study going to be located? The elementary schools in the NE should not be touched until you understand where a new school will be located this will avoid impacting neighborhoods more than once. My Strategic Call to Action for you isto purchase land where needed and provide the best educational services and supports to children in schools closest to their communities. Inthe feasibilitystudy there is an additionfor Ellicott Mills Middle Schoolslated for 2023. Whyis there an addition at EMMS - the foot print of this property is very small. The school was almost not rebuilt on this site dueto the size andyou wantto add more? Land must be acquired in the NEwhere it is needed and your job will be much easier. You need to hold the leadership of Howard County accountable for controlling the growth and providing some type of revenue stream to fund the schools. Inthe first month ofthe newschool year over 1, 100 unforecasted children have enrolled in the school system. You also need to receive better projects from county leadership. The feasibility study is based on bad numbers and always has been. As I stated above, I am retired and available to help in any way with this process asyou begin your evaluation of the attendance areas proposed. Thank you for your time, Linda G. Bowers Loubird626@gmail. com 443-202-2458 Table 2.9 Land Bank Owned Sites Acreage Location Date Acquired Cost Sunny Spring Drive 110 Sunny Spring Drive, between 1974 | $1. 00 (aka Hawthorne Park) Cricket Pass and Golden Hook Future MS Site 41 2865 Marriottsville Road 2007 $1, 700, 000 Faulkner Ridge Center 9.01 10598 Marble Faun Lane 1968 $1. 00 Clary's Forest 10 Little Patuxent Parkway, at 2018 $0. 00 its intersection with Bright Passage Table 2. 10 Land Designated as School Open Space Property Land Designated as School Acreage Location Open Space Property Dickinson Park* 11 Eden Brook Drive, between Sweet Hours Way and Weather Worn Way Huntington Park* 11 Vollmerhausen Road, between Murray Hill Road and Polished Stone *0n May 9, 2019, the Board of Education voted to approve the acquisition of both the Dickinson Park site and Huntington Park site for the land bank. Table 2. 5 FY 2020-2029 Board of Education Requested Long Range Master Plan fl'ji ..:'1'*i *(-ii i"T.rr?f. :';t-^c-' ... ITotar At*pn»p PHttUA p^SE c*-'11**iw» ^ti^S^u ^Mp(l FTalu1 I'Y2(''i( F!v^llw f'1'!w»4 i^w" F'-'W ^WT "WM FYaa'a iilut MOWviD M"|U*-t ^.r.fw -ill S f, :'h. » li-t"] ii ll."^ li Win t. t }. , S -^ » 1^|^».. .1/,'ini ...-,. ". ;'ili ;n'r - . - - ^. s; '. M.< i:nl< '. -. !.,.>F.iir,iiir".' ....^ 1^1.," f\' Il^^'ti.lll. 's, utiiti' , I '. '. .;.., f-." I.'-'.1 "1 . ?.. '<" ;....'(« )t;:t Ni ,t4'. iltt "".. -_ -... 'wnP-ir-1.... _...,, ,. """.. "; K...... icr'-. ('i?]if, iin- ., . III. . 1 ' '-ite^.i^t^i ^ftft/^T. tn.-.fiinRf t^f : f- '. Tin.VMrl,fi.i».Rt-. n(6M-iilm|s'in 8113 Crest Road Laurel, MD 20723 Board of Education Howard County Public School System 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 October 8, 2019 Dear Board of Education, This letter concerns the Superintendent's 2019 redistricting plan. I am writing to testify against the plan. My family lives in polygon 1009 and includes three children attending Howard County public schools. I opposethe part of the plan to distribute students to equalizethe FARM metric, because I think it is simply not effective at improving the educational achievement of the students. To make my case I used the per-polygon student population data in the file data-farm-test- suppressed. xlsx, downloaded from the HCHPSS website. It is disappointing that while the Superintendent's presentation put forward the concept of equity in detail, it did not include a quantitative prediction of how educational achievement will be improved by the redistricting plan, even though he has access to all the data. The Board should have this information to consider before making a decision that affects so many students and their families. all polygons included 100 - slope = -0.52 % / % 90 80 LT. 'sl3S;":^3 cs. '. '^swn c 70 u u 60 0^ i..iS C'C. I a. 50 i 40 5 30 in 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 school FARM % The Superintendent refers to studies saying that optimizing equity in school populations improves achievement levels. However there are other studies that do not find any improvement. Which is true in Howard County? The data file from HCPSSlets us plot an achievement metric, for examplethe percentage of elementary school students meeting math proficiency, againstthe FARM percentage in the school. In the plot above each blue diamond represents one polygon, and all the polygons are included. The plot appears to show that reducing the FARM percentage significantly improves the test scores. However, that is a misleading conclusion! This kind of plot should not be used to extract that information. The educational achievement is known to be correlated with the FARM percentage of the polygon. The high FARM schools contain more high FARM polygons, and that is why the test scores correlate with school FARM percentage. The redistricting plan will not affect the FARM percentage of the polygons (we are not moving families from one address to another), so the straight line fit to the blue diamond points cannot be used to estimate the benefit of the redistricting plan. There is enough information in the excel file to answer our question, however, if only polygons with the same FARMlevel areselected. The plot with the orangetriangles includesonly polygons in the 50%FARM band. Eachorange triangle represents a polygon. The plot shows what happens if we move a 50% FARM polygon from a high FARM school to a low FARM school, which is whatthe redistricting plan does. In this plot there is no clear correlation visible. only 50% FARM polygons included 100 90 slope = 0. 12 % / % S? 80 ? 70 60 50 40 S 30 M 20 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 school FARM % The plots forthe other polygon FARMlevels are similarto the S0%FARM plot. A straight line wasfitted to each FARMlevel, and byaveraging these linesthe effect ofdata point scatter is reduced. The slope of the final average line is -0. 095 % / %. This value is so low that it means there is almost no effect. The Superintendent's redistricting plan, affecting7396 students, leads to a typical 10%change in FARM level in a school. That translates to a 1% change in the number of students achieving math proficiency. In a typical elementary school grade, one student is nudgedfrom fail to pass, and elsewhere (at a previously low FARM school) another student is nudged from pass to fail. And that's it. The concept is familiarto our teachers of some students losing out under the influence of their peers who have low educational achievement. It is not hard to identifyevents that cause it, and they see it every day in the classroom. One of the strategies available to the teachers to keep the whole class learning is to deploy paraeducators to divide the class into smaller groups, for example by small group interventions. The recent reduction in number of paraeducators in HCPSS has limited the teachers' ability to use that option. I think that if the money in the Superintendent s plan for transporting students were instead applied to rehiring some paraeducators it would cause a greater improvement in test scores than by moving the kids en masse from one school to a different school. Sincerely, Mike Taylor Kathleen V. Hanks From: Jack Duke Current Redistricting Plan is Unsatisfactory- read below. From: Jack Duke Sent: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 11:04 AM To:mavis_ellis(ahcpss. org BOE Members, If you're voting certain "No"- you can skip readingthis email. If you're voting certain "Yes" or if you're "Undecided" - read on. Redistricting based on the premise of FARM is faulty. HCPSS has not looked at all the factors involved in making this decision - traffic, transportation, social changes for the +7000 students, student confusion/distractions, the effect on property values, collective school test scores and educational disruption of our students. The heart ofthis issue is how the arrival at the "solution" came about. HCPSS paid a ton of money to uninformed, biased, overpriced consultants to make a "recommendation". The end result ofthe plan was predetermined. Influenced by race-based thinking, the whole deal reeks. The residents of Howard County will not stand for this nonsense. Redistricting decisions must be made on solid multi factorial issues based in data. The current plan is unsatisfactory. am sorry you're in an elected office duringthe reign of Michael J. Martirano. Martirano will be short for his position. This is regardless of the final decision. He served his purpose after the Fosse circus. Good riddanceto Martirano. The Martirano circus has commenced. The guy had so much promise... Unfortunately, there is a high probabilitythat members who vote "Yes"will not be re-elected. It will be on thisone issue. I voted forsome of you. Youappeared to bequalified. Bigmistake. You'renot representing the voice of the residents you serve. There is a better way. A better