Baltimore County school officials are proposing additions to Stoneleigh and Hampton elementary schools in order provide the more than 400 additional seats needed in the Towson area in coming years. Stoneleigh would be expanded by 200 seats, and Hampton by 300.
That would turn Stoneleigh into a 700-student school, and allow Hampton to accommodate more than 600 children. There has been no word whether the additions would include expansions to the existing cafeterias and other common areas.
The proposal, which was submitted at tonight’s Board of Education meeting, is part of the school system’s FY 2010 State and County Capital Budget Request.
The Board will discuss the proposal at length during its September 16, 2008 work session, which is open to the public. The proposal will then be voted on at the September 23 meeting.
Also tonight, the Board voted to move forward with construction of a new, 451-seat elementary school on Charles Street. In the next five years, school projections indicate a need for more than 800 elementary school seats in the Towson area.
Design Collective, Inc. will present its architectural plans for the new Towson elementary school at a county school board meeting this Tuesday, September 9, at 7:30 p.m. A copy of the firm’s design and rationale has been posted here on the Board of Education website.
The new school will be three levels with a state-rated capacity of 451 students. (Is that number a coincidence?)
“The school is designed as a simple yet sensitive response to the many factors presented by the site,” the architects write. “In order to work well with the existing school and avoid an imposing or institutional feel, the new school is envisioned as a collection of smaller more intimately scaled structures grouped together around an enclosed ‘village square’ to the west and a ‘town hall’ to the east.”
Design Collective seems to have gone to great lengths to create a “sustainable,” green design, both in the building itself and the small footprint it will impose on the surrounding woodland.
The new school continues to be on schedule and slated for a Fall 2010 opening. Despite being called “Towson West” Elementary in the architect’s plans, various other names are still under consideration.
To read the full, detailed architect’s plans, and see more illustrations of the new school, click on the pdf below.
new-school.pdf
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