Since the Board of Education tabled the county executive’s poorly thought out proposal to build an addition at Ridge Ruxton School, we’ve been attempting to find out what happens next.

At its March 11 meeting, the Board said it needed more information about the plan — which was so vague it didn’t even mention Ridge Ruxton by name. (”Consultant Services – Architectural/Engineering (A/E) Services for Elementary School Addition,” was how it was worded on the Board’s agenda that night.) It also said it wanted to seek community input.

Yet no one from the Board, the school system, or the county executive’s office has scheduled a community input meeting. And, as we understand it, none of these offices has sent a single representative to speak with the administration or parents of Ridge Ruxton.

So last week, Towson Families United took it upon itself to provide some input. We had a meeting with Don Mohler, the county executive’s spokesman, to present our concerns about the plan. And to present some creative options that we continue to think merit consideration.

We told Mr. Mohler that we couldn’t support the 400-seat addition without assurances that it would include a second cafeteria, gymnasium, health suite, and other common areas. While Mr. Mohler told us at the meeting that it would, he has since retracted that statement. And he now says he agrees with school system officials, who argue (somewhat unbelievably) that it is the architects, not the school system, who will determine what is built. Isn’t that the tail wagging the dog?

It is our understanding that the Ridge Ruxton cafeteria currently seats 125 students, and lunch takes two full hours. It’s clear the existing cafeteria cannot accommodate 400 more students. In addition, the gym at Ridge Ruxton is in use all day for physical and occupational therapy needs, so again, another gym would be needed. And the health suite is already staffed with three full-time nurses who tend to the special needs of their medically fragile population.  Another health suite, to tend to sick children, would be required.  For all of these reasons, and more, the parents at Ridge Ruxton have come out strongly against the proposed addition.  And we stand with them.

We then presented Mr. Mohler with a number of other options that seem worthy of investigation. For instance:

We could follow the Board of Education’s recommendation to relocate the students at Ridge Ruxton to a new building in Mays Chapel, and re-open Ruxton Elementary.

We could move the Bykota senior center to another location — like on land owned by the YMCA, or even to Mays Chapel — and re-open Towson Elementary.

We could find another piece of land in Towson and build an “urban model” school that requires significantly less acreage. One of our members, an architect, is working on such a project in Washington, D.C. He’s designing an 850-student school on just 3.2 acres — far less than the county continues to insist upon.

All of our suggestions involve opening a complete, new school. That’s something the county executive has been reluctant to do since he took office. But it’s something we believe is vitally important to truly solve our overcrowding problem. An addition — at Ridge Ruxton, or elsewhere — will simply put too much strain on the existing school’s resources. Don’t forget: The county closed two elementary schools in Towson in the early 1980s when school-aged populations dropped. We simply want at least one of them back. Although if you look at the school system’s 10-year projections, it looks more like we need both of them back.

In any event, Mr. Mohler didn’t seem particularly interested in any of our suggestions. He basically said they all cost too much. Even though there’s no evidence anyone’s done the math.

The County’s Office of Planning, meanwhile, has weighed in. In a March 21, 2008 letter to the county’s Office of Budget and Finance, secretary Pat Keller lists the Ridge Ruxton addition as its No. 1 recommendation: “Full funding and rapid implementation of a Ridge-Ruxton Elementary School addition to begin to address the school overcrowding in the Towson area and along the York Road corridor. As well as providing additional seats, the addition should include expansion of the common areas.” Apparently these folks don’t have to wait to see what the architects say. You can read the entire letter below.

plan-bd-cap-budg-080321.pdf

So where does that leave us? Will the Board of Education get the information it so rightly deserves in order to make a decision? Will the county executive ignore the Board and build the addition anyway? Will anyone actually visit Ridge Ruxton?

We’ll continue to press for answers. Stay tuned.