Christopher Anderson/The Gazette Kyle Bigalow-Thomas, president of the Rockledge Elementary School Parent Teacher Association, voices her concern about proposed public school boundary changes at a hearing Tuesday at Bowie High School.

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Christopher Anderson/The Gazette Kyle Bigalow-Thomas, president of the Rockledge Elementary School Parent Teacher Association, voices her concern about proposed public school boundary changes at a hearing Tuesday at Bowie High School.

Christopher Anderson/The Gazette Kyle Bigalow-Thomas, president of the Rockledge Elementary School Parent Teacher Association, voices her concern about proposed public school boundary changes at a hearing Tuesday at Bowie High School.

 

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Proposed changes to Prince George’s school boundaries, grade structures and special programs should save the school system money, but many parents attending a series of public forums this week and last week on the plan are wary.

“We want our children to have more of a nurturing environment,” said Melissa Sweeney, who has two children at Mattaponi Elementary School in Upper Marlboro and opposes the plan to shift about 700 sixth-grade students countywide to middle schools next fall.

“We’re not ready for our elementary-schoolers to be exposed to [middle school],” she said, although Mattaponi Elementary is not slated for changes.

The final public forum is at 6:30 tonight at Central High School, 200 Cabin Branch Road in Capitol Heights.

The goal of the proposal, which the Prince George’s County school board is scheduled vote on Dec. 15, is to create more neighborhood-centric schools and better use available space by balancing under- and overenrolled schools, said Johndel Jones-Brown, director of the school system’s Office of Pupil Accounting and Student Boundaries.

There are no figures yet on how much money the proposal could save a system facing a $43 million budget gap in fiscal 2013, but school board Vice-Chairwoman Donna Hathaway Beck (Dist. 9) said busing children shorter distances would greatly decrease transportation costs.

The system also would cut transportation costs by serving middle school non-native English speakers at their neighborhood schools instead of busing them to centers at Isaac Gourdine Middle School in Fort Washington and Samuel Ogle Middle School in Bowie, Jones-Brown said. The same would be done for students at Bowie High School who are now bused to Central High School in Capitol Heights.

The school system has considered not only the budget ramifications but also space constraints and the educational effects of the boundary and grade structure changes, Jones-Brown said.

School officials tout the advantages — such as the stronger relationships built between students and teachers — of keeping students in middle school for three, as opposed to two, years.

Phelecia Membhard, the president of the parent-teacher association at Lamont Elementary School in New Carrollton, said the school sent its sixth-grade students to two nearby middle schools in fall 2010.

She hopes Lamont Elementary doesn’t lose too many additional students if this proposal is approved. The school, which is over capacity by about 80 students, is slated to cede the northern section of its boundary area — and about 30 students who live there — to Robert Frost Elementary School in New Carrollton.

“We’re like a really integrated family at the school,” said Membhard, a New Carrollton resident whose 10-year-old daughter, Brittney, attends Lamont Elementary. “The kids have friends there, have bonded with them, have adapted to the school environment.”

She worries an enrollment decrease would trigger a decrease in federal funding for the Title I school. Title I funds are allocated to schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families to support additional teachers, purchase instructional materials or organize educational programming.

Also proposed is changing Glenarden Woods Elementary School and Heather Hills Elementary School in Bowie into dedicated talented and gifted, or TAG, centers for second- through fifth-grade students, Jones-Brown said. Students who test into the TAG program would be admitted by a lottery system to these centers.

The schools, where more than half of the students were in the TAG program, now serve comprehensive and TAG kindergarten through sixth-grade students but would send their comprehensive students to neighboring schools if the plan is approved.

Heather Hills Elementary comprehensive students would attend Kenilworth Elementary School in Bowie, while those at Glenarden Woods Elementary would move to Judge Sylvania W. Woods Elementary in Glenarden.

“Those [TAG] programs almost crowd out the neighborhood populations,” Jones-Brown said.

abrownback@gazette.net