Schools plan to go to public
Redistricting proposal for Annapolis raises demographic concern
The Anne Arundel County school board voted Wednesday to take a proposal to redraw school boundaries for nearly 400 Annapolis students to a public hearing in April.
The citywide redistricting plan is intended to move elementary students from crowded schools and assign families to schools closer to their neighborhoods.
But a member of the Board of Education echoed some community concerns that the plan would concentrate poor minority students at Annapolis Middle School. In another scenario, the plan would create a school that would be 90 percent Hispanic.
Superintendent George Arlotto and a 32-member committee proposed moving students from Tyler Heights Elementary to Eastport and Georgetown East elementary schools, and shifting graduates of Walter S.
Mills-Parole Elementary School from Wiley H. Bates Middle to Annapolis Middle.
The plan would affect every Annapolis elementary school except Hillsmere.
The public hearing will be held 6 p.m.
Monday, April 3, at Annapolis High School.
Testimony will only be taken on the plan currently before the board.
In addition, schools staff will conduct a briefing on the plan at 7p.m. Tuesday, March 14, in the board room at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis. No testimony will be accepted at the briefing.
During last week’s discussion of the plan, board member Teresa Milio Birge noted that community members have raised concerns that shifting Mills-Parole Elementary students would concentrate minority students at Annapolis Middle. She asked if there are other options that would maintain a demographic balance.
The student body at Mills-Parole Elementary is more than one-third black and nearly two-thirds Hispanic, according to data provided by Anne Arundel County public schools. Annapolis and Bates middle schools See SCHOOLS, page 2
The citywide redistricting plan is intended to move elementary students from crowded schools and assign families to schools closer to their neighborhoods.
But a member of the Board of Education echoed some community concerns that the plan would concentrate poor minority students at Annapolis Middle School. In another scenario, the plan would create a school that would be 90 percent Hispanic.
Superintendent George Arlotto and a 32-member committee proposed moving students from Tyler Heights Elementary to Eastport and Georgetown East elementary schools, and shifting graduates of Walter S.
Mills-Parole Elementary School from Wiley H. Bates Middle to Annapolis Middle.
The plan would affect every Annapolis elementary school except Hillsmere.
The public hearing will be held 6 p.m.
Monday, April 3, at Annapolis High School.
Testimony will only be taken on the plan currently before the board.
In addition, schools staff will conduct a briefing on the plan at 7p.m. Tuesday, March 14, in the board room at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis. No testimony will be accepted at the briefing.
During last week’s discussion of the plan, board member Teresa Milio Birge noted that community members have raised concerns that shifting Mills-Parole Elementary students would concentrate minority students at Annapolis Middle. She asked if there are other options that would maintain a demographic balance.
The student body at Mills-Parole Elementary is more than one-third black and nearly two-thirds Hispanic, according to data provided by Anne Arundel County public schools. Annapolis and Bates middle schools See SCHOOLS, page 2
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