plan. A plan that is multifactorial. Yourtask is to proactively insistthat Martirano come up with this plan. If you do not understand the message stated above, re-read it over and over. Ironic in all of this, I do not have a child that will be redistricted. Jack Duke Kathleen V. Hanks From: Joel Gallihue Dear Howard County School Board Members, I have been observing the current redistricting process and see it is challenging. I believe that "Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. " The Danish author Piet Hein penned this and other short poems to encourage others to tackle difficult issues. Crowding in schools is a problem, but one may wonder if it is worthy of attack with a painful redistricting? New construction or temporary facilities may be too expensive or physically impossible. Sometimes the boundary lines between school attending areas really should move for that reason alone. Comprehensive redistricting triggers complicated social problems, so a Board may settle for a small study area when they should deem those complicated problems worthy of attack. The investment of parents and other community members in their local schools is a great asset. However, a sense of ownership over existing boundaries obscures barriers to racial and economic diversity. The Howard County School System redistricting plan will address inequities in the distribution of students affected by poverty. The plan draws a map where no school enrollment will exceed 54% qualifying to receive free and reduced meals. Research shows low-income students placed in socioeconomically diverse schools score better, stay at it, and go further. The benefits of improved socioeconomic diversity in school boundaries confer to the whole school. Integrated classrooms encourage critical thinking by all students. Racial diversity gains accompany improved socioeconomic diversity. Tolerance gained from exposure to people of different backgrounds prepares students to value and confidently engage a world more diverse than their neighborhood. Research shows students from diverse classrooms become more valuable team members at work and earn a higher income. Most of the heat in a redistricting process is about the disruption of enrolled students. There are measures to smooth the redistricting transition, but everyone needs to feel it was worth it. The research shows socioeconomic diversity benefits the whole classroom. As a whole, tackling crowding, opening a new school, and addressing the inequities in the distribution of students affected"by poverty is indeed a problem worthy of attack. Joel A. Gallihue, AICP ALEP 8116TamarDrive Columbia, MD October 9, 2019 Dear Board Members, Thankyou for serving on the Board ofEducation. I value your commitment and your support for the education of Howard County children. I am a member ofa family residingin Polygon 127, currently districted to Pointers Run ES (PRES), Clarksville MS [CMS] and Atholton HS (AHS). In 2017, our polygon was redistricted from Clemens Crossing ES CCCES) and Lime Kiln MS (LKMS) to PRES and CMS. While I do not have school-aged children yet, I am writing to you in support of the other children in the neighborhood and the future education of my children. Overall, our neighborhood understood the reason behind the Board's decision to redistrict our community and overwhelmingly supported the move to PRES/CMS. The 2018-2019school yearwas a challenge for the children in this polygon asthey adjusted to newacademic environments andfriend groups, but overall they have adapted well and made strong community relationship. I am still in agreement that the redistricting at that time was the right move and allows for long term stability for our neighborhood. As the county is facedwith redistricting this year, I am writingto first express our support ofthe stability currently being proposed at the elementary and middle school levels for Polygon 127, which is in keeping with Policy 6010 [IV. B. 2. ) that states the Board will make "every attempt to not move a student more than once at any school level or the same student more frequently than once every fiveyears. " As the Board considers feedback and considers redistricting proposals, we implore you to keep Polygon 127 districted to PRES and CMS as they appear in the Superintendent's and AAC's current proposals. Because of our students' redistrictmg lastyear, stability is critical and moving Polygon 127 elementary and middle school children in just two years' time would not be in the best interest of the students or in keepingwith county policy. Pleasekeep Polygon 127 districted to PRESand CMS as is currently proposed. Atthe highschool level, I understand that county redistricting ofsome kind is warranted due to overcrowding issues at certain schools and that there is a focus on shifting capacities west to address this overcrowding. The Superintendent's proposal would move Polygon 127 from AHSto River Hill HS [RHHS].At this time, I am generally in support ofa move to RHHS if the Board approves a comprehensive redistricting plan that includes the Superintendent's proposed moves of other polygons to and from RHHS. In the event the Board considers adjusting the Superintendent's proposed moves for polygons in or out ofRHHS, my position in support ofthe move to RHHS may change as such additional changes could impact long-term stability and may have the effect ofnot addressing critical priorities identified by the Board and the Superintendent. I also believe that rising sophomores, juniors and seniors currently in Polygon 127 should be given the option to stay at AHS, in the event they provide their own transportation to and from AHS. I am asking for this because juniors and seniors have forged academic, extracurricular and social relationships atAHS and should be allowed to complete their high school time there. For students in Polygon 127 who will be sophomores in the 2020-2021 school year, a move to RHHS will mean that this particular group of students will have attended four different schools in four years because ofPolygon 127's recent redistricting. Forthis group ofchildren, four moves in such a short period oftime is not in their best interest. Therefore, they should also have the option to remain at AHS if they provide Aeir own transportation to and from the school. I understand the importance ofa comprehensive redistricting plan and have always taken a reasonable approach to redistricting. I am also sensitive to any moves given our recent redistricting and we ask that before making any final decisions for our children, the Board consider our position and the impact on the children in our community. We will be paying close attention during the Board meetings and will update the Board ifPolygon 127's position changes based on new considerations or Board discussions. Thank you for your consideration. Best Regards, Candice Kassin Nager Polygon 127 Kathleen V. Hanks From: John Backiel Dear Board, Halfof the senior class would attend abbreviated classes in the mornings making sure they spent enough time to make it a legal school day for them. The other halfof the senior class would attend in the afternoon, thus the tenn "Double Session. " That alleviates your high school overcrowding problem. This could be done until a more permanent solution is made. In Connecticut, during the 1957-58 school year, in my hometown ofWestport, wehad double sessionclasses for oneyear dueto overcrowding. This wasdone in an elementary school too. I wouldn't suggestit for elementary schools nowadaysbecause in many casesboth parents work, but for seniors, who are more independent, a double session school day for them should solve your overcrowding problem! Jack Backiel Sent &om my iPhone 11601 Quarterfield Drive Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education, I would like to respectfully offer my objections to the Superintendent's recommendation to redistrict Polygons 178 and 1178 from West Friendship ESto Triadelphia Ridge ES. Redistricting of 178 & 1178 History In 2018, under the last redistricting plan, Polygons 1178 and 178 were redistricted from Manor Woods Elementary School (MWES) to West Friendship Elementary (WFES)to relieve overcrowding at MWES. MWESstruggled with overcrowded classroomsfor several years priorto the 2018 redistricting. Wesaw this and agreed that something needed to be done. Therefore, despite havingto drive past our former Elementary School on the wayto our newly districted WFES,we fairly and voluntarily "took one for the team. " We wrote letters acknowledging the overcrowding of MWES and suggesting to the Board we move to WFES. It mattered to us that we stay at an elementary school with a large feed to our middle school and high school. (Ironically, MWESopened the 2019school year at 92%capacity. WE. COULD.HAVE.STAYED. However, our elementary school children are now enrolled at WFES.These children took the prescribed solution to overcrowding and got over it. They made connections with their new Elementary School Community. Parentsjoined the PTA.And the WFEScommunity made usfeel like we belonged.) 