After failing to convince school officials to keep existing boundaries, parents at the two Bowie elementary schools most widely affected say their focus now is to make the transition easy for hundreds of local students set to move to new schools next year.

Children take their cues from their parents, and the message now is to set a positive example for them, said Dawn Wampler, co-vice president of the PTO at Heather Hills Elementary, about the choices now facing parents of more than 100 children at her school, where two-thirds of the students are in the Talented and Gifted program.

Also moving will be about 100 students from Rockledge Elementary to Yorktown Elementary, about three miles away, after a vote Jan. 18 by the Prince George’s County Board of Education.

Members voted 8-1 to accept county schools Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.’s proposals to even out enrollments to improve cost effectiveness, shift sixth-graders from elementary to middle schools to improve academic performance, and create more Talented and Gifted seats to eliminate a waiting list of 525 students, which includes more than 100 applicants from Bowie.

Hite said the boundary and program changes in total will affect about 4,000 students in the county, including students in five elementary schools in Bowie.

School Board Chairwoman Verjeana Jacobs (Dist. 5), who represents the Bowie area, said she supports the changes because without them, Heather Hills and Yorktown elementary schools were at risk of being closed due to low enrollments.

Heather Hills will go from having about four-fifths of its students in the Talented and Gifted program and the rest in regular programs to being an all-TAG school.

That means more than 60 regular students will move to under-enrolled Kenilworth Elementary in Bowie, bumping some other students to under-enrolled Tulip Grove Elementary in Bowie, according to the school system plan.

Also affected at Heather Hills are more than 60 TAG fifth-graders who will need to find new schools as part of Hite’s countywide shift of sixth-graders to middle schools.

The rising sixth-graders could opt to go to their neighborhood middle school in Bowie, Samuel Ogle or Benjamin Tasker, or go outside Bowie to all-TAG schools, such as Walker Mill Middle School in Capitol Heights or a new TAG center at Greenbelt Middle School.

Wampler said the Heather Hills PTO is advising parents to schedule “shadow days” and visits to potential schools to learn more about their options.

“Parents are more comfortable with change with the more information they have,” she said.

Heather Hills parents could also opt to send their children to a private school, such as St. Pius X Regional Catholic School in Bowie, which offers classes through grade eight, said Bonnie Lawson of Bowie.

Lawson had wanted her daughter, Samantha, to stay at Heather Hills for sixth grade and made a case to school administrators and school board members that replicating the mixed TAG/regular student model at other Bowie elementary schools would spread the strengths of the program while also creating more needed TAG seats.

Lawson, who along with several other Heather Hills parents failed to win over the board, said she will try sending Samantha to Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie for a year, but if that doesn’t work, she will look for another school.

Like Wampler at Heather Hills, Kim Ryan, president of the PTO at Yorktown Elementary School, also believes parental visits to schools will help ease the transition for students.

Next fall about 100 students from Rockledge Elementary, most of them living in the Saddlebrook West, Patuxent Riding and Kimberwick neighborhoods along Race Track Road in Bowie, will move to Yorktown Elementary, which is further south on Race Track Road.

“We are ecstatic,” said Ryan, who feared that Yorktown might have to close because enrollment has dwindled to about 250 students, although the school’s capacity is more than 450.

To encourage a smooth transition, Ryan said the Yorktown PTO began inviting Rockledge parents and students to events in November and that the invitation still stands.

On the calendar are a skate night Feb. 6, a sweetheart dance Feb. 10, a movie March 23 and a chili cook-off April 14, she said.

Kyle Bigelow-Thomas, mother of a fifth-grader at Rockledge Elementary, said she was “truly disappointed” with the board’s vote and that she believes some people may move out of the Rockledge boundary as a result.

Bigelow-Thomas said she is worried the loss of students means the loss of some of Rockledge’s teachers, which she hopes won’t trigger bigger classes. She also said the move would also mean losing some parent volunteers, which could negatively affect PTO fundraising efforts.

But she also said that she believes most Rockledge parents have accepted the decision.

“It’s now about how to make a happier transition for the children,” she said.

vterhune@gazette.net