The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County today voted to move Superintendent George Arlotto’s recommendation on redistricting schools on the Annapolis Peninsula to public hearing, the next step in a process that will culminate in April.
The hearing will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 3, at Annapolis High School. Testimony will only be taken on the plan currently before the Board.
In addition, AACPS staff will conduct a public briefing on the plan from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, in the Board Room at the Parham Building, located at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis. No testimony will be taken at the briefing.
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.
Under Board policy, a redistricting plan must be adopted by April 30, 2017, for it to be enacted for the 2017-2018 school year.