Md. Senate Leader Objects to School Building Plan

The president of the Maryland Senate accused Prince George's County leaders of "political pandering" and violating children's rights to an adequate education in a letter this week demanding that the county's school construction plan be revised to help eight schools in poor condition.

Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) told the state's Interagency Committee on School Construction that the county's $137.5 million request "ignores the true needs [of] our children" because it doesn't take into account an independent study that ranked the physical condition of Prince George's schools.

The $1.2 million study by Parsons 3D/International identified eight schools as most in need of rebuilding, the majority of them in the southern part of the county. Of the eight, Miller said, only one made the county's list of 11 top-priority projects. The other 10 schools on the county's construction plan were low on the study's priority list, one of them ranking 157th.

Miller said many of the projects in the county's request -- among them a new elementary school in the upscale Fairwood development and a new high school in the Bowie area -- are ineligible to receive funding in any case, because enrollment projections do not justify them.

"It is indeed incredible that the county would propose to have children sitting in schools they know must be torn down while they request state funds for new schools not even justified by state enrollment criteria," Miller wrote. He suggested that approving the county funding request would violate the constitutional rights of the students at the schools in need.

Miller asked the committee, which reviews school construction plans, to send the request back to the county for revision.

"It's something that the full committee will discuss at some point," said William Reinhard, a spokesman for State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick, the head of the five-member committee.

School construction proposals are constantly negotiated. In Prince George's, the school system spells out its wishes to the county executive and County Council members, who make changes and jointly send a letter to the state commission.

The interagency committee recommends modifications, and the final proposal goes before the state's Board of Public Works for approval. Funding for approved allocations is provided by the General Assembly and the governor.

Some of Miller's concerns were raised by school board and County Council members before the county's proposal was signed. Verjeana M. Jacobs, chairman of the county Board of Education, said the schools listed in the construction request had largely been chosen before the current board took office two years ago.

"This board was very clear that [school construction] items that were already in the pipeline -- that have already been approved -- that we would honor those," said Jacobs (At Large). She said the board was open to discussing the proposal and noted that final local approval came from the county executive and the council.

"Let me be clear," she said. "The board's signature doesn't even go on the final project. Not at all. So to really beat on the board about this issue is unfair. It's unfair, and I think the appropriate way to deal with it is, let's talk about it."

James P. Keary, a spokesman for County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), said that Miller's letter had not been fully reviewed and that he would not comment until it had been.

Staff writer Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.