More News

A group of parents has appealed the Prince George's County Board of Education decision to move 137 children from Whitehall Elementary School to Kenilworth Elementary School next year because of overcrowding.

In a Feb. 4 letter to the Maryland State Board of Education, the parents argue that the county school board used inaccurate information in deciding that Whitehall was overcrowded. Most of the parents have children who attend Whitehall.

The two Bowie schools are less than four miles apart. According to Prince George's County Public Schools, Whitehall has 433 students and Kenilworth has 396.

Several of the parents said that although they think Kenilworth is a good school, their children would be stressed by a move. They would prefer to keep them at Whitehall for continuity reasons, the parents said.

The parents said they are asking an administrative law judge at the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings to overturn the decision to move the students.

"They're making boundary decisions for children on data that isn't current," said Sandy Short, one of the parents. Short's daughter is in first grade at Whitehall.

Darrell Pressley, the chief spokesman for the county public school system, would not specifically comment on the case.

However, in a March 9 response to the appeal, the county school board states that the boundary changes were neither arbitrary nor contrary to sound educational policy. The document also states that the board anticipates filing a motion for summary affirmance, meaning it will ask the judge to make a quick decision in support of the board's plans to move Whitehall students to Kenilworth.

According to appeal documents, the last state-rated capacity review was done prior to a $5.8 million renovation of Whitehall completed in August 2005.

State-rated capacity, or SRC, is defined as the maximum number of students that can reasonably be accommodated in a facility without significantly hampering their education, according to the Maryland State Department of Education. A school's SRC is a criterion used in deciding whether it is overcrowded.

According to the appeal documents, the county school board relied on an SRC that "is significantly smaller than the school's actual capacity." According to the parents, there are 17 to 18 classrooms available for the school's 433 students, while the county school board made its decision based on there being 16 classrooms.

Nancy Adamson, one of the parents appealing the decision, said the difference stemmed from the fact that Whitehall originally had four special classrooms set aside for things like music, art or special-education needs.

Today, at least one and possibly two of those rooms are being used for first- and second-grade classrooms, thereby meaning the school is less crowded than the county school board believes, according to Adamson.

Short said she did not believe county school board employees purposefully used what she said were outdated numbers.

"I just think they're overworked," Short said. "Now they're working on high-school boundary changes. It just boggles my mind that they're making these decisions."

A date has yet to be set for a hearing, according to a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education.