Middleborough Elementary parents and students fight for air-conditioning
Perhaps it is a sign of the times that a worn out, old school slated to be torn down next year is now being fought over by the public as the answer to overcrowding in the Towson area. The question, among parents at least, doesn't seem to be whether it should be torn down, but what it should become.
Carver, which was built as the first African American high school during desegregation, has had many lives and it appears to be on verge of having more. But the overcrowding in the central area is just one of the many facilities problems facing the county.
Parents of Middleborough School students went to Annapolis yesterday to protest the inequities in a school system where less than half the schools still aren't air-conditioned. The students, who couldn't have been more eloquent, said they felt sweaty and tired when they went to school in hot classrooms. The Essex parents have taken their case to the County Executive and the school system
leadership, but haven't gotten satisfaction so they went to the Board to try to encourage them to block the spending of new construction dollars that is going to be spent on a locker room renovation, stage lighting and window and blind replacements, among other things. Baltimore County has the second lowest percentage of air-conditioned schools in the state. Only Garrett County has fewer, and one could argue that hot weather probably doesn't decend on Garrett as early in the summer as Baltimore County.
Kevin Kamenetz said he believes the problem only exists for 10 to 17 days a year and suggests the schools close for heat days just as they do for snow days. One parent recently grumbled that if it isn't so bad to be without air conditioning, then why doesn't Kamenetz keep all the air-conditioning off in county buildings until the end of the school year. Kamenetz also said he just doesn't have the money it would take to air-condition all the school buildings right now, so the school system is gradually getting air-conditioning into schools when they are renovated. Whenever a new school is built, it will have air-conditioning.
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