Howard County Public School System
Asumag 9835 Howardcountymap
Asumag 9835 Howardcountymap
Asumag 9835 Howardcountymap
Asumag 9835 Howardcountymap
Asumag 9835 Howardcountymap

Maryland district approves plan that reassigns thousands of students

Nov. 22, 2019
The Howard County (Md.) board alters attendance boundaries to bring about a more balanced distribution of students based on socioeconomic status.

The Howard County (Md.) school board has adopted an attendance boundary plan that reassigns thousands of students in hopes of relieving crowding and better integrating students on the basis of socioeconomics.

The Washington Post reports that the attendance boundary changes come after several months of contentious debate in a county that has long prided itself on being welcoming to a diverse population.

The plan is projected to reassign roughly one in 10 students for the 2020-21 year

Many students will face longer bus rides — an average of three extra miles round trip — in the 58,000-student school system.

“It’s a first step, and the whole issue of looking at the socioeconomics of our schools and the opportunity gap is something we carry forward,” says Mavis Ellis, chair of the school board.

The district says in a news release that the plan reassigns 5,402 students to a new school, including:

  • 2,827 at the elementary school level,
  • 568 at the middle school level, and
  • 2,007 at the high school level.

The plan prioritizes the need to address capacity differences among schools. Fifty-one schools will be within the 90 to 110 percent target capacity utilization defined in board policy, compared with 42 currently.

Opposition to the changes has been intense since August, when Superintendent Michael Martirano unveiled a proposal that sought to better balance schools by poverty level.

Howard’s student body is 36 percent white, 24 percent black, 22 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic and 6 percent multiracial.

But the percentage of students affected by poverty varies widely by school — as high as 68 percent at an elementary school in Columbia and less than 5 percent in more than a dozen schools, according to data released in August.

The stated goal was to bring more schools closer to the countywide average: 22.5 percent. To do that, Martirano’s plan would have moved nearly 7,400 students, with many facing longer bus rides and some headed to schools with lower test scores or lesser reputations.

Parents protested by the hundreds. Students spoke out, as did community leaders and elected officials.

The board then came up with its own plan for attendance area reassignments.

Some schools with larger percentages of students who receive free and reduced price meals, an indicator of poverty, will see a reduction in those numbers. But most schools will not see large shifts.

“It seems to be a compromise,” says Willie Flowers, president of the Howard County branch of the NAACP. “Nobody is happy on either side. Hopefully, there will be value for the students long-term, and I’m hopeful the school capacity issue will be minimized.”

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