Preliminary School Redistricting Scenarios Cause Alarm For Parents

Weather-related decisions and redistricting — those are two of the least favorite parts of the job for Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) Superintendent Mark Bedell.

But redistricting is necessary, he said, because of growth in student enrollment, among other factors.

“There are no conspiracies,” Bedell said, addressing parent concerns during a Board of Education of Anne Arundel County workshop on January 27. “All we’re trying to do is balance the system. It’s that simple. We have a growing school district. We have to balance the system.”

AACPS Chief Operating Officer Bill Heiser said the school district currently has over 14,000 available seats and projects to have 9,000 by 2033.

In addition to growth and programmatic changes mandated by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation, “balancing enrollments through redistricting helps optimize future funding,” Heiser said. “Both the state and county are less likely to fund renovations or new buildings when there are empty seats available in the district. Lastly, redistricting enhances our case for future capital funding for building additions, replacements and alterations.”

AACPS hired a private consultant, WXY, to develop the redistricting scenarios using enrollment patterns to increase the number of “well-utilized” schools while decreasing the number of “over-utilized” schools.

WXY previously reviewed boundary lines for Montgomery County Public Schools, with those plans being abandoned. The firm also did work for Boston Public Schools, the School District of Lancaster and many other organizations.

Phase I of AACPS redistricting was implemented in August 2024 and included the Chesapeake, Glen Burnie, Meade, North County, Northeast, Old Mill and Severn Run clusters.

Phase II includes the Severna Park and Broadneck clusters along with Annapolis, Arundel, Crofton, South River and Southern clusters.

On February 1, AACPS shared three preliminary redistricting options. After soliciting feedback from the community now through May 1, Bedell will choose one of the existing options or present his own modified version to the Board of Education in July. Board members will share their input, followed by public hearings in September and October, before adopting the final redistricting plan in November.

AACPS plans to implement the changes for the 2026-2027 school year.

Each scenario affects schools and neighborhoods differently. For example, all three scenarios would move some kids from Severna Park Elementary School to Oak Hill Elementary School.

From a broad view, Scenario 1 would rezone 3.47% of the district’s pupils and alter 41 schools. Scenario 2 would rezone 4.38% of pupils and 43 schools. Scenario 3 would rezone 3.81% of pupils and 34 schools.

Early in the community input process, Severna Park and Broadneck residents have been vocal about the proposed changes. Some parents started a petition to prevent the redistricting of Jones Elementary School to Severn River Middle School. The petition advocates for Scenario 3. In the first five days, the petition garnered about 550 verified signatures.

Kristin Lewnes, an attorney and parent of a Severna Park Middle School (SPMS) seventh-grader and Jones Elementary fifth-grader, is part of the group that started the petition. In a letter to the Board of Education, she expressed that the average number of affected Jones Elementary students, 56 fifth-graders annually, is an insignificant percentage shift and that the roughly three-mile distance saved between traveling to Severn River Middle School instead of Severna Park Middle School is also negligible.

She cited previous redistricting plans in Wake County, North Carolina (2020), Howard County, Maryland (2019) and Fairfax County, Virginia (2019) that either allowed students in transitioning years to stay at their schools or allowed younger students to stay in the same districts as their older siblings.

Lewnes’ daughter thrived at the small community of Jones and endured a difficult transition into middle school before receiving Severna Park Middle School’s Student of the Month honor in October 2023 as a sixth-grader and again in October 2024 as a seventh-grader.

“She found her rhythm, she found her community, she connected with friends, she connected with teachers, and she has been thriving at SPMS,” Lewnes said. “She has been preparing her little brother, a current fifth-grader at Jones, for his transition to middle school at SPMS. He is not as scared because of her leadership and her introducing him to SPMS, including the students, the facilities, the teachers, the activities, the classes and the community. He has been looking forward to enjoying the community and similar educational success that his older sister has found at SPMS.”

During the January workshop, Board of Education’s District 6 representative Joanna Bache Tobin tried to calm parents’ fears.

“The goal here, as Dr. Bedell has laid out, is to ensure that every student has the best possible setting for school, that children are not in situations where there is terrible overcrowding, and that we are as fiscally responsible as possible and use every seat that we can,” she said.

Affected families are asked to provide their feedback via the online tool so all Board of Education members can collectively review that information instead of members receiving individual emails. View the web tool at www.aacpsredistricting.org/webmap.

“There is a human element that will be factored in, but I will say this too: everybody can’t get everything that they want,” Bedell said. “This is the reason for redistricting. There are going to be some tough decisions that have to be made. But we will take those comments into account as we do everything in our power to do this in a very fair and transparent manner.”