Governor O’Malley, Comptroller Franchot, and Treasurer Kopp, I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you about the school construction requests of Baltimore County. I would like to thank Superintendent Hairston, Senate Delegation Chair Norman Stone, House Delegation Chair Eric Bromwell, and the Baltimore County delegation for joining me to address the needs of the schools, students, and teachers in Baltimore County.
To date, Baltimore County has received a commitment of $27.9 million from the State of Maryland in school construction funds for Fiscal Year 2008. We appreciate this commitment. This funding will allow us to begin construction of Vincent Farms Elementary School, complete our renovation of Deep Creek Middle School, and continue our renovation of Perry Hall and General John Stricker Middle Schools. It will also help fund urgently needed roof replacements at three schools. It is, however, less than one third of the County’s total request of $95 million, and we need a substantially larger commitment from the State.
As you know, Baltimore County is home to the second oldest school stock of the larger school systems in the state of Maryland. Many of our schools are over thirty years old, and some date back to the 1940s. To ensure that these schools can continue to serve students, Baltimore County is committed to a carefully crafted, systemic renovation plan. This plan has been held up as a model to other school systems throughout the state and ensures our schools are able to meet the needs of today’s classrooms, no matter what year they were built.
With the State’s help we have completed the renovation of our elementary and special schools, and we are in the midst of renovating our middle schools. We have made progress, but we need to begin or complete renovations at nine middle schools throughout Baltimore County.
Renovations at Deep Creek, Perry Hall, General John Stricker, Pikesville, Lansdowne, Deer Park, Pine Grove, Hereford, Old Court and Cockeysville middle schools must be completed so that we can move on to the next phase of our renovation plan and begin work on our aging high schools that are next in line.
It is very important to sustain our renovation efforts. Each year, these schools are getting older, raising the risk that critical systems will fail, forcing schools to be closed for costly, emergency repairs. And every year that we delay and the schools grow older and materials grow more expensive, the cost of these crucial renovations goes up.
I consider the education of our young people to be one of the most important functions of government. In Baltimore County, we have good teachers and good schools, but I believe that we can make them better. For teachers to teach and students to learn, they need facilities able to handle the needs of today’s classrooms—facilities that will support curriculum that prepares our young people for the world of tomorrow. Baltimore County needs continued State help to renovate its extremely old facilities. Thank you for taking this time with us, and I appreciate your support of the Baltimore County Public Schools.
Courthouse 