(4/12) At the April Planning Commission Meeting, Bill Caine, Facilities Planner for the Carroll County Board of Education, introduced a concept site plan to add four classrooms onto the east side of Taneytown Elementary School. These rooms would be specifically for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes.
Commission Chair James Parker asked if the additional classrooms were for existing students or additional ones. Caine replied, "both, as we are planning for the future, but we also need more space now." The elementary school currently has two classrooms for kindergarten and one pre-k classroom. "Kindergarten used to be a half day class, so they had a morning and an afternoon class, and two rooms were enough. Now there are four kindergarten teachers using empty first grade classrooms, computer labs and the health room, so we need two more kindergarten rooms," said Caine.
The new addition will use a portion of the existing pre-k classroom as a corridor to get to the new classrooms. The plans show one of the two new pre-k classrooms replacing the old classroom. With the addition of a second pre-k classroom, this means the school will be hiring a second pre-k teacher in the fall. Caine explained that the school is preplanning for the expansion of the existing half-day pre-k programs into full-day pre-k programs per the Maryland Blueprint law that was passed in 2021 to make pre-k more available to every three and four-year-old in the state. The second pre-k classroom will be able to handle an additional 20 four-year-olds, allowing for some increase in capacity.
Other elementary schools in the area received additions in the late 2000’s, however Taneytown was one of four that did not. Caine said the reason was because they were under capacity at that time, however they are now getting close to capacity and need the space.
Parker clarified his concerns with specific regard to traffic increases the addition may create. Caine explained that the school does not anticipate additional bus traffic; however, there's no way to tell how the addition will impact parent drop off numbers. "If we plan for 80 parent drop offs one year the next year we have 150," he said. Parker suggested changing the school bus range from a one-mile radius to a half-mile, meaning that anyone beyond half a mile would need to ride a bus to school. A decision of that magnitude would be up to the Board of Education, said Caine. "We would love all kids to ride the buses." he said. "It costs millions of dollars to run them, but we can’t force parents to use them."
Darryl Hale, Zoning & Code Enforcement Officer, said the plans are flying through the county review process and to expect them to be back as soon as next month for concept plan approval.
