For decades, Annapolis has been segregated into sometimes squabbling camps — families who send their kids to public school and families who opt for private school.
Those were the days.
Now a third group dominates — people who have no kids in school at all.
Just 19.4% of households served by the Annapolis cluster have school-age children, the lowest rate in Anne Arundel County and far below the 37% average statewide.
What to do about schools has long been a question for Maryland’s small-town capital. Keeping them from withering is the next big challenge.
“Public schools thrive when the community is engaged,” said Joanna Bache Tobin, who represents the Annapolis area on the Anne Arundel County school board. “But there’s a huge impact on the whole community when schools are not as strong as they could be.”
Tobin has been smack in the middle of the ongoing redistricting process for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, a storm of parental fears, community identity and assumptions about motivations.
Boundaries within the city and beyond would change under the current proposals, the first attempt at countywide redistricting. More than 100 people turned out Monday to comment.
All of them, even Tobin, are missing a point unique to Annapolis schools. The problem is not too many students, it is too few.
Tobin used that 19.4% figure to propose moving boundaries for Eastport, Georgetown East and Hillsmere elementary schools in an attempt to attract affluent families who choose private schools.
Hillsmere, in her scenario, was the bait. It’s one of just two Annapolis schools rated five stars by the Maryland State Department of Education.
It was, Tobin admits, based on a flawed understanding of that 19.4%. She was led to believe that is the percentage of Annapolis-area families with school-age children who send them to public schools.
Her proposal and several others failed Wednesday. If her data was wrong, her motivation was right: strengthening Annapolis schools.
It’s not that administrators don’t care about the city; it’s that they care exactly the same as they do about every county school.
Unique circumstances facing Annapolis aren’t taken into consideration.
“I represent an area that is utterly different than the rest of the county,” Tobin said after sitting through hours of testimony Monday.
Annapolis High is crowded, for example, not because of enrollment from the surrounding community, but because it hosts two magnet programs and a Navy Junior ROTC unit.
Annapolis Middle is at only half capacity, but it’s so poorly designed it needs multiple lunch shifts. Adding more students would mean serving lunch almost from the time kids walk in the door to the time they head home.
Past school administrations expanded Georgetown East for an early education program, only to move it. Now the school is underenrolled.
Title 1 schools, such as Annapolis Elementary, offer extra resources to students from poor families. They benefit from smaller class sizes, an unintended advantage of underenrollment.
All of this suggests Annapolis is far more complex than moving boundaries and programs to even out school populations.
Parents, meanwhile, focus on decisions affecting their children, not the whole picture.
“I ask you to please not strip away the passion and people that make Eastport strong,” Kate Yuan, communications chair of the Eastport Elementary School PTA, told the board Monday.
Annapolis has some good schools. There is a lot of mediocre, too.
West Annapolis joined Hillsmere as a five-star school this week, reflecting academic achievement and progress, school quality and student success.
Eastport Elementary, Tyler Heights and Rolling Knolls — two miles outside city limits — are right behind at four stars.
Annapolis High has three, scoring 52 out of 100 possible points. Annapolis Middle is the city’s only two-star school, earning just 38.4 points.
None of this came up during the election of a new mayor and City Council. And why should it?
City government has zero say on school budgets or curriculum. That’s the job of the elected school board and its appointed superintendent, Mark Bedell.
But the school system doesn’t, or can’t, think about what’s driving all these Annapolis oddities.
The cost and availability of housing keep families with kids away.
Mayor-elect Jared Littmann and several incoming council members say they want to address housing.
Littmann plans to pursue permitting reform. Other council members want more multifamily housing linked by better transportation, or advocate filling in the “missing middle” with duplexes, small apartment buildings and homes over commercial space.
But the mayor and council could make a difference in the quality of schools, too.
Littmann could heighten the focus on Annapolis schools by holding regular talks with the superintendent. The Department of Recreation and Parks could expand after-school care to all schools.
And the city could match its bus system with schools, creating a connection for students that links home, classes, jobs, after-school clubs and sports and programs at the Moyer Recreation Center.
Tobin, meanwhile, continues to press for change within the school system.
Magnet programs and the Center of Applied Technology in Edgewater are great, but a surprising number of Annapolis High students graduate with no plans for the future.
Tobin wonders if empty space at Annapolis Middle could be used for job skill training.
The International Baccalaureate program draws students to Annapolis High, so why not expand it to underenrolled elementary schools? Language immersion helped Tyler Heights get four stars, why not repeat it at three-star Georgetown East?
“Anne Arundel County doesn’t market Annapolis schools,” Tobin said.
The day before the election, I asked Alderman Harry Huntley if anyone mentioned schools during his months of door-knocking in his downtown ward.
Huntley, who was leading challenger Thomas Krieck in the vote count Thursday, said education just didn’t come up.
Schools are so far off the election radar that neither of us thought about Annapolis Elementary, just around the corner from where we stood.
“Annapolis High School just seems so far away,” Huntley said.
It’s a perspective that should change when Littmann and the council take office on Dec. 1.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.