Tonights Testimony on the CIP

Testimony of Amanda Waugh
Rock Creek Forest PTA
November 12, 2009
Board of Education Facilities and Boundaries Hearing

Thank you for having me tonight. I am testifying on behalf of the Rock Creek Forest ES PTA and I want to tell you about our school and its many, many facility needs.

As you know, Rock Creek Forest is on the queue for modernization and we thank you for continuing to hold our place.

Rock Creek Forest was built in 1950 and last modernized in 1971. Our facility designed for 372 kids and currently serves 501. I want to draw your attention to that number. We were built for 372 and hold 501. That puts us at 139% capacity. We have six portables and expect to need a seventh next year. The most in our cluster.

Now, I am drawing attention to these numbers because I also want to address the “elephant in the room,” the unstated rule that we are never supposed to pit schools against each other or compare clusters. But I am here to serve the rock creek forest community.

I am asking you, our elected officials, to look at the capacity numbers for rock creek forest and consider the tendency to put additions before modernizations. Should the funding from the state not be what we hope, and we have every reason to be concerned, schools with less crowding and more modern buildings will receive additions before Rock Creek Forest, where the facility is 40 years old and the capacity is exceeded by nearly 40%, will get its modernization.

Having drawn your attention to that, I want to assure you that we, at Rock Creek Forest, are reaching out to our state legislators and Governor O’Malley with letters and emails to request that funding for the county’s capital needs is adequate.

As I said, it has been almost 40 years since Rock Creek Forest was last modernized. That is older than the parents of many rock creek forest students, but more importantly, it means we struggle to meet the needs of 21st century kids in a building designed before cassette tapes were widely used.

Our cafeteria is routinely over crowded.

Our buses back up nearly to East West Highway, since in 1970 we served walkers, but now, with our immersion program drawing from across the county, we receive 10 buses every day.
We find ourselves in a double bind. On the face of things we are in line to get what we need, but in reality we crippled by our place in the modernization queue.

At any given time up to 25% of our students are being taught in a portable. Our lunches are served not only in the APR but also on the stage. One out of 5 students at RCF is on FARMS and we have the highest percentage of students receiving ESOL services in the cluster.
I bring that to your attention so you can imagine being six years old and waiting for your lunch in the line, but the cafeteria is so crowded, you have to wait and wait. The line stretches down the hall. By the time it’s your turn, you have ten minutes left to eat. Oh, and the kitchen does not connect directly to the cafeteria, so you need to carry your lunch into the busy main hallway, through the main door to the cafeteria where students and staff are also coming and going and to your seat, up five steps on the stage.

The roof leaks at times, the front of the school floods in a rain like we have had the last few days, rooms are either stifling hot or freezing cold, paint bubbles off the walls due to moisture, windows cannot be tightly closed and insects are common and every little space is used for something, closets have been repurposed for offices. I have sat in meetings with teachers where the thermostat read over 80 degrees because the heat is either on or not.

We have waited long enough. Please make sure that the children of Rock Creek Forest get the attention they need.