Archive for the ‘Schools’ Category
November 21, 2008
November 20, 2008
Another local teacher has tarnished the profession of education once again. It is unfortunate that a few adults who are entrusted with the education of our children make choices that take advantage of the youth they are instructing. Based on the listings on a web site titled Bad Bad Teacher, it appears that the headlines expose poor judgement on an almost daily basis. Our local bad teacher already made the list.
August 04, 2008
Beaver Run Elementary Charles H. Chipman Elementary Delmar Elementary East Salisbury Elementary Fruitland Primary Fruitland Intermediate Glen Avenue Elementary North Salisbury Elementary Northwestern Elementary Pemberton Elementary Pinehurst Elementary Prince Street Elementary West Salisbury Elementary Westside Primary Westside Intermediate Willards Elementary Wicomico Early Learning Center Pittsville Elementary and Middle Bennett Middle Salisbury Middle Wicomico Middle Mardela Middle and High James M. Bennett High Parkside High Parkside Career & Technology Education Center Choices Changes to the schedule can occur, so check the WCBOE link for updates.
June 07, 2008
Another interesting detail of the plans for JMB High School as well as Bennett Middle is that both of the new buildings are being built for a capacity that is roughly equal to the current enrollment. The plans for Bennett Middle allow a capacity of 930 students, which is only slightly above recent enrollment figures and is the same as the current State Rated Capacity, which probably includes the half dozen or so portables on the grounds. Pemberton Elementary is one of our recently renovated school buildings, and the playground of that school is already home to two portable classroom buildings. All of this leads me back to the retirement of Alan Brown, who reported at the October 2007 Board of Education meeting that he had recently met with officials at Peninsula Regional Medical Center. This seemed odd to me at first, but then he offered one of the details that came out of that meeting. PRMC was seeing record numbers of births at the hospital. Obviously, the BOE needs to be able to project enrollment figures for the future, and the statistics from PRMC’s maternity ward probably help accomplish that. The problem is that the WCBOE has done nothing to increase the capacity of our schools, and nothing will be done in the next five years while we focus on the construction of two schools named Bennett. The record birth numbers at PRMC last fall mean that in four or five years the enrollment at our elementary schools will also begin to reach record numbers, and there is no plan to handle this increase, unless you consider moving in more portable classrooms as a plan. Wicomico County already has 75 portables in use at various schools according to a recent inventory for a total of 68,000 square feet. It has been reported that the new Prince Street building is approximately 77,000 square feet. That means that we have roughly the equivalent of an entire school in portable classrooms. There are also 30 portable buildings covering 34,000 square feet that are currently being used as office space in the Central Office Annex and Facility Services. Based on recent enrollment figures, Wicomico County schools are operating at 102% of their State Rated Capacity, and there is no plan to increase the capacity with permanent structures for at least the next five years. Both of our kids will be out of school in six years, so I guess I am glad that we won’t be impacted by the increased overcrowding that will be occurring in the future, but I do worry about the impact that the situation will have on the students and teachers of Wicomico County schools. The quality of education in Wicomico County has a direct impact on the quality of life and the property values in our area, and unless something drastic is done to improve our school facilities, that quality has only one direction to go. Down.
May 14, 2008
April 02, 2008
Citizens should also note that the current school calendar has been adjusted due to school closings caused by weather this winter. The last day of school in Wicomico County will now be Tuesday, June 10th, instead of the original date of Friday, June 6th.
March 14, 2008
According to Robin Holloway, president of the Wicomico County school board:
The new superintendent will begin the term of his four year contract after the end of the current school year.
January 14, 2008
Despite aging facilities, inadequate classroom space, and increasingly difficult social environments, the teachers and administrations of Maryland schools have achieved the rank of 3rd in a recent survey by Education Week. Check out the results in Quality Counts on the Education Week web site.
June 27, 2007
In addition to the MSA test information that is now available on the 2007 Maryland Report Card, trends in school performance can be analyzed on mdk12.org. Graphs can be created which show the past five years of data for a school on each grade and test. The site also allows the comparison of schools that fall in similar demographic ranges based on the free and reduced meal program. This data might create more questions than answers. If you follow a group of students through the years, test results are not always consistent. For instance, at Fruitland Intermediate school in Wicomico County, Grade 4 Reading scores in 2006 were 71.4% proficient and 13.4% advanced. This same group of students provided Grade 5 Reading scores in 2007 of 42.9% proficient and 28.6% advanced. It does not seem possible to create a meaningful analysis on this group of students with such inconsistent percentages. The ability of the people of the State of Maryland to have access to this information with the ability to compare the perfomance of different schools is one positive result of standardized testing. The inconsistency of the percentages from year to year brings into question the standards that are being set for the students at each grade level.
