Who Knew?

The change was made without fanfare, posted quietly to Boarddocs and noticed quite by accident by OMCA Board Chair Jonathan Edelson. The replacement school for Talbott Springs Elementary had been moved from first priority to somewhere on down the line. So was a major capital project for Hammond High School. The response from the public indicates that this announcement was completely unexpected.

Who knew? 

Not the County Council, if various statements of dismay are to be believed. I haven’t seen any official comments from members of the Howard Country delegation to the Maryland State legislature. I wonder if they knew. What about the County Executive?

Local and State Government officials are not in the habit, nor should they be, of micromanaging hcpss affairs. But the construction of a new school is different. It requires the coordination of local and state funding and therefore would require ongoing communication and collaboration. At least, that is what I had assumed.

So, to my mind, if the school system had arrived at the conclusion that monies just weren’t there for these two projects, it would have been done in collaboration with state and local government. And I’m not getting the feeling that this is the case. (Obviously I will correct if it turns out I am wrong.)

And what about the AAC, who were tasked with giving direction to the Superintendent’s redistricting efforts? It would have been crucial for them to know whether these projects were going to be realized or not in weighing various options. Did they know? 

I don’t think so.

So, who knew? Well, the Superintendent, obviously. The BOE. And Central Office staff, I guess. Board Member Vicky Cutroneo posted this article from HoCoTimes shortly after news broke about the change. 

Top construction projects for Howard schools to be funded, but officials voice concern for future needs, Jess Nocera

Hmm. That article was written in May.

“We told you in May but you weren’t listening”?

While I appreciate the background information from Ms. Cutroneo, I don’t think this lets the school system off the hook for making such an enormously impactful change in a way that left community members feeling blindsided and disrespected.

So at this point I still have more questions than answers. My most pressing questions are about how the school system works in collaboration with local and state government and what kind of transparency is required. There’s simply got to be more to this story.