Responding to pleas from parents, the Baltimore County Board of Education has agreed to consider redistricting and other ideas as a way to reduce chronic classroom crowding at New Town Elementary School.

"We're going to look at all options," school board President Donald L. Arnold said this week. New Town Elementary, in Owings Mills, has nearly 1,000 pupils, about 300 over capacity. To keep class sizes manageable, the school is not admitting new pupils.

Parents have asked that only pupils from their neighborhood be allowed to attend the school, which is in one of the county's fastest-growing communities.

"Something needs to happen before September," said Arvis Tucker, the PTA president.

Tucker said the board should redistrict before the next school year starts because home, apartment and condominium construction brings new families daily to Owings Mills, one of the county's designated growth areas.

She said pupils who don't live in New Town proper could attend other area schools, which are under capacity or slightly above capacity.

Superintendent Joe A. Hairston has started looking at redistricting and other options for addressing crowding at the school. Arnold said the board expects to receive a report and recommendations in the spring.

Arnold said the board will consider taking action before the next school year, but it may not be able to move as quickly as parents would like.

"I hate to say there's no quick fix," he said, "because we do have all of the students there, so there may be some Band-Aid approaches. But they will not be done in a vacuum - they will be done looking long term."

Historically, redistricting has proven a prickly issue because it means children must leave schools they have been attending, sometimes for years. Any redrawing of New Town Elementary's boundaries, board members cautioned, would probably force reconfiguring of districts throughout the northwestern county and perhaps beyond.

The parents' pleas come after a consultant studying demographic trends in Owings Mills, Randallstown and other parts of northwest Baltimore County predicted that the region's schools would be almost 1,200 students over capacity by 2010.

The consultant, DeJong & Associates, recommended last month building at least one elementary school as a long-term solution. Shifting boundaries, DeJong said, would affect at least 500 pupils and eight schools.

"A boundary change would only alleviate overcrowding at New Town for a short period of time. This could be implemented as a last resort, but would be very disruptive to the educational program," DeJong's report said.

Other options in the report included holding classes in double shifts at New Town Elementary, installing more portable classrooms and using some space at New Town High School - which is opening next fall with ninth- and 10th-graders - for elementary classes.

The findings prompted nearly a dozen parents, wearing T-shirts saying "A Child's Mind Needs Room to Grow," to speak in favor of redistricting at a school board meeting Nov. 18.

In interviews, parents said the school needs a short-term solution because crowding presents serious problems, such as children eating lunch at 10:40 a.m. and having to wait for several minutes in lines to use bathrooms.

"What I was looking for was a nice community school, my daughter able to walk to school - the kind of environment I grew up in, where everybody knew me," said Joan White McCain, whose family bought a house 1 1/2 blocks from the school for those reasons. "But that is definitely not the case."

McCain said she opposes all options but redistricting. She also opposes building an addition at New Town Elementary, a proposal that system officials have pushed but parents say will create too large a school.

She blamed the school's crowding on expansive boundaries that allowed pupils from outside the New Town area - parents don't know how many - to attend the school.

"When they did the boundaries, they tried to appease a lot of people," McCain said of the committee of parents, school officials and community leaders that drew New Town Elementary district lines. "As a result, they made a monster, and we're just trying to correct the situation, which is just not fair."