Two Seven Oaks residents have sued the county school board in hopes of eliminating a school redistricting plan that would change the schools their children attend.
The suit, filed Wednesday by Seven Oaks Community Association members Zoe B. Draughon and Linda Lotz, contends that by meeting behind closed doors, the committee that drafted the plan to move 3,100 students to different schools throughout the county violated Maryland's Open Meetings Act.
It asks an Anne Arundel circuit judge to declare the committee's report null and void and to prohibit the school board from using the plan as the basis for redistricting or taking any redistricting action this year.
"The Board of Education's creation of the Redistricting Committee and . . . allowing it to operate in violation of the Open Meetings Act is only part of the Board of Education's attempt to escape public accountability and avoid public input," the suit alleges.
It contends that the school board's own policy requires advisory committees to hold open meetings unless confidentiality is necessary.
"These were public meetings, and the committee was supposed to have public input," said Ms. Draughon, an officer in the association. "We were denied an opportunity to be present while they were drafting the plan."
P. Tyson Bennett, the school board's lawyer, said he had not had a chance to review the suit.
"But if it is based on a claim that the redistricting is covered under the Open Meetings Act, and that the Open Meetings Act was violated, then I think the case is without merit," he said.
Earlier this year, Mr. Bennett told the committee that it is an advisory group created by the board and not a public body that would be covered by the Open Meetings Act.
He said this week that he based that decision on an advisory guide published by the Maryland attorney general's office.
Bill Church, the redistricting committee's chairman, said earlier this year that the 12-member group decided to close some meetings to the public to try to control rumors about which students and schools would be affected by the new school boundaries and to avoid upsetting communities unnecessarily.
Under the committee's plan, students from Seven Oaks, who now go to Odenton Elementary School, would be switched to schools that feed Meade High School. Odenton Elementary students go to Arundel High School.
Ms. Lotz is president of the Odenton Elementary School Citizens Advisory Council.
The school board is scheduled to vote next month on Superintendent Carol S. Parham's recommendation for redistricting, which is based on the committee's report and proposal. The board then will schedule a series of public hearings.
It must vote by April 30 on any boundary changes that would take effect next fall.