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As Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown walked through Oxon Hill Elementary School on Feb. 17 — watching several classes being held simultaneously in an open area due to a lack of funding for partitions — he said it was clear that facility updates were needed.

"I experienced why we need to do what we're here to do today, and it's to enclose these classrooms," Brown said. "My voice alone carries too far."

The kindergarten through sixth-grade school has 22,000 square feet of open-space classroom, meaning there are no walls or partitions to separate most classes.

Brown was on hand Wednesday to present a $2.1 million check from the state to the school to fund the costs of enclosing the classrooms.

The project will begin at the end of this school year and should be completed by the end of 2011, Hite said.

"This is not the only check the county will be receiving, but it's greatly needed," Brown said.

This check comes as part of the $28 million the school system is receiving for school construction this fiscal year to be used for school repairs and improvements.

An additional $19 million in school construction funding has been allotted for fiscal 2011.

Top priorities for the county include replacing Greenbelt Middle School, Oxon Hill High School, Avalon Elementary School in Fort Washington and Henry G. Ferguson Elementary School in Accokeek, and making renovations at Doswell E. Brooks Elementary School in Capitol Heights.

Principal Cynthia Best-Goring, who has been at the school since 2006, said it has been disruptive for students not having walled-in classrooms.

Officials were unable to say by press time whether the school was originally built without the walls.

"When I got here I looked out at the classrooms and was surprised, but I had to put those thoughts aside," Best-Goring said, adding that teachers found ways to work around the problem.

Oxon Hill resident and parent Donna Evenson said the change has been a long time coming.

Evenson had to deal with the open classrooms in 1979 when she was a student at Oxon Hill Elementary, and now her third-grade daughter is in the same position.

"Especially for the special education classrooms ... it was desperately needed," she said.

E-mail Megan McKeever at mmckeever@gazette.net.