June 24, 2007
The former Social Security Building on Main Street in Salisbury was recently transferred to the Epilepsy Association when the facility was vacated by the feds. The taxpayers of Maryland are now funding $150,000 in the form of a grant to the Epilepsy Association for development or improvement of the facility. The original request was for $325,000 in SB460, but only $150,000 was funded in the bond bill. The grant is dependent on the association raising matching funds. I don’t have anything against the Epilepsy Association, but I question if the taxpayers should be paying for this. The Wicomico County Board of Education also competed for the award of the SS building, but they were not successful. The WCBOE currently uses 24 portable classroom buildings as an annex for the main office, and the SS building would have provided a great benefit to the Board of Ed. I guess the process of awarding government surplus property and state grants are two areas that are not meant to make sense. The State of Maryland is facing a large budget deficit next year, but the Epilepsy Association will get its money.
June 21, 2007
Filed Under (Schools) by ShoreThings on 21-06-2007
The Maryland State Department of Education has released its 2007 Maryland Report Card based on the MSA tests of the past school year. According to the MSDE:
The data is available online at www.mdreportcard.org.
June 19, 2007
June 16, 2007
This request was unfunded. The enrollment is rising, and we can’t hire additional teachers to handle the growth.
June 14, 2007
Wicomico County and the City of Salisbury share a governmental entity known as the Department of Planning, Zoning and Community Development. The mission of this organization is stated on the county’s web site.
My question is, “Where’s the planning in the Planning & Zoning Department?” Based on the results of residential development in Wicomico County over the past six years, and even the past twenty years, it is quite clear that the planning has not included adequate study of such areas as roads or school capacity.
Wicomico County schools are currently operating at over 102% of their State Rated Capacity. Wicomico County has not built a new school in over 8 years even though thousands of residential building permits have been issued during this time. We have replaced schools that were several decades old and long past their useful life, but we have not built new schools or expanded existing schools to provide added capacity for increased enrollment. Pemberton Elementary school has been recently renovated, but this new structure already has two portable classrooms taking up playground space because of increased enrollment. Due to budget restrictions, the county and its municipalities have not been able to complete collector roads on either the east or west side of Salisbury to handle the traffic from development that has already occurred. Local routes such as Nanticoke Road on the west side and South Division Street near the university are not designed to handle the traffic loads of current development, and they will be overwhelmed by continued growth. It is obvious from these facts that residential growth is not providing an adequate financial benefit to support the additional infrastructure and school capacity that are required by our increasing population. The county must not allow Waller Landing or any other large scale residential development, such as the one across from Nutters Crossing near Salisbury, to continue until it is clear that our schools have additional capacity and our roads can handle the additional traffic load.
June 06, 2007
Mr. Duvafiles complains today that the Wicomico County Council passed the budget, and, “Neither the executive nor council even considered the possibility of reducing taxes.” The 2% revenue cap resulted in a required cut to the Real Property tax rate of about 6 cents, from .942 to .881 per $100 dollars of property value. This means that if the phased in assessment for your property as of 7/1/2007 is $232,596 then your tax bill will be $2049 at the new rate instead of $2191 at the old rate. By my calculations, that is a tax cut of $142 for this citizen of the county. The council passed the budget with a tax cut, decreased the Board of Education request by $1 million, and only supplied the Public Works department about a third of what it needs to properly maintain our roads. Think about that the next time you hit a pothole, and your mechanic can’t spell alignment correctly on the work order. Down the road a little, the Worcester County council passed a $175 million dollar budget which includes a revenue increase of $20 million because they did not include a tax cut in their final draft. Go complain about that. And to top it off, according to the Daily Times, the Worcester County budget includes funding that will allow the Board of Education to fill seven new positions at $40,390 each while granting 7.5-percent salary increases. Guess where the teachers are going. |
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Wicomico County is blessed with many generous citizens who are willing to support the worthwhile causes of our area. These philanthropists don’t just write checks and wait to see their name up on a sign. They become personally involved in efforts to improve our community. One excellent example of this personal involvement is displayed in an organization called 
The proposed budget for the 
Currently, there is an ongoing discussion regarding development around the Town of Hebron. Waller Landing is the name of a proposed development that will add over 1,600 residential units along with some commercial businesses to this town of 800 residents. The fact that this behemoth of construction is even being considered in civil discussions shows how little consideration there is among the planners for the effects of such a development on the infrastructure and schools of Wicomico County. 
