County officials told the Baltimore Sun today that Hampton Elementary School parents were misinformed that the addition to their school would begin construction this fall. But it appears that parents weren’t the only ones confused.

Don Mohler, a spokesman for County Executive Jim Smith, said the project has always needed taxpayer approval. The county’s portion of the funding will be included in a bond issue in November, and construction would then begin in the spring or summer of next year.

Hampton administrators, however, were unaware of this fact, and continued to believe it was scheduled to begin now. They, along with parents, wondered why the grounds behind the school hadn’t been cleared over the summer, as they expected.

What’s more, even some key Baltimore County Public Schools officials said they did not know why the project appeared delayed. Towson Families United chair Cathi Forbes spoke with the system’s chief financial officer and its director of operations on August 10, and neither could provide an answer why the addition was not funded by the state. All they said at the time is that it is hard to tell why the state pays for some projects, and not others.

The county executive added to the confusion in an Aug. 26 interview with ABC2 News, in which he appeared to blame the state for not funding the addition, and reportedly said it would be at least two years before the project breaks ground.

County officials now say the project will be complete in two years, in time for a fall 2012 opening.

The addition is paid for by both the county and the state. David Lever, head of the state’s school construction program, has told Towson Families United that the state was ready to fund the project last spring, but it ”would not be supported by the County Government in this fiscal year.”

Lever said his office was told this by BCPS officials, some time before April 20.

So it appears that at least one person at BCPS did, in fact, know as early as April that the project was not immediately moving forward.  But that information was not passed along to other BCPS officials, Hampton administrators, or parents.

Lever said even though the state will not release funds for a project that does not yet have county funding in place, the county could have still built the project, and received the state money later.  Called “forward funding,” this is the process by which an addition to Parkville High School was built, and how a new Dundalk High School and an addition at Millford Mill Academy are being paid for.

The county is not forward funding the Hampton addition, despite it being the most overcrowded school in Baltimore County.

“I thought the county government and the school system were on the same page,” TFU chair Forbes told the Sun today. “I thought they understood how dire the situation was.”

Lever has been sharply critical of communication between the county executive’s office and the school system in the past.  In an April 22, 2008 letter, he wrote:

“It appears that communication between the local government and the (Local Education Authority) is very poor, resulting in miscommunications, hasty changes of scope and lack of direction on major projects.“

Read more about Lever’s concerns in this TFU blog post from that time.

Read today’s entire Sun article here.

Almost as soon as Baltimore County officials were shown evidence that it was not a lack of state funding holding up an addition at Hampton Elementary School, the project is on schedule for a fall 2012 opening.

In fact, the county is expected to set aside $19 million for the addition, and a renovation to the building.  That is $7 million more than expected. Officials said the project would break ground next summer.

Last week, County Executive Jim Smith said the Hampton project would not begin for at least two years because the state would not help fund it. But Smith’s spokesman is now contradicting that statement, saying that the County was simply waiting for its portion of the funding to be approved by referendum on the November ballot.

Towson Families United will be monitoring the progress of this addition, the second part of a three-part solution to Towson’s elementary school overcrowding problem.

Doug Donovan, the former Baltimore Sun reporter covering the story for the new online publication, Patch, posted a story on the county’s new position. Read it here.

The head of the state’s school construction program today indicated that County Executive Jim Smith was not accurate when he said the decision to stop an addition at Hampton Elementary was due to a lack of state funding.

In an email late Friday to Towson Families United, David Lever, executive director of Maryland’s Public School Construction Program, wrote that the state was ready to fund the project, but county officials said they would not support it.

“Although the project became eligible for funding on March 11, 2010…it was not recommended for funding in the FY 2011 CIP because we learned through communication with the school system that the project would not be supported by the County Government in this fiscal year,” Lever wrote in his email.

Yesterday, County Executive Smith told ABC2 News that the project would unfortunately not break ground for at least two years.  “A lot of that’s driven by the recession, a lot of that’s driven by the state’s contributions,” he told the reporter.

The ABC2 reporter reinforced Smith’s statement about a lack of state funds at the end of his newscast.

Lever wrote that the Hampton project was approved for state funding March 11 of this year.  And on April 15, 2010, Smith said in his budget address to the County Council,”$12.8 million dollars in county funds has been provided for a 330-seat addition and renovation of Hampton Elementary School.”

So Smith may have well known that he wasn’t planning on funding the project, despite touting it in his budget address.