178 & 1178 Redistrictine 2.0 The Superintendent's redistricting plan proposes our polygons (1178 and 178) and Polygons 179 and 1179 make a second move - from WFESto Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School (TRES). This proposed second redistricting affects approximately 63 children. These polygons -these 63 children - are being asked to "take one for the team" again. Our polygon community is not disposable and should not be marginalized and discarded in this way. Our kids should matter. Why 178 & 1178 Should not Move 1. TheSuperintendent's recommendation unequivocallyviolates Policy6010. Asoutlined in Policy 6010, one ofthe factors is "Community Stability" which includes (1) maintaining strong feeds, which are not less than 15%, and more importantly (2) making every attempt to not move a student more than once at any school level or the same student more frequently than once every five years. 2. Inorder to move our polygonsto Triadelphia RidgeES, the Boardwould haveto completely disregardthe "CommunityStability" factor in Policy6010. Ifthe plan isapproved, (1) the feed from Triadelphia RidgeES to MountView MS would be about7% and (2) manychildren in our polygons will be moved to their third elementary school while living in the same house and moved for the second time since the 2017-2018 school year. 3. Ifthe Board of Education does not attend to this policy for our 63 students, the Board will be setting a precedent for ignoring this policy during any and all future redistricting processes. WFES is not overcrowded. 4. WFESopened the 2019-2010 school year at 94% capacity - we called the school and got their actual enrollment. Ifthe BOEdidn't move our polygonsout of WFES,and kept all other moves as proposed in the Superintendent's plan related to WFES, WFESwould remain under capacity. In fact, according to BOE data, the net enrollment at WFES would STILLDECREASE by approximately 38 students. 5. Moving Polygons 178, 1178, 179, 1179 has absolutely no impact on FARMs data at either WFES orTRES. THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVES MET IN THE PRINCIPLE'S PURPOSE FOR REDISTRICING met by moving 178 and 1178. None. Who should move to TRES? Polygon 171 historically has been included in 178, 1178, 179 and 1179. We feel this is mistake and we do not advocatefor that Polygon. We believe that there are no children currently enrolled at any HCPSS school from Polygon 171, so no children would be impacted by assigning that polygon from WFESto TRES. Additionally, by assigning 171 to TRES, the BOE would eliminate the 1171 island in the TRES school map. Conclusion The families of Polygons 178 and 1178 (and 179, 1179) have supported this superintendent in his effort to balance capacity at HCPSS schools. We moved two years ago to alleviate overcrowding at MWES. We saw the need and our neighborhood families embraced their new school community at WFES. Our kids took one for the team, " and left their friends, teachers and the school they loved. There was a reason for it, we sawit, and we did not protest the move. Weare reasonable people who recognizeour commitment to the broader HCPSScommunity. But this second move asks too much of our children and our families. It istoo much to askof us when there is no good reason to move us. We respectfully request that the BOE leave polygons 178, 1178, 179, and 1179 at WFES. Thank you for your service to our HCPSS. We appreciate your careful attention to the children in our polygons. Respectfully Submitted, James Shan Polygon 178 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Sara Feldman-Grosse Dear Howard County School Board: I am a very concerned Howard County resident and parent of Polygon 2176. Dr. Martirano's Presentation of the Attendance Area Adjustment Plan, dated August 20, 2019 is unacceptable. By gerrymandering lines and shifting children you will improve numbers at Wilde Lake High School but you will not do anything to help these children. Wilde Lake needs resources, time, commitment, and energy from the school board and community. Transferringstudents from a schoolwith a low FARMratio to a schoolwith a highFARM ratio, only results in better "averages" for the schools. IT DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY INCREMENTAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OR OPPORTUNITIES DIRECTLYTO THE STUDENTS. Instead they need additional education resources provided directly to their schools and classrooms. Perhaps a better alternative to simply shifting warm bodies would be to work to make a website that unites Howard County parents and PTA's across schools. Events or families that need support could go there and post the need and other families and PTA'scould go there andfind who is in need and help out. You could buddy sisterschools of higher socioeconomic classes with those of lower socioeconomic classes. These "buddy" schools could worktogether to support children,families, and programs atthe schoolsin need.There are manypeople whowant to helpout butthere is no way to know what the need is. With the current method, instead affixing issues at Wilde Lake, you are punishing the children, faculty, and staffof River Hill High School by sending out 478 students to other schools and receive 741 students from other schools Pleasekeep Polygon2176 in the RiverHill HighSchool district. Pleasehear our voice. Weare concerned andloving parents only wanting the best for our children. Sincerely, Sara Feldman October 8, 2019 Dear Howard County Board of Education, Massive redistricting isdesperately needed to provide consistency and long-term solutions to school overcrowding in Howard County. I want to give a voice to the silent stakeholders in favor of redistricting that has impacted our community for many years. Our kidsand their friends were affected by redistricting in elementary, middle, and now highschool. Theconstant threat ofredistricting causes so muchanxiety in ourcommunity. Largescale redistricting will remove the uncertaintythat causes stress and provides a longterm, consistentand trusted future forthe community. I am no stranger to redistricting. I live on the same street where I grew up. My 6 sisters and I went to 4 different elementary schools, 2 differentmiddle schools, and2 differenthigh schools because of redistricting. Ascitizens of HowardCounty, we accepted thatwe were a partof a rapidlyexpanding community andtherefore movement and changewere inevitable. Whatwe learnedthrough this processwas that the anticipationand constant threat of a possible redistricting wasmuch moredifficult than the actual redistricting process. Hereare the reasonsthat hopeyou will redistrict on a large scale: 1. Relieve overcrowding and create safer schools: Students at risk or students struggling will receive more time and attention from teachers . Lower student to teacher ratio allows the teacher to get to know their students better and create a more accepting and closer classroom community . Teachers are better able to identify students who could harm themselves or others and offer more support . A less overwhelmed teacher is just a better, happier, and more effective teacher. 2. Create long term consistency for the children: « Children need stabilityto develop, grow and to be successful. . Move enough children so it is a long-term solution for everyone. 3. Moving a large group together: . Allowsstudents a greaterchance of havingfriends and familiar students going through thistransition. . Provides more support for students transitioning. 4. Give students from overcrowded schools a chance at sports and clubs: Students who were unable to make sports' teams, clubs, plays, etc. will have more spots availableand better odds. 5. Create Stability: Less likely to have last minute schedule changes and newteachers due to unforeseen new student influx. (Both ofour children hadschedule and teacher changes on the first dayof school!) 6. Portablesthat usedto solve overcrowding problemsactually create more problems: . The portables smell and arefull of mold and bugs. . The large multi classroom portables havetoilets that back up because too many kids are in there. . Entering and Exiting locked portables and school buildings creates an abundance of safety issues. . Inclement weather is a huge problem for the students and staff housed and commuting between school and portables. 