Comments on: Harford’s School Impact Fee – Round 2

By: Sandy

Sandy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:14:36 +0000

JD, although HdG has a beautiful auditorium, the school can’t be used as an arts magnet simply because the capacity is too small. The 700 seat capacity means that the school would be grossly overcrowded if you added 200 more kids in a magnet program.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:09:39 +0000

The decision to build PMMHS was a mistake. They owned the land so they built a school on it. They soon realized they had made the decision to build all new high schools at 1600 seats. Edgewood is smaller than that now and is way under capacity. So they moved too many Fallston kids to Bel Air so they would have to move too many Bel Air kids to Patterson Mill. Now Patterson Mill is overcrowded so they have an excuse to redistrict them to Edgewood once the school opens. Unless you believe they are going to leave a brand new school at 70% capacity. They will never get any money back from the state that way. It’s not a good thing to have a high school under capacity. The kids don’t get the chance to take the classes they really want to take in a lot of cases. When you lose students, you lose teachers, which means you lose class choices.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:54:48 +0000

John Archer no longer meets the needs of those students and there is a new law that says a special ed. school must be attached to a mainstream school. So Bel Air Middle Was chosen because it is close to the hospital and there is room on the campus. They are no longer allowed to build freestanding special ed schools.

By: Cdev

Cdev — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:25:49 +0000

The housing east of 24 currently going to Joppatowne will be going to Edgewood. How do kids get to school? BUS! Theybus kids to Aberdeen, Harford Tech, Edgewoods IB program allows them to ride a bus a magnet program does not require you to provide your own transportation! Fallston Middle feeds Fallston High!

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:22:50 +0000

Where are the plans for students from Joppatowne to go to Edgewood? How are students without transportation supposed to get to a program at Edgewood? Lots of traffic problems too. Fallston High School was not at 110% capacity when they redistricted either. Fallston Middle was a problem but the high school was not. Every time the school system made a presentation they changed the numbers – ask the people from Forest Lakes who were redistricted out of Fallston. If you want to go back and check, the decision was made in late 2005/early 2006.

By: Cdev

Cdev — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:14:19 +0000

Edgewood is undercapacity but some students are being redistricted to Edgewood from Joppatowne. Also they will be expanding their IB program.

Fallston was over 110% capacity at the time of the redistricting.

John Archer handles kids with special needs who are not “mainstreamed.” It is not close enough to a hospital to acomadate some kids it otherwise could so we pay lots of money to send them to a non-public placement.

BTW Patterson Mill was built poorly because that is what you get when you go with low bid contracts.

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:01:02 +0000

A few responses. Aberdeen was downsized because HCPS decided they wanted high schools to be smaller after the Columbine shooting. That school used to accommodate over 1800 students and they downsized it when they remodeled. Then they decided that they weren’t sticking to that philosophy and decided to build Bel Air High School with 1650 students. They also approved a magnet program at Bel Air High School saying that the school had room to house these extra students. If you look at the enrollment after this year, Bel Air will be close to that number or over capacity without any magnet.

On the other hand, there are several high schools that are largely undercapacity. Fallston High is predicted to be about 75% next year. Edgewood is also going to be at around 60%. Why didn’t the school system leave kids at Fallston and maybe leave the kids who are now at Patterson Mill at Bel Air? There was a need for extra middle school capacity but with all of the additions at the high school, there are going to be empty seats and the school system has known this for the past several years.

Thirdly, why are we spending all of this money for John Archer when most of the students are now mainstreamed. There is all of this money and individual assistants for students at all levels up through high school. Additionally, money for transportation to all of these different schools (these kids can’t take the bus with other students) and then John Archer. The school system hasn’t identified what the abandoned John Archer building would be used for either.

BTW, Patterson Mill may be “state of the art” but it isn’t very functional. The architects of that school should be sued and lots of the work was done improperly. Also no turf field was put there either even though every other new school got one. Don’t know the rationale because no one seems have one. Big question though is who is paying and who doesn’t got answers. That’s right… taxpayers of this county.

By: Cdev

Cdev — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:39:01 +0000

Agreed….except who decides 6 period days are normal. There is no such thing as normal when it comes to HS scheduling.

By: JD

JD — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:02:46 +0000

Yes, when they made the “magnet” school idea and did the technology school at Aberdeen the snobbies not around RT 40 made sure they got heard and it didn’t get built bigger. Same as when they tried to make HDG the Arts magnet school and pump $$ into updating the auditorium. The BoE has to make better use of existing structures. Make the appropriate schools magnets and re-build / update for the technology that is in use and allow for expansion. All classrooms should have interactive screens / AV and internet to allow for live feeds and instruction. And have a normal 6 class day so there are not large gaps from when a techer see’s a class.

By: Dave Yensan

Dave Yensan — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:14:05 +0000

Or stated more bluntly the lily whites of Bel Air didn’t want their kids associating with all those ………. The decision was racist, simple solution go into debt to protect them. Same reason Aberdeen was built too small.