School Officials to Discuss West Towson Overcrowding

Faced with skyrocketing enrollment at , school officials want to work with parents on solutions.

County school officials will host meetings next week West Towson and the adjacent to discuss potential solutions and their impact.

The meetings are scheduled at Ridge Ruxton at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30 and at West Towson at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1.

"We're really just at the exploratory stage at this point and this is just an opportunity to talk about what may be coming up and some of the concerns," said Charles Herndon, a school system spokesman.

The state-rated capacity for West Towson, which opened in 2010, is 451. It operated just under capacity in its first year, but claimed 519 students in 2011. According to statistics presented to the Board of Education earlier this week, the school is projected to reach nearly 600 students by next fall, and 700 students by 2018.

"You're talking about a school that opened for 451 students a year and a half ago," said West Towson PTA president Cathy Berger. "That doesn't tell me that they did enough forward thinking prior to building the schools."

West Towson's boundaries, as currently drawn, include much of Towson's core and much of the Riderwood and Lake Roland area to the southwest.

The school system's hands are tied to an extent by West Towson's space—there isn't enough room for trailers—and the sensitive needs and requirements of the population at Ridge Ruxton, a former elementary school, which serves special-needs students from preschool to age 21. Recently, school officials floated an

However, Ridge Ruxton parents may be amenable to a solution that could involve annexing a grade of West Towson to their school, said Mary Munoz, a Stoneleigh resident and vice president of Ridge Ruxton's PTA.

Ridge Ruxton parents are taking a "wait-and-see" approach, Munoz said, and want to know what steps county officials are willing to take to minimize the impact of elementary students on their children's routines, including physical therapy and bicycles in the hallways.

"Our students come with a lot of equipment," Munoz said. "It's a completely different school so that's the concern for the parents."

Annexing was used most recently at Rodgers Forge Elementary School, which sent its fourth graders to nearby Dumbarton Middle School while waiting for construction to finish at West Towson.

"My feeling right now is I came from Rodgers Forge and my daughter was annexed to Dumbarton and it was all good," Berger said. "It'll be interesting to see what is said at the meeting."

The practice could buy the school system time as construction begins or continues elsewhere in the York Road corridor, including at , and a planned school slated for either Dulaney Springs or Mays Chapel.

This article has been edited to clarify the location of a planned York Road corridor elementary school.