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Support for new school gaining momentum
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Perry Hall (Map, News) - A movement for a new high school in northeast Baltimore County is gaining momentum, with more than 900 people backing it in online and paper petitions launched last month by the Perry Hall Improvement Association.
“This is a cause that is universally supported in Perry Hall,” said David Marks, president of the Perry Hall Improvement Association.
Activists from northeast Baltimore County are calling for a new school to relieve overcrowding at Loch Raven, Overlea, Perry Hall and Towson high schools. They also want the county to lower the capacity needed to designate schools as overcrowded. Currently, schools are defined as overcrowded when they are 115 percent over capacity, but activists say the percentage should be lowered to 105 percent.
Baltimore County Councilman Joseph Bartenfelder, D-District 6, has publicly supported the new school and new standards for defining overcrowded schools. But other county legislators say measures to relieve overcrowding already are in motion.
The county’s approved fiscal 2008 budget calls for an additional 400 seats to be added to Loch Raven High, an additional 400 seats at Kenwood High and an additional 120 seats at Eastern Technical High.
“Projections show that there is a need for 926 seats in the northeast area. ... The additions that are under way and planned for schools in that area actually bring in 920 seats,” Baltimore County spokeswoman Ellen Kobler told The Examiner in a previous interview.
Kent Smith of the Perry Hall Improvement Association says the county’s enrollment projections are outdated because they do not account for the impact of the federal base realignment and closure initiative, which is expected to bring thousands of new families to the region.
“The county is going to have to seriously look at a new school,” Smith said.
The association will continue to collect signatures throughout the summer and present a final petition to the County Council and County Executive Jim Smith in the fall, Marks said.
mmcilroy@baltimoreexaminer.com
