Published: November 08, 2009 10:58 pm      

Teens will serve on panel studying local schools

CUMBERLAND — A group of community members — including three high school students — will begin meeting with education officials next month to help decide what’s next for Allegany County’s middle and high schools as enrollment declines and buildings deteriorate.

Superintendent David Cox has chosen eight citizens to serve on a community resource committee, as part of a formal “Utilization Study of Cumberland Secondary Schools” being conducted by a private firm.

Cox is to reveal the names of committee members on Tuesday during a Board of Education’s work session at 5 p.m. The board’s regular monthly meeting will follow at 7 p.m.

“I think it’s really important that kids be part of this,” said Cox. “There’s a lot of adult conversation about students, but we really need to have that student perspective as we look at this.”

Committee members will include a student from Allegany and Fort Hill high schools and the Center for Career and Technical Education; community and business representatives who live in those attendance areas; staff members and parents of children enrolled in the schools being studied; parents of children enrolled in a feeder elementary school; Central Office staff and county government, who will serve in an ex-officio capacity.

The five schools being studied are Fort Hill and Allegany high schools, the Career Center, and Mount Savage, Braddock, and Washington middle schools. The board has hired Eperitus, a Richmond, Va., educational planning company, to conduct the study.

Monthly meetings of the community resource committee will be open to the public, Cox said. The first meeting will be in December, and the committee is expected to have recommendations ready for the board by April, Cox said.

“I want this to be an entirely open process,” he said, adding that the administration is considering using live stream video to make the meetings available on the Internet. “Very transparent.”

Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kharty@times-news.com.