The Prince George’s County school board voted 8-1 to approve a plan that will affect about 4,000 students in the 2012-2013 school year as the school system looks to balance enrollment numbers across the county’s nearly 200 schools.

The controversial plan to alter school boundaries, shift some sixth-grade students into middle schools and offer new buildings to specialty programs drew more than 30 speakers — parents, students, teachers and county residents — at the Jan. 18 special meeting in Upper Marlboro after almost three months of public input on the issue.

“If my teachers have taught me anything, it’s to not give up on what you love and I love this school,” Samantha Lawson, a fifth-grade student at Heather Hills Elementary School in Bowie, told the board. “Please don’t kick me out of my school.”

As Heather Hills Elementary turns into a talented and gifted, or TAG, center for about 375 second- through fifth-grade students under the plan of boundary and program changes, Samantha and about 65 others will be rezoned to Kenilworth Elementary School, about two miles away in Bowie, because they are not part of the TAG program.

Glenarden Woods Elementary School also will become a TAG center for more than 400 elementary students, adding about 575 seats for students in county TAG centers, said Johndel Jones-Brown, the director of pupil accounting and student boundaries.

“Nearly eliminating the TAG waiting list is a very important thing,” said board member Henry P. Armwood Jr. (Dist. 7). “We’re not serving near the number of students we could be serving. Everyone who is identified as TAG should be entitled to that support.”

This support ensures TAG students receive more individualized instruction that challenges them and meets their academic needs, said Joseph L. Kitchen Jr., the president of the Prince George’s Association of Talented and Gifted Education, a parents’ group that advocates for TAG programs.

Students in the autism program at Tayac Elementary School in Fort Washington also need specialized support, parents argued at the meeting. The 17 students in Tayac’s program will be moved to Rosaryville Elementary School in Upper Marlboro, a move that will offer the growing program more space and will increase the efficiency of the busing route, Jones-Brown said.

Terrence Letko, of Accokeek, said his 9-year-old son Daniel, a fourth-grade student in the autism program at Tayac, could be on a school bus for an hour and 20 minutes, up from 40 minutes this year, to get to Rosaryville, which is 10 miles east of Tayac.

The longer travel time leaves less time for homework, said Letko, who also is concerned that the class sizes will be larger at Rosaryville. Daniel now has three classmates.

“They were pioneers at Tayac,” Letko said. “My kid is speaking, and he is reading.”

In addition to these and other program changes, alterations — some drastic, others subtle — to school boundaries affect 34 elementary schools, six middle schools and three high schools. Rising sixth-grade students from 12 feeder elementary schools will be moved to their neighborhood middle school, which they will attend for three years.

Board member Patricia Eubanks (Dist. 4) cited studies that show students who start middle school in sixth grade fare better in high school in voicing her support for the plan.

“It’s harder for us as parents to put our babies in middle school, [but] they’ll be better off in high school,” she said.

This sixth- through eighth-grade model of a middle school caused some issues with parents who said their sixth-grade children wouldn’t be ready for a middle school environment. Board member Edward Burroughs III (Dist. 8) cited this piece of the plan as a reason he voted against it, saying the academic performance in the county’s elementary schools exceeds that of its middle schools.

The school system will begin notifying affected families of the changes beginning this week, Jones-Brown said.

Board members acknowledged their decisions were difficult to make — and praised the pride and passion displayed by cadets from Forestville Military Academy, which will add about 45 non-military students next year as it returns to an opt-in program — but said the plan protects schools and programs from closing due to under enrollment.

“We don’t become board members because we want to take things away from people, but we have to make hard decisions,” said Armwood, whose district includes the academy. “We have to conserve our resources in this bad economic time.”

abrownback@gazette.net