7. Feelingof community and belonging: . Provide consistent environment where students will remain for their school career Students are free to make connections and long-term friendships when remaining with same kids . Students feel connected to a school and community when they know it is permanent. Thisredistricting planis not a perfectplan for our family. Wewill have2 kidsat 2 differentschools (a freshman and a senior)but this allows for both of our kids to have 4 yearsconsistently at one school. Pleasedo not'put us through this process year after year. Please create a long-term solution to this overcrowding problem NOW. Thank you, Melanie and Kent Yingling (Polygon #125) CES -^S Sla Swansfield < Community ; Pointers Run Community Pr-ii CMS MS New Islands Separated By 1000 Acre Environmental Area We are communities, not islands! K-- - -A irl Q . ^u< con iiii 11 lem( ols: PojrkfQ" -I - - Submitted by: Kathy Hawthorne Polygon #129 Dear Howard County School Board: I live in Howard County polygon 2176. Dr. Martirano's August 20, 2019 Presentation of the Attendance Area Adjustment Plan is unacceptable. Howard County is known for its school district and this is what draws young families here. With great schools you are able to draw people of higher socioeconomic classes looking for education for their children. The school board in turn utilizes these taxes to improve all school districts. By passing CR112 and gerrymandering lines with the current redistricting plan you will scare off these very people you are trying to attract. These are people who provide you money to support the school system. These people will go to other counties where they feel their school boundaries are safer and that their children aren't at risk of being shipped across town in the name of "equity". These very people you need to attract will be scared away and will move elsewhere. And now to the point of equity. By shifting children from low FARM schools to high FARM schools you are not actually doing anything to help these high risk children in need. You are simply changing numbers to make yourselves feel better. You are not teaching more children to read. You are not having more high risk children perform better. You are simply having higher performing students raise test score averages across the school. You as educators can do better than this. Please go back to the drawing board and come up with solutions to actually help high risk students. Provide more funding, provide more support, get other schools and communities involved to help with those schools and communities in need. People are willing to help, you must provide a platform where people can know who/how/when to help. Do not simply shift children from River Hill High School to Wilde Lake High School to fix numbers. Please do something different. Do something better. Do something more. Sincerely, Genevieve Wilcox Kathleen V. Hanks From: Debbie Engle Thank you Board of Ed for the work you are doing to solve the county's shortage of school space and more evenly spread out our students with needs. When consideringthe movement of rising 5 , 8thand 12thgraders who have built relationships with staff in their schools over many years, please also consider rising 11th graders. These students will have spent half of their high school careers in one building. Rising Juniors have made connections with staff that will be difficult to create anew. Many of these rising Juniors are building their college application resumes, and the staff that support them and know them should remain with them for the second half of their high school time. There are also students with disabilities that have built relationships with staff and students alike, that would lose many of those important connections if they were to move mid-way through their high school time. Please consider the rising Juniors when making your final decisions in November. Regards, Debbie Engle Kathleen V. Hanks From: stacy perrier Should elementary school children be fo?ced to attend three schools in four years? Ours wil!. My name is Stacy Perrier and I live in polygon 1179, a self-contained neighborhood straddling Triadelphia Road. We are a neighborhood established in the early 1970s. There are no new houses being built in our neighborhood. We are as stable as stable gets. In the superintendent's recommendation, as well as in the feasibility study Western Option #2, my polygon, along with 179, 178, and 1178, are slated to be moved from West Friendship ES to Triadelphia Ridge ES. As you should know, these polygons were a!ready redistricted during the 2018-2019 school year from Manor Woods ES to West Friendship ES to reduce the overcrowding at Manor Woods ES (largely due to significant new housing development in the area). At that time, many polygons were proposed to move, and in the end, we were among the few to move to a new school. Members of our community attended the feedback meeting for my area in July 2019 and were told by members of the consulting group that one of the goals of the current proposal was to relieve overcrowding at West Friendship ES. As evidenced by the data in the proposal, this is not true and moreover, this was the same message we heard in the 2018-2019 redistricting. To be bounced around like a ping-pong ball to ostensibly reduce overcrowding caused by new (some would say unrestrained) development is beyond frustrating. Xedistricjns: po'ygor! 1178 is no; an equitable solution to the ov3"c;-owc;:ns in our County schools. 3f i:h:s pien is approved, oui" polygo^ wii! hevs n-. alt;ple chilc:.-en who wi!l have attenced i^-anor Woods, Wast Fi-'andship and now Triadelphia Ricee elesriertarw h schools... a. I bafo-e et grade and withcu.: moving out of the neighborhood! Policy 6010 (School Attendance Areas) identifies the factors to be considered when adjusting attendance areas. One of those factors is the "Frequency with which any one student is reassigned, making every attempt to not move a student more than once at any school level or the same student more frequently than once every five years." We started at Manor Woods Elementary School and we learned to be a Mighty Duck. We learned teachers, classrooms, principals, made friends and learned how to earn duck tickets. During the last redistricting cycle we were moved to West Friendship Elementary School and we learned how to be a Tiger! We learned . '. aw teachers, naw classrooms, n. ew principals, made . iew friends and how to earn tiger tickets. Now we are marked to be moved to Triadelphia Elementary School where we will have to learn all of the basics again. When does this STOP, how many elementary cultures will our children have to learn?? Of the 58, 000 students in Howard County, there are just 63 students that are being redistricted AGAIN. We are the S3! We are the S3 that took one for the team last year. We are the S3 that bore the weight of that transition last year. We are the S3 facing the prospect of 3 elementary schools in 4 years. We are the S3 that Policy 6010 was designed to protect. We are only 33 and we ask that you hear us and give us adequate consideration. We are pleading with you to leave our children at West Friendship Elementary School and not make their elementary school career a pile of lost friendships, memories and mentors. Thank you for your time. Stacy Perrier Kathleen V. Hanks From: Adam Hernandez Hello, My written testimony is below. I also submitted this as oral testimony Thankyou. Adam Hernandez Polygon 2166 Hello, my name is Adam Hernandez. I would like to speak about the potential effects of the superintendent's proposal on the sleep and health of our children. I am a physician and one of my specialties is sleep medicine. I regularly see and treat pediatric patients. did my sleep medicine fellowship at Johns Hopkins, and my fellowship included training in pediatric sleep medicine. By redistricting us from Waverly to West Friendshipthe current proposal increases the commute distance of polygons 166, 1166 and 2166 from 1. 2 miles to 5. 1 miles. This will result in a significant increase in commute time and necessitate earlier student wake times. Due to their specific circadian rhythms, many children cannot simply go to bed earlier to accommodate an earlier wake time. Thus, an earlier wake time often results in lost sleep and a state of chronic sleep deprivation. Children ages 6-12 need between nine and twelve hours of sleep per night (8). Chronic sleep deprivation is very common and linked to a host of bad outcomes. Sleep deprived children are at an increased risk of behavioral problems, poor academic performance, obesity, and depression (2, 3, 5, 7, 9). I'm sure you are all familiar with the Schools Start Later movement in which policy makers, parents, and healthcare professionals have urged for later school start times in order to combat chronic sleep deprivation in students. The benefits optimizing student sleep include better academic performance, fewer disciplinary actions, better family relationships, improved quality of life, and a decrease in obesity, anxiety, and depression (4, 5, 10, 15). While this movement focuses on middle and high school students the same issues exist for elementary age children. Changes in pediatric circadian rhythm can start as early as third grade (12). Specific research has shown that sleep deprivation is a common problem in elementary school children and just as harmful (2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13). The current superintendent's proposal will exacerbate the ubiquitous problem of chronic sleep deprivation for the students of polygons 166, 1166 and 2166 and many others. Many students will have longer commutes and will have to wake up earlier. With regards to the Schools Start Later movement we are in effect going backwards. We are going backwardswith wake times and going backwardswith the sleep, health, and well- being of our children. If it is necessary that