Forest Lakes Community Offers Domino Effect Redistricting Proposal

In the past few weeks since the proposed elementary school redistricting plan was released, several communities have submitted letters and alternate proposals to the board of education. Few, however, have offered a plan that affects multiple communities in its proposal.

Kimberly Robertello, a committee chair of the Parent-Teacher Association at Forest Lakes Elementary School, is collecting signatures from parents in her community and others to support a comprehensive alternate proposal. The plan is being created by a number of parents in Robertello's neighborhood, High Point/Pleasantville, which has approximately 83 children at Forest Lakes who are proposed to be moved to North Bend Elementary School.

Although Robertello disagrees with the move, it isn't because she is against redistricting as a whole, just to North Bend.

"There are at least seven other elementary schools that are closer than North Bend," she said. "We understand the need for the redistricting, and certainly support that that has to happen, and none of us really had much involvement with it because we assumed that if we were redistricted it would be to another school in our community."

Robertello's concerns with the move also involve safety and time on the bus, as well as "small pockets" of children moving.

"If we went to North Bend, it would just be our community, just our 83 kids would then return to Fallston Middle and High School whereas everyone else in North Bend would move on to North Harford schools," she said.

However, Robertello's main concern is safety, in regards to possible bus routes to North Bend.

"Going to North Bend would require us to cross over Route 23 and the intersection at High Point on Route 23 is a notoriously dangerous intersection," she said. "There were, in '07, 64 total accidents at that intersection and in '08, there were 87 total accidents and property damage."

The proposal the High Point/Pleasantville Community is working on now includes pictures from the accidents at the intersection. In addition to safety, length on the bus is another concern for the community.

Even with the shortest route taken to North Bend, Robertello still believes that the time on the bus is too long and violates the parameter that rides should be less than 45 minutes.

"We spend just a little bit over a half-an-hour on the school bus just to go the three-and-a-half miles to Forest Lakes Elementary School," she said. "So now they're saying that we're going to be going to a school that is nine miles away and potentially an 11- or 12-mile bus ride."

Parents are working on bus travel now, according to Robertello, mapping potential routes and timing them for the proposal the community plans on submitting.

The proposal, which is still being constructed, incorporates several surrounding communities and "piggybacks" onto the alternate proposal submitted by the Stone Ridge Community.

The plan follows a domino effect, much like the redistricting draft created by the Superintendent's Technical Advisory Committee. If the Stone Ridge community stays at Fountain Green Elementary, it opens up 119 seats at Homestead-Wakefield, where the Stone Ridge community is proposed to go. Then, approximately 120 Homestead-Wakefield students being moved to Red Pump Elementary School under the draft could stay at Homestead-Wakefield. The plan suggests that the board use the southern end of the proposed Red Pump district, near Tollgate and Ring Factory Road, to determine which 120 students to keep at Homestead-Wakefield. 

"Leave them at Homestead-Wakefield; it's where they are now," Robertello said. "That's more students who get to stay where they are and not get displaced."

With that large group staying at Homestead-Wakefield, Robertello said there would be 120 desks available at Red Pump, allowing the Marywood community to move there from Hickory Elementary School.

"They assumed that they would be going to Red Pump because it's just a couple blocks up the road," she said. "They actually have been, under the new redistricting plan, sent to Forest Lakes."

The Marywood community has approximately 80 children, and according to Robertello, is comparable in size to her community that is being pushed out of Forest Lakes into North Bend.

This alternate plan argues that the Marywood community should go to Red Pump, allowing the High Point/Pleasantville community to stay at Forest Lakes. The comprehensive plan, according to Robertello, is beneficial for the schools involved in it. 

"We have Fountain Green just barely over capacity but only for a year or two, we have Homestead-Wakefield, who is still under capacity. We have brought [Red Pump] under capacity and keeping those Marywood students over there leaves space at Forest Lakes for us to stay there," Robertello said. "That's also bringing North Bend a little down."

Robertello stressed that the plan is still in progress, and though it has the support of the Forest Lakes PTA, community members are still gathering signatures from the Marywood community and the PTA boards of Fountain Green, Homestead-Wakefield and North Bend.

"We're trying to take everybody's proposals and puzzle piece them together to make them one big proposal that has the support of very large numbers and many of the schools that are involved," she said.

The plan will be submitted at the next , Jan. 12 at the Aberdeen High School auditorium.

CORRECTION: An earlier edition of this story incorrectly stated that Kimberly Robertello is the PTA president. Bel Air Patch regrets the error.