So somebody wrote an article claiming that Howard County's Schools are economically segregated and poverty only lies within older Columbia Schools and those along the Route 1 Corridor. So now the County is trying to redistrict its way out of this pickle they've just now found themselves in. Usually redistricting is something to keep to a minimum if necessary so that Students can remain the same School without being disrupted. The majority of the time it is done when a new or replacement building opens or an existing building has added capacity. Even then, you should still be kept at the school nearest your home.
So now that this article has been written, the School System is jumping through hoops to rectify a "problem" that Free And Reduced Meal (FARM), an indicator of poverty, are concentrated only in some schools while other schools have very few. There's a reason for that and it has nothing to do with school districts. As I had stated, many of these Schools are located in Columbia. Columbia was meant to be a mixed income Community and it has kept its promise as being one. Most other parts of the County are anything but. Most subdivisions are newer than Columbia and are economically segregated. So of course the mixed income Community will have more FARM Students than the "NIMBY" Communities outside Columbia. This was no accident.
So what does redistricting Pheasant Ridge to Harpers Choice MS and Clary's Forest to Clarksville MS do? Other than blatant attempt to balance out the percentage of FARM students, all it does is makes both sets of Students now travel farther to their districted School, a practice known as "busing." This was done when Schools that were all white due to the Neighborhoods they served, bused in black students from other Neighborhoods to promote diversity. Busing is basically admitting that some schools in your district are better than others. The County seems to be doing this now with its current redistricting plan.
County Schools did not get this way overnight. As I had mentioned before, Columbia is a mixed income community and always has been. As Communities beyond Columbia began being developed, the mixed income component of Columbia was lost on them. Most of what was built were Single Family Homes that very few could afford. When these communities were being built, so too were new Schools to house Students living there. At what point did Schools like Pointers Run, Fulton, Ilchester, and Rockburn try to include Columbia Students in their districts? They didn't. Also, at what point did the County say it was building too many new Schools and it would instead add on to existing Columbia Schools and house Residents from those glitzy new subdivisions there? They didn't. Everybody knew what they were doing and thus a funding gap was created between brand new Schools and existing Columbia Schools.
With this funding gap came the poverty segregation that this article is talking about. I experienced first hand growing up in '90s Columbia when the wealthier Students in my classes jumped ship and moved to these newer Communities leaving Schools like mine with a much higher FARM rate. This also deterred new wealthy Howard County Families from moving into wealthier parts of Columbia as well and overtime a higher and higher percentage of Columbia Students were FARM.
Here we are today trying to redistrict this problem away. First of all, by acknowledging this article, the County's admitting that the richer Schools provide better education and that there's a problem to begin with. Second of all, redistricting does nothing to de-concentrate poverty itself, it just sends it to different schools. Third of all, why are we redistricting now? No new Schools are slated to open until the 2022-2023 School Year which is the Talbott Springs replacement School. HS#13 and a newly renovated Hammond HS with a 250 seat addition will both open the following year and the year after that is ES#43. Those years should be the next time redistricting is done. When said redistricting is done, the percentage of FARM kids may be addressed or it may not be. What will happen is balanced capacity/enrollment ratios across the board so Schools aren't crowded and Students attend the School nearest their home.
So what have we learned here? We've learned that other than Columbia, Howard County doesn't encourage poverty and has done nothing to evenly distribute FARM students except for this feeble attempt at modern day busing. We've also learned that modern day busing doesn't de-concentrate poverty, it just sends it to different schools. We've also learned that redistricting won't undo decades of income segregation policy the County practiced post Columbia. I will leave you with this; de-concentrating poverty is something that needs to be done from the ground up reinvesting in and redeveloping impoverished areas. Then and only then can the percentage of FARM Students decrease not just in Columbia Schools, but in Howard County as a whole. Anything else is modern day busing.