children be shined from Waverly to West Friendshipthen we would like to offer the following solutions which we believe minimize the negative impact on the children involved by prioritizing shorter commute times. Polygons 4169, 304, 169, 6169, 7169, 1169, and 5169 are currently part ofWaverly and are not slated to be redistricted. All of these polygons are closer to West Friendship than our polygons 166, 1166 and 2166. Polygon 4169 is actually closer to West Friendshipthan it is to Waverly. Redistricting polygon 4169 would result in a decrease in commute time. Polygon 304 is equidistant in terms of driving routes, so there would be no change in commute time if redistricted. We believe that it would make far more sense to redistrict one or more of these closer polygons. I see many sleep deprived children in my office. The single biggest contributor to sleep deprivation is their school schedule. This is a very real and very serious problem, so much so that an entire movement has been born out of it. The current proposal will potentially have a significant negative impact on the lives of many students. For the children in polygons 166, 1166 and 2166 a simple solution exists. Polygons closer to West Friendship should be preferentially redistricted. This will lessen the negative impact and optimize the sleep, health, and well being of the children involved. References 1. https://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/23586885 2. https://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/25712328 3. httDS://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. aov/pubmed/28189692 4. httos://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. aov/Dubmed/26545246 5. httDS://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. aov/Dubmed/25156998 6. https://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/20093054 7. https://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. aov/pubmed/20093Q54 8. https://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed?term=27456512 9. https://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/28211649 10. httDS://www. tuck. com/school-start-times-and-sleeD/ 11. https://www. sciencenewsforstudents. org/article/gettjn.g-enouah-sleeo-health-BMI-learnina 12. https://www. psychologytodav. com/us/blog/child-sleep-zzzs/201806/are-elementarv-aae-children-sleeD- deprived-teens 13. httos://www.aDa. ora/news/oress/releases/2014/06/school-start-times 14. httBSi//www. cdc. gov/features/school-start-times/index. html 15. https://www.ncbi. nlm. nih.aov/omc/articles/PMC5888077/ Dear Board of Educationand Dr. Martirano, I spoke at our community's public hearing and submitted a written statement at that time, but since then I have thought of an important point that I didn't include in my original statement. I live in Polygon 25 whichis a racially and socioeconomically diverse polygon. Under the Dr. Martirano's plan we're slated to move from Bollman Bridge Elementary School to Guilford Elementary School, and from Patuxent Valley Middle School to Thomas Viaduct Middle School. Both sets of schools have similar racial diversity and FARMs rates. I am sure both Guilford and Thomas Viaduct MS are fine schools with dedicated teachers and administrators. I have no particular beefwith either school specifically, but I do worry a lot about the distance between Polygon 25 and Thomas Viaduct MS. Polygon 25 has a 40% FARM rate at the elementary level and 50% at the middle school level. Among these FARM families are stodents ofparents who work very hard to provide the necessities oflife for their children, working long hours and taking multiple jobs. Some ofPolygon 25's parents don't drive or don't own cars. In the event that our polygon is redistricted to Thomas Viaduct, the bus ride for Polygon 25 wouldjump from 1 mile to 7 miles. Now, as a parent, I can say that despite advance planning (packing backpacks the night before, making lunches the night before, etc. ) there are days that my kids miss the bus. We sleep in. Someone can't find his other shoe. These things happen. This is a reality of life. Kids sometimes miss the bus. For Polygon 25 that means that parents would needto be the ones to get our kids to school. The route to Thomas Viaducttakes us up either Route 1 or 1-95 andalong Route 100. In rushhour (TVMS starts at 8:10am) this cantake 20 or 30 minutes. There are families in Polygon 25 that flat out will not be ableto gettheir children to school if they miss the bus. This is because they will already be at work or they don't own a car. Rightnow, students from Polygon25 canwalk the 1 mile to PatuxentValley MS if they missthe bus, but it is unreasonable to expect a middle school student to walk 7 miles up Route 1 to Thomas Viaduct MS. It is unreasonable to expect a middle school student to take an Uber or Lyft. And it is also unreasonable for students to take RTA. According to the bus routes that currently exist and the MTA trip planner website, a student from Polygon 25 would have to take a bus and transfer to the MARC, whichwould drop them offat the DorseyMARC parkn' ride andthen they wouldhave to walkmore than2 miles alongDorsey Rd, whichhas sidewalks for only halfa mile, andCoca Cola Drive, which has neither sidewalks nor a shoulder. This process would take at least 2 hours and be extraordinarily dangerous. So, for Polygon 25 middle school students whose parents cannot drive them, a missed bus means a missed day of school. This is a genuine problem. Kids from lower SES backgrounds already have a higher high school dropout rate than other students. The statistics are already against halfthe kids in Polygon 25 and this busing issue addsto it. Howmany missed buses would it take for a student to get behind and become embarrassed about it? Howlong before they get so far behindthat they start skipping school? How long before theyjust stop going to school all together? A major reason for this redistricting process is to give students &om lower SESbackgrounds an extra boost so they can buck the trends, graduateand enter the world being career and college ready. But if they can't get to school it really doesn't matter how many amazing programs there are to help them. Please consider this when you make plans for the 2020-21 school year. I'm sure Polygon 25 isn't the only high FARMs polygon facingthis distance problem. Sincerely, Kirsten Johnson Proud Parent and Resident ofPolygon 25 7 October 2019 Hello BOB, I was supposed to give an oral testimony but having been one of the first one to sign in, I was scheduled to be the one before last supposed to speak on the 26th. Makes sense? No! As a single widowed mom, I unfortunately am not able to give a testimony at midnight or 1 am but who cares about single widowedmoms? Certainly not HoCo. And who cares about young orphans? Certainly not Dr Martirano who lost his wife to suicide but could not care less about my son, B. H, whose father killed himself in 2015 when he was 4. I spoke aboutmy son 2 years agoat the redistricting meeting in 2017when Dr Martirano gotthat weird idea to displace all the students on my street, Woodstock Rd (Polygon 2166), that's about 25 ES kids in 3 polygons (2166, 1166, 166). But yeah Dr. Martirano for some obscure reasons cannotlive withthose 25 kids stayingat Waverly ES abouta mile awayand he really wantsthem to be transported to West Friendship. 2 years ago I spoke how my son, one kid among those 25 kids, would be the most impacted by that move. But no Dr. Martirano obviously could not care less about a little 7 years old orphan back then and still cannot care about a 9 years old boy now who can describe how his father shot himselfin the head. No, my very fragile son must be moved from the school he has been at for 4 years now where everybody knows him and have his life screwed up even more so Dr Martirano can feel proud ofhimselfas well as all of you on the BOE. BOE: as you obviously have so much money to spend in useless busing of kids all around the county and as you are so intent on putting my son on a 3 0+ mns bus ride, I am REQUESTING you bus him to a school for DYSLEXIC kids such as the Legacy or Jemicy school. Certainly you have never heard about dyslexia as HoCo, the so-called "best school on the galaxy" has no program for severely dyslexia kids, NONE. It's a shame, 10-15% of the population is dyslexic but HoCo could not care less. HoCo caters exclusively to the kids who can easily learn, the elitist county that makes no effort to include those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, the most wide spread learning disability. Certainly you have also never heard about the International Society for dyslexia, it's located in a place called Towson. Maybe you have heard about Towson? They would tell you that the best method to teach dyslexic kids is the Orthon-Gillingham (OG) method. Baltimore County for instance has multiple reading specialists trained on OG while HoCo does not have a single reading specialist trained on 00!!! Because dyslexia kids do not matter here in HoCo! When I complained about that, Central Ed sent me a letter giving me 3 options, one of them being