Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Overcrowded Schools

The biggest problem facing our school system is meeting the demands of our rapidly growing county and the resulting overcrowding of our schools. The Board of Education cannot solve this problem by itself. We (the Board of Education, the Commissioners, the delegation, and the community) need to support aggressive pursuit of maximum local and state funding for construction of new schools, and work with the IAC to pursue changes to the state funding formula. Next, the BOE needs to work with the Commissioners on changing the APFO Allocations. In addition to all of the above, the BOE needs to look to alternative ways of funding the construction of new schools. For example, in Montgomery County they have had some developers build schools and lease the building back to the county for a set number of years and then the county owns the building (rent to own). Please let me know what you think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something NEEDS to be done ASAP about over crowding in the public schools in Charles County. A building cannot be erected as soon as tomorrow but immediate plans would be useful, or at least a good first step anyway. Why is it that other counties and states successfully keep up with growth but Charles County fails miserably in this area? Who is responsible for making it so hard to move forward and get the job done? Adding trailer after trailer after trailer is not a solution...rather a quick fix. Charles County Public Schools seem to make them permanent. Does anyone out there care, besides the parents? The government officials should be ashamed! The over crowding issues are not something to be proud of, it only puts added strain on the daily lives of teachers and children a like. The present and future of our children/community start with good and well equipt learning facilities. Let's stop talking about it and hop to it! Put the ball in motion....!!Charles County is better than this..let's prove it!

Jennifer Abell said...

Anonymous,
I agree, thanks for the input. Please see my more recent post under this topic dated 1/5/06. I intend to ask if this option is feasible at the next Board meeting. What are your thoughts? (Please respond under that thread)