Letters to the editor
New school an obvious answer
To: Editor
From: Mike Pappas
Perry Hall
In 2004, I was appointed to the MD 43 Citizens Advisory Council, which served as a link between the State Highway Administration and our community during the construction of White Marsh Boulevard and the MD 43 Extension. I remember planners telling us how White Marsh Boulevard would bring thousands of new homes and businesses to the area.
Economic development is a great thing, but I remember thinking to myself: “What high school is supposed to absorb this influx of new students if the current high schools are overcrowded?”
The answer that was obvious to almost everyone was a new high school. Everyone that is, except for County Executive Jim Smith.
Like an ostrich, he stuck his head in the sand for three years. Now the new development is coming, and there is no high school in sight.
The Times-Herald did the community a real service with its article on May 4. They got the County Executive’s press secretary to finally admit that Jim Smith will not lift a finger to build a new school. His solution is to erect big additions to the existing schools, and to redistrict kids from Perry Hall High elsewhere.
The County Executive likes getting his face in the paper at every ribbon cutting and photo opportunity.
I wonder why he has never been photographed in front of the eleven trailers at Perry Hall High. Or why he doesn’t come down on a school day to see the kids parking on the streets of our neighborhoods from the already overcrowded school.
I applaud County Councilman Joseph Bartenfelder. He is standing up to the county executive and he is alone among our democratic politicians.
I wonder why our other democratic politicians, (like Councilman Vince Gardina who took large donations from developers during his time in office) care more about keeping on Jim Smith’s good side than sticking up for our kids.
Logical argument, but not a fit
To: Editor
From: Kent Smith
Perry Hall
It took five years for it to become public that the county executive wanted to build high school additions instead of building one new school. As logical as the spokesman’s argument was last week that high schools can be redistricted so that all schools can be at capacity, it does not fit with past and present actions.
Windsor Mill Middle School opened in 2006 despite middle schools throughout the county being 3,870 students undercapacity in 2005. The school board’s FY2008 budget asked for $3.4 million for a Catonsville Middle School expansion, which the executive has touted, and there has been talk of a K-8 school in the Northwest.
Using the same logic the county used for high schools, three average-sized middle schools should be closed.
A new high school would provide relief from overcrowding, which now totals 850 students in the Central and three westernmost Northeast schools and is expected to be almost 1,200 students within 10 years. Loch Raven can be used as an emergency addition in case BRAC’s effects are worse than expected.
The county will have to lose its jitteriness to build more schools. By this fall, eight schools will be at least 75 years old. Fifty years ago, the county started building four schools a year every year for the next 25 years, and in a generation, they will have to be rebuilt. Either pay now or pay later.
Kent Smith is education committee chairman for the Perry Hall Improvement Association and secretary for the Northeast Area Educational Advisory Council.
Excuses not good enough for kids
To: County Executive Jim Smith
From: Barry Day
Perry Hall
Apparently your kid(s) has/have already graduated from his/her school or more likely, you sent them to private school.
It is typical for a person in your position to think more like a businessman and less as a representative for our community’s well being.
How long do our kids have to walk from trailer to trailer before you are willing to do something positive?
To you, a great solution is to add more trailers to various schools. That way you get to save your money and spend it in other frivolous ways.
Yeah sure, I know that you will be sending me back some excuse in an e-mail or letter stating how some other project(s) (that you support) will not be able to be funded if you spend some exorbitant amount of money on a new school in the northeast area.
But guess what, you and your predecessors could have been proactive in dealing with this situation.
You could have dealt with this problem long before it had become so ridiculous and detrimental to our future (our kids).
Mr. Smith, did you go to school in trailers? If not, why should our kids?
State supports new school construction
To: Editor
From: Delegate Joe Boteler
(R-8th district)
Over the past five years, the Ehrlich and O’Malley administrations have proposed record funding for our schools. In the last legislative session, Baltimore County received more than $50 million for school improvements.
Unfortunately, this record amount of funding will have little effect on the biggest problem facing our schools: the severe overcrowding that impacts Loch Raven, Perry Hall, and Towson High Schools.
While my colleagues in the state legislature favor construction of a new high school, we cannot act because the request must come from local government. First, we thought the problem was with the school board, which is why Delegate John Cluster and I convinced Gov. Ehrlich to appoint members who were more sympathetic to the problem.
Well, the money is now in the local budget to buy the land, but a new challenge has emerged. In the last issue of the Times-Herald, the county executive’s spokesman says that he will not support a new high school, and that the better way to reduce overcrowding is to build additions. The county executive proposed funding that will lead to a 400-seat addition at Loch Raven High School.
I have not talked to a single school board member or community leader who supports an addition at Loch Raven High School. Many fear that the next step will be another addition at Perry Hall High School. Then, it will be next to impossible to justify a separate high school.
I urge the county executive to change his mind. Once Baltimore County has found the land for a new high school, I pledge my full support at the state level to getting this school built.