homeschoolmg. Sweet, here in HoCo when a child has a learning disability the county does not try to train its teachers and teach the child with the appropriate method, instead it expects the parents to do it! So BOB as you are all so intent on moving the 25 ES kids on Woodstock Rd, I am requesting you either busmy sonto a school fordyslexic kids such asthe Legacyor Jemicy school orto any ES school in Baltimore count, such as Catonsville ES. We can discuss together the best out of HoCo school for my dyslexic son, you can call me anytime at: 512-968-1349. And maybe we canalso discuss howyou BOB are goingto pay me backfor the tutoring lessons my son is receiving out of school by a reading specialist from a Baltimore County school trained on OG as he is learning close to nothing in your elitist HoCo schools. I look forward to your phone call so we can discuss which school my son will be bused out of HoCo next year so he can finally learn in a school setting and I can stop paying $20000 a year in tutoring for his so-called "free education" Best, Virginie Dujols-Hubka, Ph.D. Resident ofWoodstock Rd, polygon 2166 Kathleen V. Hanks From: amy dell I have a 6th grader and a Bin grader at Mount View MS. We live at 481 Koute 32 polygon 231 and which is apart of the proposed redistricting plan for 2020-2021 . As I was looking as the map closer I see that if you are heading North on Route 32 the whole right side of 32 is to remain the same with going to their school of Mount View MS and Marriotts Ridge HS there is a small section (which we are a part of) towards the end of RT 32 on the right hand side heading toward Carroll County that the polygon has dips over to the right side of RT 32. I always thought that Rt 32 was the dividing line. As of right now my daughters ride the bus with friends that help me carpool or can get dropped of at their house only 1 mile up the road at Indian Hill Rd I would loose all of that community help to be bused out further to Glenwood/Glenelg. The bus they are on comes to our house then makes a left into Sykesville to continue to River Road to finish out the route.. It concerns me that moving my family to a school district that is over double the time away to ride there where you are turning a 15minute bus ride to MVMS into a 45+ minute bus ride to Glenwood and or Glenelg depending on the traffic on Rt 32 in the morning and afternoon. And exactly how early are they supposed to catch the bus ? Right now the are on the bus at 7:07am and get home at 2:55pm that would change dramatically with the redistricting plan MVMS which is only 5 minutes up the road from our house seems silly to send them all the way out there to Glenwood/ Glenelg. I go past MVMS on my way to work which makes it easy to be apart of school functions helping out, running in to pick up my daughters if the have a doctor's appt. ect. Having them redistricted would make it difficult for me to do. If the redistricting happens doing any after school activities at Glenwood/ Glenelg probably would not happen cause dealing with the traffic on the way home would not make it easy for me to get my daughters and the safety of driving around rush hour just to get home with them You would be sending a bus all the way down to our house for maybe 4 or 5 kids (2 of which are mine) because that part polygon 231 has spread to the right side of RT 32 when the bus that they are on now will probably keep the same route next year for MVMS / MRHS for 2020-2021 and be coming past our house anyway.. As of right now neither MVMS/MRHS or Glenwood/ Glenelg are over crowded and neither school have a lot of FARM students and when you are talking about moving a total of 40 student from polygon 231, 232, 1231 that isn't making an impact with "over crowding". I understand that redistricting needs to happen as we get crowded but shouldn't this time waits until that time happens ? Is seem like moving kids for sake of moving them is really not solving the issue at hand. Howard County talks of redistricting every year only put pressure on the family's involved when you think you move into a area for a certain school only to be threaten with being bused out 45 minutes further. I don't see where this would make it appealing for family's to want to move into this county when you don't feel like you have any stability. How can you talk about community, parent/ teacher involvement but constantly talk of redistricting. Also, taking on a bill of 1+million dollars for the need of extra buses, drivers, fuel, ect. seem outlandish which will also affect the community that will have to make up that money from taxes. I feel like this plan needs to be better thought out for everybody's sake and well being through out the whole county. Thank you, The Dell Family October 7, 2019 Christopher Monti Polygon 232 Subject: Concerned Citizen of the AnnandaleCommunity (Polygon 232) Dear Members ofthe Howard County Board of Education (BOE), I, along with my wife, am writing to you to express our opposition to Superintendent Michael Martirano's proposed Anendance Area Adjustment Plan (hereinafter "Superintendent's Plan"), dated August 20, 2019. We live in Polygon 232 and our child is currently assigned to attend West Friendship Elementary School (ES), Mount View Middle School (MS), and Marriotts Ridge High School (HS). Under the Superintendent's Plan, our child would be redistricted to Bushy Park ES, Glenwood MS, and Glenelg HS. This change would roughly double the distance to our elementary and middle schools, and almost triple the distance to high school. In addition to the proposed redistricting breaking up the contiguous community that currently feeds into Marriotts Ridge HS, the significant increase in distance between our community and the assigned schools has negative ramifications in two key areas: 1) Longer bus rides to and from school for all of the children ofPolygon 232; and 2) Longer commute times to school activities for many parents. While we recognize that the adverse impact of broken communities and longer bus rides for the children are of primary concern, our fellow neighbors are submitting testimony to the BOB separately addressing both of those issues. Therefore, we were asked specifically to address how the proposed redistricting will have a negative impact on the parents. For the purpose of this letter opposing the Superintendent's Plan, we are focusing on the unfavorable impact the redistricting will have on our ability as parents to be as fully engaged in our child's educational experience. Three years ago, in preparation for my move back to Maryland after serving in the U. S. Army for five years at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, my wife and I began looking at locations to purchasea home andput down roots in a community. We focused our search in Howard County due to the great schools. Since my wife worked in Baltimore City and I was to be working near Odenton, our primary concern was to find a location that would enable us to be engaged in our child's educational experience in light of our full time work schedules. My wife and I both work over forty hours a week and expect to do so over the courseof our child's primary and secondary education. Accordingly, we spent a lot oftime and effort considering what location would work best for our dual-working family. We settled on the Annandale community in Polygon 232 dueto its proximity to both Route 70 and Route 32 and the fact that the elementary, middle, and high school all were located east of Route 32. This would make it significantly easier for my wife and I to support school activities based on our average after-work commute times traveling from east to west. While asHoward County residents we appreciated atthe time ofour house purchase that there are no guarantees against school redistricting, we understood that any redistricting by the Howard County BOB would have to be in accordance with Policy 6010 andbe done for the purpose ofproviding quality, equitable educational opportunities to all students and to balance capacity utilization of all schools. Particularly, Policy 6010 requires attention to the impact of three factors in the BOE's consideration and development of a school attendance adjustment plan: Facility Utilization, Community Stability, and Demographic Characteristics of Student Population. The Superintendent, in putting forth his proposal, identified his three critical priorities as alleviating overcrowding, advancing equity, and planning for the constmction of new High School #13. Alleviating overcrowding andplanning forthe construction ofHigh School #13 both fall under the Policy 6010 factor of Facility Utilization. Advancing equity falls under the Policy 6010 factor of Demographic Characteristics. Considering the proposed move of Polygon 232 would break up a community and thus undeniably have a negative impact underPolicy 6010's secondfactor ofCommunity Stability, the Superintendent'sPlan must then have a discemably positive impact on the other two Policy 6010 factors of Facility Utilization and Demographic Characteristics. Inthis effort the Superintendent'sproposed move