July 2000

In the last ten years, Carroll County has been one of the most steadily growing jurisdictions in the Baltimore region. It's no surprise that Carroll County's public school enrollment reflects the county's strong population growth. Over the past decade, school enrollment has expanded by 27 percent, increasing from just under 21,700 students in 1990 to 27,500 in 2000. About 80 percent of that growth is now affecting the middle and high school grades.

To serve the new student population, Carroll County is opening three new schools between now and 2003. Shiloh Middle School is scheduled to open this fall, while Century High School will follow in 2001 and New Westminster High School will open in 2002. These are the first new high schools in twenty years. The last new middle school opened five years ago. All this building activity meant that school attendance boundaries would have to be adjusted.

Piecemeal boundary adjustments in recent years to accommodate construction, renovation and relieve overcrowding prompted complaints from parents. In September, 1999, the Carroll County Board of Education created a Long-Range Planning Committee to undertake a comprehensive review of attendance boundaries for all county schools. Committee members included representatives of the Board of Education, the chamber of commerce, Carroll County government, and Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS) staff, as well as parents, students and high school principals. Ms. Cindy Parr, a parent whose child will be affected by a new school opening, was appointed committee chair.

The Board of Education assigned five tasks to the committee:

CCPS central office staff realized that they didn't have the capability to develop and depict the model school boundaries that the committee would require. That's when they turned to BMC. BMC has supported school and pupil transportation planning in Carroll County since 1989, and supplied CCPS with customized computer mapping technology to assist in routing school buses. Because of the working relationships that had developed over the years, CCPS decided to take advantage of BMC's mapping capabilities to assist its own staff in developing new boundaries. BMC assigned primary responsibility to the head of its MetroMapping Unit. Other senior staff and managers supported the project as needed.

BMC's first task was to design a series of idealized boundaries for elementary, middle and high schools. The only considerations were not to exceed the functional capacity of any school, and to balance enrollment among the schools. Using those idealized boundaries as a starting point, the committee turned to developing more practical alternatives. BMC was able to calculate attendance at each school based on its proposed boundaries and the home locations of school students. During committee meetings BMC was able to use the computer to redraw boundaries on the fly. This provided immediate feedback on boundary change proposals and accelerated committee deliberations.

Attendance boundary proposals were first developed for high schools and elementary schools. Carroll County's middle schools, however, are located at sites making it more difficult to delineate attendance boundaries. Further, even after Shiloh Middle School opens in September 2000, the county's middle schools will remain over capacity during the next several years.

More than ten alternative plans were identified and examined by the committee with BMC assistance. The Long-Range School Planning Committee presented its initial findings to the Board of Education on January 24, 2000. This proposal included changes necessitated by the planned new schools, along with adjustments to existing school boundaries to meet the planning parameters.

Public meetings were held on February 9 and February 10 to solicit comments. BMC prepared a series of presentation maps for the meetings, identifying areas of change. The sample map details some of the redistricting changes that will go into effect when Shiloh Middle School opens in September 2000.

Between 400 and 500 county residents attended each of the committee's public meetings, and their reactions were mostly negative. Realigning school attendance areas is very emotional, with highly charged political overtones. The Long-Range School Planning Committee incorporated public comments into its formal recommendations, which were submitted to the Board of Education on March 8, 2000. BMC assisted in this process by developing new school attendance projections and creating a new series of presentation maps for public hearings.

At the Board's direction, the Long-Range School Planning Committee held another public meeting on March 14 and the Board conducted a public working session on redistricting on March 22. The redistricting plan was adopted after a formal public hearing by the Board of Education on March 27. Several modifications to this plan were adopted on April 26.

The adopted plan includes attendance areas for Shiloh Middle School, Century High School, and New Westminster High School. Realigning the existing middle school boundaries for the opening of Shiloh Middle School eliminated the need to build another new middle school in the Westminster area for at least the next six years. Overcrowding at the existing Westminster and Liberty, and South Carroll High Schools will drop significantly. The news boundaries will also make for smoother student transitions from elementary to middle to high school.

From start to finish, redistricting took about ten months. The Long-Range School Planning Committee acknowledged that BMC technical assistance was a crucial element in this difficult process.

The maps show the locations of Carroll County elementary, middle and high schools. Areas affected by the comprehensive redistricting project are highlighted.