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Due to community objections, Prince George's County school officials have revised their plan for school boundary changes — but officials are saying even more revisions may be necessary.

"There is obviously a lot more discussion before we can vote on this," school board Chairwoman Verjeana Jacobs (At large) said at a work session Saturday.

The boundary changes are being proposed to level out enrollment in elementary and middle schools in the northern and central parts of the county. It is the second of three phases of boundary changes in the county. High school boundaries will be addressed by the board next year. Earlier this year, the school board reviewed schools inside the Capital Beltway and in the southern portion of the county, and decided to close eight schools and transfer thousands of students to level out enrollment and cut costs.

The current proposal has drawn criticism because it fails to address enrollment concerns at many of the 96 schools being reviewed, and many parents have asked that their school boundaries remain unchanged.

Jacobs said board members will continue to discuss the proposal Monday at the school board retreat.

School board members Rosalind Johnson (Dist. 1), R. Owen Johnson Jr. (Dist. 5) and student member Edward Burroughs III were not in attendance at the work session.

The 14 adjustments announced Saturday include changes at Langley Park- McCormick Elementary in Hyattsville, which was slated to become a middle school under the proposed plan. The school will remain an elementary school. Buck Lodge Middle in Adelphi, which was proposed to become a kindergarten through eighth-grade school, will stay a middle school but will add sixth-grade students.

Jones-Brown said changes were spurred by community requests at four public hearings held in November.

Sixth-grade students from Calverton Elementary in Beltsville will be reassigned to Langley-Park McCormick and Martin Luther King Jr. Middle in Beltsville, decreasing the capacity at Calverton from 131 percent to 114 percent, said Johndel Jones-Brown, director of boundaries and pupil accounting for county schools. The previous plan had 150 students moving from Calverton to Buck Lodge Middle.

Boundary changes to Kenilworth Elementary in Bowie, and Adelphi, Cherokee Lane, Cool Spring and Mary Harris "Mother" Jones elementary schools, all in Adelphi, have been nixed due to community concern. The revised proposal reverts to the original boundaries for these schools, Jones-Brown said.

Allowing these changes to be cut from the plan will keep Kenilworth and Cool Spring acutely under-enrolled at 68 and 80 percent capacity, respectively. Adelphi and Mary Harris "Mother" Jones will also be slightly under-enrolled at 89 and 93 percent capacity, respectively. Cherokee Lane will remain overenrolled at 107 percent capacity.

Under the newly drafted proposal, Tulip Grove Elementary in Bowie, which is under-enrolled at 70 percent capacity this year, will receive nearly 140 students from Whitehall Elementary, also in Bowie.

Under the original proposal, presented Nov. 12, the boundaries for Tulip Grove would have remained unchanged.

Board members agreed that more discussion and planning needs to take place before the board can vote on the plan.

A vote on the plan will hopefully be scheduled in January, Jacobs said, to give schools enough time to sort out scheduling before the plan takes effect next school year.

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

The revised school boundary plan can be viewed at http://schools.pgcps.org/

Boundary_Proposal/.The revised school boundary plan can be viewed at http://schools.pgcps.org/

Boundary_Proposal/.