ofPolygon232 falls shortof both Policy 6010 and his own professed priorities. In terms of Facility Utilization, currently none of the sending schools of Polygon 232 are over the 110% capacity utilization line and with the impending construction of new High School #13 and the subsequent rebalancing that will inevitably result, it is premature to redistrict. As for advancing equity pursuant to Demographic Characteristics, the Superintendent's Plan does not identifiably impactthe numberof students receiving Free and ReducedPriced Meals (FARM) at Bushy Park ES or Glenelg HS, and actually reduces the number of FARM students at Glenwood MS. Furthermore, the Superintendent's Plan does not change the percentage of EL participation at the gaining schools and has negligible impact on the racial and ethnic diversity in those schools. As for academicperformance, theproposed redistricting would have minimal impact on student achievementas the projected readingand math test scores either stay stagnant or only increase by one to two percentage points. In sum, it does not appear the Superintendent's Plan positively aligns with the Policy 6010 factors of Facility Utilization and Demographic Characteristics, and by the nature of breaking up the Annandale community from the rest of the neighborhoods feeding into Marriotts Ridge HS, it has negative impact based on the Policy 6010 factor of Community Stability. Becausethe Superintendent'sproposed redistricting moves our child from schools on the east side of Route 32 to the west side of Route 32, in addition to roughly doubling the distance from our home to the elementary and middle schools and almost tripling the distance to high school, it also effectively adds approximately five miles to our commute from work to school. Considering the significant evening rush hour traffic on Route 32 and Route 70 and resulting extended commuting times, these additional five miles will make it definitively more difficult for my wife and I to attend school functions, Parent- '. Policy 6010, Section I. 2 Policy 6010, Section IV.B. Superintendent's Plan, page 9. 4 HCPSS2019 Feasibility Study(June 2019), pages 9-10. Superintendent's Plan, pages 13-14. Superintendent's Plan, pages 23-24. Superintendent's Plan, pages 25-26. Superintendent'sPlan, pages21-22. Teacher meetings, volunteer with after-school activities, etc. Moreover, after speaking with many other parents in the Annandale community, it is readily apparent that our situation is not unique. The high cost of living and property taxes means a significant number of families in our community require two full-time workingparents to make ends meet financially. The densityof businesses and economic centers in Baltimore, Columbia, and Ellicott City means many of these parents from the Annandale community work in those areas and are commuting from east to west when returning from work. Thus, the westward shift in schools increases the commuting time for a high percentage of parents living in the Annandale community. A vitally important factor in the success of a child's education is parental involvement. In this instance, the proposed increase in commuting time for so many parents ofthe Annandalecommunity will inevitably result in a decreasein the educational experience of the children. Redistricting that inhibits a parent's ability to be involved in their child's educationshould be avoidedwhenever possible. Certainlythat barriershould never be erected by those charged with ensuring children get the best educational experience possible. Of note, the reduction in parental involvement does not just negatively affect the immediate child of the parent(s). It affects all of the children within the parents' community and sphere of influence. We as parents do not attend athletic events, theater productions, art exhibits, etc. exclusively to cheer and celebrate our own child. Our praise and support very much extends to every other child on the team, field, court, stage, etc. because we support our community of children. We volunteer time, energy, and resources to after-school activities not solely to support our own child, but also to support and encourage every child participating. To buffer against the difficulties of modem work schedules, we band together as parents to figure out creative carpooling solutions and after school care so that as many of our collective children as possible can participate in activities. Children benefit from their parent(s), and the community of parents, being involved in their education. We live out the conventional wisdom, "It takes a village." Like other parents making thoughtful and deliberate decisions, my wife and I purchased a home in a location and school district that was in the best interest ofour family based on our unique circumstances. We focused on a place that would permit us to be as active parents as possible in the educational experience of our child and of the rest of the community children. The Superintendent's Plan negatively impacts our ability to do so without providing a sufficient basis under Policy 6010. That is why we, along with many of our neighbors in the Annandale community who are in similar situations and share in our position, sincerely hope you appreciate our concerns and reject the contemplated redistricting of Polygon 232. Thank you for your time and consideration in reading this letter. Kathleen V. Hanks From: David Koonce I am writingto sharethat I am op[-os3u to the redistricting proposal that is beingdiscussed for Howard County Public Schools. believe the disruption is not in the best interest of the children. am in Polygon 2176 and feel that my children would be better served in the school that they are currently aligned to. David L. Koonce 11813 Farsode Rd EllicottCity, M D 21042 301-332-3234 dkoonce@fairwaymc. com Yong Yun and Qing Polygon 1185 Clarksville M D 20144 Oct 6th, 2019 Howard County Board of Education Members, and Dr. Michael J. Martirano, Superintendent, Howard County Public School System Dear Board of Education (BOE) Members and Dr. Martirano, I am here todayto oppose Dr. Matirano's Attendance Area Adjustment Plan, dated August 20, 2019 (the "Plan"). We are parents of three kids, one is a high school senior right now. The other two girls, one will attend middle school and one will be a 4th grader in the elementary school next year. We are opposing the plan for the following reasons, 1. The plan sends 22 kids in our polygon 1185 to a different high school than kids in nearby polygons. Among the 276 high school students from the west part of the county to be redistricted to Wilde Lake High School, only 22 high schoolers are from our polygon 1185. This is only 8%. The rest of 92% high students come from a residential community north to ours. Our polygon shares no roads, not even walkable path with that community (See Figure 1 and 2). Their 254 kids went to a different elementary and middle school than our kids. 2. The plan moves middle schoolers in our polygon 1185 with our neighborhood polygon 185 to Harpers Choice middle school, but later separates them into two different high schools. As a result, 22 middle schoolers will be the only group of kidsfrom their elementary peers who will go to Wilde Lake High School in the future. This plan will result in about 30-50% in student composition in receiving school or sending school. (Figure 2 and 3) 3. The plan increases the high school students commute time. We are .5 miles from River Hill High School from our small community exit route. However, the plan will lead to ~45 minutes bus ride each way on every school days. 4. In the 2019 Feasibility study conducted for the Howard country school broad, it listed several options of "ForeseeableAttendance Area Adjustments" that can ensure schools operated under reasonable capacity. Neither the move of high school students from River Hill HS to Wilde Lake HS, nor the move of middle schoolers from Clarksville MSto Hapers Choice MS is recommended. 5. The plan contradicts the results of the public input that is cited on page 7 of the superintendent's proposal. The public survey results clearly identify the three most Page | 1 important criteria in Policy 6010 are Keeping communities together, keeping feeds of students together and transportation considerations. While this plan moves about 7400 students all over the country map, adding transportation costs and raising traffic and safety concerns. 6. Despite the messages from the public input session. Dr. Martirano intends to use this plan to improve Equity. According to current policy 6010 "Equitable-Just or fair access, opportunities, and supports needed to help students, families, and employees reach their full potential by removing barriers to success that individuals face. " If anyone wants to improve Equity, please consider the costs and practical aspects of this plan. Failing to do so will seriously jeopardize its goal. 7. The school broad face serious financial challenges. Out of $8 million budget increase by the HCPSS, only 2 million are granted by the county council in May/June 2019. For year 2020, the BOE budgets decision include, reduction oftech staff, reading/math support teachers, para-educators positions; reduction of $1. 