Kristin Harty Barkley
CUMBERLAND — Enrollment in Allegany County’s public schools should stabilize in the next 10 years after declining steadily for decades, preliminary data analysis shows.
Enrollment in grades K-12, which decreased by 15 percent from 2000 to 2009, is projected to drop at a much slower rate — about 4 percent — between now and 2019, data shows.
“Where you’re heading is toward a much more stable enrollment within the next 10 years,” said Carl Chafin, a partner and senior planner with Eperitus, a Richmond, Va., company hired to conduct a study of Cumberland’s secondary schools. Analysts studied multiple sets of data to make projections.
“You’re going to see it start to level out,” Chafin said during Tuesday’s public meeting of the Allegany County Board of Education.
Just what that means for Cumberland’s secondary schools remains to be seen.
A committee of about two dozen citizens is working with Eperitus over the next several months to consider options for the city’s aging school buildings, including Fort Hill and Allegany high schools, the Center for Career and Technical Education and Washington and Braddock middle schools. All but Fort Hill need “major renovations” to remain operable in the next decade, Chafin said.
The committee, called the Community Resource Committee for the Utilization Study of Cumberland Secondary Schools, is scheduled to meet Jan. 25 to begin to sort through enrollment data, as well as detailed information about building conditions and how each building is being used.
Total enrollment in 2009 was 8,698, down from 10,179 in 2000, Eperitus’ preliminary report shows. In 2019, enrollment is projected to be about 8,360.
“These are the numbers the committee is really going to be gathering around and talking about as they start to make some decisions,” said Joanne Huebner, vice president of Eperitus, who with Chafin briefed the school board Tuesday night.
Committee members — then later the board — must ultimately determine whether buildings are being used to capacity and how best to configure the city’s secondary schools in the next decade.
It’s going to be a huge task, Huebner and Chafin said.
“This is really a whole lot more complex than just counting up the number of rooms and multiplying by ‘X’ number of kids,” Chafin said. “It gets complex when you start looking at what programs are we offering. And at what rate are kids signing up for them? And what does that actually look like?”
How the state looks at the data adds another layer of complexity. Eperitus plans to invite Maryland State Department of Education employees to the committee’s Feb. 8 meeting to discuss funding formulas.
“I think it’s good you’re going to do that,” said Karen Treber, board president. “We on the board understand the budget process — what the state funds, what it doesn’t fund, what it’s going to cost them, what it’s going to cost us — but it doesn’t get communicated to the public very well. There are misconceptions about why we’re able to do some things and not others.”
The committee, which is scheduled to meet Jan. 25, Feb. 8, Feb. 22 and March 15, is expected to present recommendations to the board by April. All committee meetings are open to the public and are being video recorded and placed on the Allegany County Public Schools Web site. For more information, go to boe.allconet.org and look under Utilization Study.
Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kharty@times-news.com.
