The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County will discuss and vote on what, if any, Annapolis Peninsula redistricting plans to take forward to a public hearing at its next meeting, scheduled for 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 1, 2017. The meeting will be held in the Board Room at the Parham Building, located at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis.
The Board received Dr. Arlotto’s recommendation to adjust the attendance boundaries for schools on the Annapolis Peninsula to best utilize space at those schools at its February 15 meeting.
A committee of parents and community residents studied the possibilities with regard to redistricting schools in the area that includes all schools in the Annapolis cluster as well as those students who live north of the South River but attend Edgewater Elementary School, Central Middle School, and South River High School. It also considered the impact of enrollment at the new Monarch Annapolis Public Contract School, which is scheduled to open in August.
The 32-member committee unanimously recommended a single plan that would move 392 elementary school students by adjusting boundaries for elementary and middle schools in the Annapolis cluster. The plan would also shift Mills-Parole Elementary School so that it feeds into Annapolis Middle School instead of Bates Middle School. Those changes would take effect in the 2017-2018 school year.
The plan would also redistrict one additional neighborhood from Annapolis Elementary School to Arnold Elementary School and one neighborhood from Germantown Elementary to Annapolis Elementary once construction at Arnold is completed in the 2019-2020 school year. That shift would impact 94 students.
Dr. Arlotto’s recommendation to the Board aligns almost entirely with the recommendation of the committee, but redistricts three additional students for logistical and transportation reasons.
Neither the committee nor Dr. Arlotto recommended moving those students who live north of the South River but attend Edgewater Elementary School, Central Middle School, and South River High School into the Annapolis cluster.
Complete information on Annapolis Peninsula redistricting can be found online at www.aacps.org/redistricting.
The Board may choose to take Dr. Arlotto’s recommendation, the committee’s recommendation, or any other plan to public hearing to garner more input. That hearing is scheduled for April 3, 2017. Under Board policy, a redistricting plan must be adopted by April 30, 2017, for it to be enacted for the 2017-2018 school year.
The Board will meet at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to vote to go into closed session, during which time it will discuss confidential matters as permitted by the Maryland Open Meetings Act including, but not limited to, legal advice, personnel, and negotiations. Closed session is not open to the public. The general session of the meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 10 a.m.
A complete agenda for the meeting accompanies this news release. More information on agenda items will be posted on the AACPS website, www.aacps.org, in the Board Docs section under the Board of Education tab.
The general session of Wednesday’s Board meeting will be broadcast live on AACPS-TV, which can be found on Channel 96 on Comcast and Broadstripe, and Channel 36 on Verizon. High definition broadcasts can be seen on Channel 996 on Comcast and Channel 496 on Broadstripe. Rebroadcasts are scheduled for 7:00 p.m. the day after the meeting and 2:00 p.m. on subsequent Sundays.
The meeting can also be viewed live on the Internet here.
Archived videos of Board meetings can be found online here.
Board of Education meeting agenda, 3-1-17