Lever said without county support, it skipped over the Hampton addition and instead funded other projects lower on the school system’s list of priorities.

Based on this, it is clear funding was available for other school construction projects.  The county simply chose to fund other projects and ignore the school system’s list of priorities.

The information that the Hampton addition would not be funded this year took parents and administrators at the school by surprise this summer.  They were told construction would begin this fall.  The architectural plans and engineering studies have been completed.

Obviously, Baltimore County School officials knew much earlier that the county would not be supporting this project, despite it being one of the school system’s top priorities.

The addition is the second part of a three-part solution offered by BCPS to alleviate Towson’s elementary school overcrowding problem.  Hampton has a state-rated capacity of 307 students.  It will open at close to 500 students.

Lever, the state school official, has criticized Baltimore County in the past for deficient school funding requests.  In an April 22, 2008 letter to state schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick, Lever said his office would  closely “monitor” county expenditures “to determine if the State’s funds have been used efficiently.”  He also said Baltimore County’s school construction requests were taking up an inordinate amount of his office’s time.

Lever and his office report to the Board of Public Works, the three-member funding authority that includes Governor Martin O’Malley, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot.

Based on the Lever email today, Towson Families United will be formulating a plan of action to assure that funding for the promised Hampton addition happens as quickly as possible.

Donovan writes for Patch.com, a new micro-local online publication owned by AOL.

His story on the subject begins:

Numbers, not words, say everything about overcrowding at Hampton Elementary School.

School capacity: 307

Total enrollment: 451

By the first day of school on Aug. 30, the final figure is likely to be closer to 500.

Read the entire story here.

Towson Families United is pushing for answers to why the project was skipped over for state funding. The addition is one of two promised to the community to fully solve our overcrowding problem.

For pictures from the opening ceremony at West Towson Elementary School, click here.

The second part of a three-part solution to Towson’s elementary school overcrowding problem is on hold, school officials say.

Baltimore County Public Schools had planned on beginning a much-needed addition at Hampton Elementary this fall. Administrators and parents there were told that the grounds behind the school would be cleared for construction over the summer. Only when that didn’t happen did parents realize there was a problem.

The state did not provide the $6.4 million requested by BCPS to build the project. In fact, while the Hampton addition was just below the West Towson Elementary project on the school system’s priority list, the state skipped over Hampton in favor of projects lower on the list.  Instead, the school received three more trailer classrooms, bringing the total number to eight — one below what Rodgers Forge Elementary had at its peak overcrowding last year.

Towson Families United has been investigating for several weeks why Hampton was not funded, but does not yet have definitive information.

At an August 10 Board of Education meeting, Cathi Forbes, TFU’s chairperson, advocated for the project to move forward quickly.

“A school with a state-rated capacity of  307 will open with around 450 students.  Imagine if your offices were that overcrowded,” Forbes told the Board. “Imagine the logistics of trying to get any work done.”

Forbes said Towson Families United was grateful for the construction of West Towson Elementary, which opens August 30, but reminded the Board that the new school was  never intended to solve the overcrowding problem on its own.  Phase 2 of the school system’s solution to the problem is the Hampton additon. Phase 3 is an addition at Stoneleigh Elementary.

Even with the new school, the Towson area is projected to need more than 450 seats in the next three years.

Forbes told the Board that Towson Families United is still intact and will continue to advocate for long-term solutions to the overcrowding problem.  We will post more information on the Hampton situation as it becomes available. To read today’s front-page Towson Times article on this issue, click here.

If you’re not currently a member of Towson Families United, you can register here.  You can also get easy updates by following us on Facebook.  Click here for our page.

The decision to approve the plan was made after little discussion.  Board member Lawrence Schmidt asked a school system official whether Scenario G would result in the three schools being under 115 percent capacity.  The official replied that if the plan was put into place today,  Rodgers Forge and West Towson would be under 100 percent capacity, and Riderwood would be at 106 percent.

The board then voted unanimously to approve the plan.

For details of the school system presentation, click on the pdf below.

032310exhibitb.PDF

The Board will ultimately be deciding who will attend the new West Towson Elementary School.  Tonight’s input could influence that decision.

For those interested in speaking, sign-up begins at 6 p.m.

Central area superintendent Barbara Walker was scheduled to present her recommendation to the Board of Education at a meeting tomorrow night.  This has now been rescheduled for Tuesday, February 16 at 7 p.m.

The public hearing on the redistricting recommendation will now be held Wednesday, March 10 at 7 p.m., at Loch Raven High School.