Carroll County school board has full agenda for monthly meeting Wednesday

The Carroll County Board of Education has a full agenda for its Wednesday meeting.

The school board will vote on plans to expand kindergarten and prekindergarten capacity at four elementary schools; and will consider a measure to petition Westminster to annex Cranberry Station Elementary and Winters Mill High schools, according to the published agenda.

The board is also set to discuss a policy update that would ban speakers from talking about individual students during the public participation portion of board meetings, and will consider the timeline for ongoing construction at East Middle School.

School board meetings are open to the public and livestreamed on the Carroll County Public Schools YouTube channel and viewable on the right side of the Board of Education’s website at carrollk12.org/board-of-education/meeting-information, under CETV Livestream. Meetings are also broadcast throughout the month on Carroll Educational Television, Channel 21.

Anyone who wishes to participate during the public participation portion of school board meetings must fill out an online sign-up form at https://www.carrollk12.org/board-of-education/meeting-information or call the communications office at 410-751-3020 by 9 p.m., on the Tuesday before a meeting.

Elementary additions

The board will vote on plans for kindergarten and prekindergarten classroom additions at Cranberry Station, Friendship Valley, Sandymount and Taneytown elementary schools. Each school’s design plan will be considered individually.

Superintendent Cynthia McCabe told school board members in November that estimated construction costs were expected to be higher than those approved in September as part of the school system’s capital budget request to the county. The increases are due to differences in the way costs are estimated and increases in the amount of square footage for each addition, school facilities planner William Caine told the board in November. In light of the increases, administrators have pinpointed areas where costs could be trimmed.

The Friendship Valley project‘s estimated cost was reduced by $1 million to about $8.8 million by eliminating 2,041 square feet from the project. 

The Sandymount project‘s cost was reduced from $6 million to about $5.6 million by eliminating 1,193 square feet from the project.

The Taneytown project‘s estimated cost was reduced from $4.4 million to about $4.1 million by eliminating 809 square feet from the project.

The Cranberry Station project‘s projected cost was reduced from $3.7 million to about $3.5 million by eliminating 789 square feet from the project.

Winters Mill High and Cranberry Station Elementary annexation request

To serve the water allocation needs of the kindergarten and prekindergarten additions at Cranberry Station Elementary School, the board will vote on a measure to ask Westminster city officials to annex roughly 56 acres of property, which includes both the elementary school and Winters Mill High School. The request is necessitated by the city’s water and sewer allocation policy, according to the agenda item.

The property, at 505 N. Center St., Westminster, is contiguous and adjoins the city’s boundaries and an annexation would not create an area of unincorporated land surrounded by city land on all sides.

Westminster’s Common Council in February approved a request to annex a property less than 2 miles from the schools, so that Crosscreek Enterprises LLC could use city water and sewer in developing a building at 411 Malcolm Drive for retail use. The 1,560-square-foot building sits on an 0.69 acre lot.

Westminster also successfully annexed the historic Ellsworth Cemetery, on Leidy Road, last summer.

Public participation discussion

The school board will once again reconsider its policies governing public participation at meetings. The proposed update would ban members of the public from identifying individual students in matters brought before the school board.

Last month parents spoke at a school board meeting, asking officials to take action regarding reported attacks on Manchester Elementary School students by a classmate.

The school board last updated its public participation policy in November 2022, unanimously voting to limit the number of public speakers at meetings to a maximum 15. The policy states that each of the 15 speakers will have three minutes to address the board and leaves the door open for additional speakers if the board allows.

The discussion item will be open to public feedback before returning to the school board at a later date for a vote, according to the agenda item.

Construction at East Middle School

The school board will also hear an update regarding ongoing construction at the site of the new East Middle School in Westminster, which was originally scheduled to be complete already, but was delayed due to the unexpected discovery of a rock mass that needed to be removed before the project could continue.

Bus loop construction is expected to finish by the end of this month, according to the agenda item, and a walking path around the school’s lower field is now complete. The original plan called for the bus loop to be completed late last year.

A change order to allocate $600,000 of additional funds to address the rock removal was unanimously approved by the school board in December. The contract change order approved by the school board may not exceed $600,000, though it may cost less.

The rock’s existence was unknown when the school board approved the $65.9 million construction project to replace the 85-year-old building used as East Middle School on Longwell Avenue. Construction had otherwise finished on-track and just under budget, CCPS construction supervisor James Marks told the school board in December.

The new, three-level, 126,000 square-foot school building opened in September for a population of 790 students. Construction of the school’s bus loop and parking lot were not complete when the school opened and construction has been delayed due to the rock issue.

The former school building was 120,400 square feet and was constructed in 1936. It served for 35 years as Westminster High School, then nearly 50 years as a middle school, until it was closed in June. Additions were built in 1941, 1950 and 1964, and it was last renovated in 1976. The school system began construction on the East Middle School replacement project in November 2021.