5 million from utility; system wide reduction in supplies; and etc. On top of that we are going to add ~$1. 1 million transportation costs due to this plan. How about a budget oriented redistricting plan that can ensure providing essential services at all schools for all students in the first place? How about propose more targeted, direct programs to help kids in needs and with low performance score? In research, soclal-economic factors only measure the underlying factors which directly affect students' performance. We believe the collaborative mentality and common goals of education in a school system is the driving force to improve overall performance of our students. Dear broad member, please use your due diligence to make the evidence-based, budget wise decision. Sincerely, YongYun and Qing Li Page 2 f " -''Vws,,>'°pn.. 32 '1'--. . '-I-'-' 108| -" ^ ^. ''^ ^ .^ ...o'> 132; < -V Figure 1. Redistricting plan for high schools. Polygons in pink are those proposed for Wilde Lake HS. Page | 3 <, ^ .-} 'MWIM& 'frSS,.j . ^ \ -^ l^, f ': . - -*».»»s Htl(W» L*(q*t:iii^ E1S Cti.:»iw?MS . 'c&:& \"^ ^r UhE.- IWTO. MS " p.'l't. ttlt ^(t)flA', k'ES . R^ttES A'Ji^il'.-n ESj ^ 1185 is the only polygons in our nearby neighborhood that is affected for both middle school and high school. ClarksvilleES-> :: T^>,. Cii-.:^i ..3->1'^.^-. '^. '. :. ;;.> ^'.. 'i-ir^t^^';?^ !ii'!r:ilif-e^, 'jc.. -.*i",, -,, ;;i,. ^-.. ->c> Figure 2. Effects on Polygon 1185 ;^. -. ^. f-W. L. River Hill HS SendingStudents Out -> Wide Lake H5: 276 ->GlenelgHS, 202 Total of ^:/. students (l. ;;^ of total affected high school students in the ''. %^;?%%%;'^.. county], ';-' .\ of current capacity of . ' ':>/St^':: 1488. '-..'.'.^'/. f'.^' . .'. ^. \. ^ry^. River Hill HS ReceivingStudents in Atholton HS, 513 -> WildeLa keHS, 132-> Reservoir HS, 96 -> Total of "'.^. students {" ; ;i- of total 2851 affected high school students in the county), ?';^.. of current capacity of 1488. Figure 3. Redistricting plan for high schools in River Hill region Page | 4 Clarksvitie MS Sending Students Out Eu'fei':,^ .> Harpers ChoiceMS, 207 M.BIU} fe18 /,.:'-.'. of total affected middle school students N==1351 CfarksvilieMS Receiving Students In Harpers Choice MS, 87 -> ;; of total affected middle schooi students Kd:t^*'S AoiceMS HarpersChoices MS ReceivingStudents In fe. ClarksvilleMS. 207 -> %-^%'' Wilde Lake MS, 17 -> '//'/^//- Total of /'- > students (^ 7,/ of tota I affected y.r .'<.../.''. /'/'.. middle school students N=;1351) '^wy. HarpersChoices MS SendingStudents Out ->ClarksvllleMS,87 -> Wilde Lake MS, 62 Total of ... - students (ll;y of total affected) Figure 4. Redistricting plan for middle schools in Clarksville Middle School region Page 5 Kathleen V. Hanks From: Isaam Sayed I live in polygon 93 and we are districted to Hebron this year and when the county redistricts. Is there a way my area Polygon 93 and the other Polygons around here can get redistricted to Centennial or Howard? We are so close to Howard and Closer to Centennial over Hebron. Hebron is very inconvenient for us. Can Polygon 101 and 1, 101 area get redistricted to Hebron since they are closer to be Hebron thaii us, and let us get redistricted to Howard or Centennial since they are closer to us (Polygon 93 mid surrounding polygons). and polygon 101 and 1101 are closer to Hebron, than us, so maybe we (93) could get districted to Centennial (or Howard) aiid them (1101, 101) to Hebron Resident/ Polygon I U '2- Date ^/^]cf Board of Education HowardCounty Public School System 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board Member, I strongly oppose the superintendent's proposed plan to redistrict our community ofhomes and others nearby to Harper's Choice Middle School. Our commimity is an integral pan ofthe River Hill community. Clarksville Middle School is the only middle school that is both in close geographical proximity and is part ofthe River Hill community. The proposed plan moves our children, who attended Clarksville Elementary School, to Harpers Choice Middle School (HCMS) instead ofClarksville Middle School (CMS). Attending any school outside ofour community, regardless ofwhich school it may, will isolate these children from and will interfere with children's social relationships and social development during formative middle school years. Theproposed plan will alsoincrease cost to HCPSSrelated to necessaiy logistics andadditional bus transportation, leaving less financial flexibility to spend money on necessary school unprovements, teacher salaries, and increased teacher support. Additionally, the plan will mcreaseHoward County Public School's carbon footprint onthe environment dueto increased distances ofbus rides to and from school by a larger number of students all over Howard County With significantly higher numbers ofbus riders, the plan will also contribute to increased trafBc on an already congested Route 108. Most importantly, the current plan does not adequately address the important issue of equity. Please maintain contiguous communities county wide and oppose the Superintendent's proposal. Sincerely, WCEIVFD OCT 0 7 20(9 October 1, 2019 Howard County Board of Education 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members: I am writing to ask you to vote against the Superintendent's redistricting plan this November. My family lives in Walnut Grove (Polygon 3176) adjacent to River Hill High School. This proposal would move my son, currently a Freshman at River Hill, less than 1 mile away, to Wilde Lake High School, more than 7 miles further. In fact, my son's bus would be driving right past River Hill on his way to Wilde Lake. The proposed plan does not focus on, nor appear to be driven by addressing the over capacity issues that HCPSS faces. River Hill HS is NOT at capacity. In fact. River Hill can take on more students. Why create chaos by moving students that don't need to be moved. Swapping 276 River Hill HS students with 132 Wilde Lake HS students MAKES NO SENSEand simply does not fix overcrowding. The feasibility study was done for a reason: to propose a plan to resolve overcrowding at HC schools. The Superintendent's plan does not solve the overcrowding issue. Upending over 7300 students and families instead creates more problems by: - requiring significant additional resources to be devoted to transportation - doubling and tripling commute time for students leading to stress, lack of sleep - cutting families off from their neighborhood schools thus reducing PTA/parent engagement - possible violations of certain existing school policies (6010 IV. B2b and Blc.) - the need to repeat the process when HS 13 comes online Mr. Martirano's proposal ignores sound data from the feasibility study and doesn't solve the overcrowding issues. Suggestions regarding a future proposal would be to have neighborhoods go to their closest Elementary School, Middle School and High School. It would be a circumference around each school. If a school was too crowded, the circumference would shrink and those outside the circumference would go to the next closest school. MANY school districts in counties and states across the United States follow this example, so it wouldn't be inventing a new approach. I URGE YOU TO REJECTTHE SUPERINTENDENTSPROPOSAL ON NOVEMBER22, 2019. Sincerely Laura A. Long, Polygon 3176 RECEIVEDOCT 0 7 201S October 1, 2019 Howard County Board of Education 10910 Clarksville Pike Ellicott City, MD 21042 Dear Board of Education Members: I write to oppose the recent school redistricting plan proposed bythe Superintendent. I reside in Polygon3176 which is the Walnut Grove housing development offof Sheppard Lane. Under the new proposal, ourchildren beredistricted from RiverHill High School, which is only 1 mileaway, and would bebussed directly past their current school to Wilde Lake High School which is 7 milesaway. HCPSShired an independent consultant, atsubstantial expense, to perform a feasibilitystudy and it is hardtounderstand why the results of this study were dismissed by the Superintendent. The study was designedprimarily to determineviable options to resolve overcrowdingat several HoCoschools - and it didexactly that while balancing the objectives asdefined inSection IVof Policy 6010. Thevendor analyzeddata, including population growth based on students yielded from sales of existing housing and fromprojected new housing units, FARMs program participation,capacity utilization and the opening of HighSchool #13. This plan resulted inthe movement of, at most, 2800children. The Superintendent's proposal moves 7, 396 children. Thekey word used multiple times with policy 6010 is "reasonable", and it is simply not reasonable to up- endthe lives ofover 7, 000 kids ifthe Board's goals can beachieved with far lessdisruption. The feasibilitystudy provesthat this is possible andprovides a pathto make it happen- Itis far better than theproposal from the Superintendent. I encourageyou to rejectthe Superintendent's proposal. Sincerely, Greg Long Polygon 3176 OCT B 7 ^