Feeling spurned by Harford County Executive Barry Glassman, Havre de Grace parents and teachers are reviving their campaign to get a new middle and high school built.
About a dozen people, sporting pro-Warriors shirts and led by City Councilman David Glenn, urged the Harford County Council to support funding for a new school during Tuesday night's council meeting.
Glenn said he was "extremely disappointed" to see the Havre de Grace school was downgraded from a top priority by the county, after Glassman said the county is not in a position financially to take on major new capital projects like the one in Havre de Grace with its estimated cost of $86 million-plus. Glassman is a Havre de Grace High School graduate.
Glassman has said he is not opposed to giving Havre de Grace a new school, but plans to postpone as many new capital projects as possible until county employees get long-demanded pay increases.
Havre de Grace parents, however, said the time is ripe to replace the 1955 high school, also citing security concerns with the school's campus being split by a city street as it has been since the building housing the school's gym was constructed decades ago.
Given the numerous nationally-known school shootings, Glenn said, "this is a security risk that must be addressed now."
He added that stairwells in the older building are only 4 feet wide and the high school has one computer lab for the entire school, which "puts [students] at a severe disability."
State Comptroller Peter Franchot, who recently visited the school, was "appalled," Glenn said, and told the community: "You deserve a new school."
Glenn said he thought the community was well on its way to getting a new building after the previous county executive, David Craig, also a Havre de Grace High School graduate, worked to push the project through as a combined middle and high school that would be built on a vacant portion of the existing middle school site.
School officials also endorsed the project, which received state planning approval and initial funding. The county had a $45 million bond issue Tuesday to finance a number of previous capital budget obligations, of which about $1.5 million is earmarked to pay the county's share of what was spent so far on the Havre de Grace school.
Glenn said enrollment at Havre de Grace High is down because students keep leaving for other schools, including magnet programs.
"You cannot, I repeat not, hold that against us," he said of the lowered enrollment numbers.
Terri Hartmann, who has two children at Havre de Grace High and one at Havre de Grace Middle, said she witnessed a 20-degree difference between classroom temperatures and noted middle school students deal with a constantly leaking roof, the science classroom is housed in a garage and teachers struggle to find whiteboards that work.
"No other school in the county enters through the cafeteria," she added.
Another parent, JoAnne Toepfer, agreed with her, telling the council: "I want my children to have the opportunities to access technology and learn in a school that will adequately prepare them for college."
The parents said they will take their fight to the next Board of Education meeting on Monday, April 13, where they plan to show up en masse.