Elementary, My Dear

I grew up listening to Schoolhouse Rock! on Saturday mornings in between cartoon shows. "Multiplication Rock" is a great way for kids to learn the times tables. Basic addition and multiplication are essential to daily life. So when the PGCPS decided to review the available space in the county's public school buildings, one would hope that the schools' administration would be well versed in math. Unfortunately, it appears they forgot that "Three is a Magic Number."

Initially, three Bowie elementary schools were deemed overcrowded enough to warrant boundary changes. The original data posted on the PGCPS website showed that Rockledge was 71 pupils over its capacity, Northview 128 pupils over capacity and Whitehall 66 pupils over capacity. Between Yorktown, Tulip Grove, Kenilworth and Pointer Ridge, the report showed 608 available seats. So, there was room in neighboring schools for the overage, with 343 seats to spare. The original proposal for Bowie was to even out the populations of most of the area's elementary schools.

In order to keep neighborhoods from being split and to keep children in their neighborhood schools, it was necessary to propose that more children move than simply the number of students over the capacity. This is where the problems began. According to the Revised Boundary Proposal dated December 11, 2009, the proposal was to move 119 students out of Rockledge, 137 out of Northview and 137 out of Whitehall.

On January 4, 2010, the board had a retreat in which Superintendent Hite brought a whole new proposal to the table. This proposal threw out the idea of evening the populations of Bowie's elementary schools. Instead of the three overcrowded schools losing students to neighboring schools, Whitehall was the only elementary school in Bowie proposed to lose students.

This proposal seemed a bit odd considering Whitehall Elementary had fewer children over its capacity than either of the other schools. Sandy Short, parent of two Whitehall students, spoke with Mr. Johndel Jones-Brown, Director of the PGCPS Pupil Accounting and School Boundaries Office, in January of 2010. Mr. Jones-Brown told her that five priorities had been chosen, and since Whitehall was the highest percent over its rated capacity, redrawing Whitehall's boundaries was the most urgent. Mrs. Short said she was told it all came down to numbers, and the school with the highest numbers was chosen.

Looking at the enrollment numbers, it would appear that Northview was the school most in need of a boundary change with nearly double the number of extra pupils at Rockledge and Whitehall. It seems it would be easier to find space for 66 children than 128. Evidently the number of children over capacity is not as important as the percent over capacity, but does that really address the problem? Numbers alone can be misleading. This raises the questions of how a school's capacity is determined, and what factors are going into determining the need for a boundary change.