Subscribe
Community
St. Mary's has high number of small children
As school construction delayed, census says many students here 5 and younger
Friday, May 15, 2009
|
| ||
|
E-Mail This Article
St. Mary's County has a bumper crop of young children, according to 2008 estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week.
The census estimates that St. Mary's County is leading the rest of Maryland counties in the percentage of its population younger than 5. The county is home to an estimated 101,578 people, 7,500 (7.4 percent) of whom aren't even out of kindergarten.
The number could have huge implications for the county's schools. Evergreen Elementary School is scheduled to open in the Wildewood community in California this fall with a capacity of 646 students. But a second new elementary school, planned for the Hayden property in Leonardtown, now isn't scheduled to open until August 2015.
The St. Mary's school board this week deferred opening the school two years in a vote on its capital improvements program.
Part of the reason it was pushed out is that the state did not give the school system planning approval, which was requested for fiscal year 2010.
"The reason it did not receive planning approval is we were still in negotiations with the county on the site," said Kim Howe, the school system's coordinating supervisor of capital planning and construction. The county has since gone to settlement on the 172-acre property, which in addition to a new elementary school could be home to a middle school and a new library.
"There were a lot of deferrals for planning requests this year" by the state, she said.
The delay is a function of budget constraints at the state and county level, Brad Clements, chief operating officer for St. Mary's public schools, said this week.
The county's 17 public elementary schools will be overcrowded by more than 800 students by the 2014-2015 school year, the year before the school is now set to open, according to school enrollment projections.
A third new elementary school was also deferred one year, which will leave the school system 1,006 seats short at the elementary level in the 2017-2018 school year.
Clements said the two future schools could still be moved back up if enrollment projections continue to climb.
All three counties have seen population surges in the eight years since the 2000 Census. St. Mary's grew 17.8 percent from 86,211 to an estimated 101,578. Calvert's population grew 18.9 percent from 74,563 to an estimated 88,698. Charles grew 16.7 percent from 120,546 to an estimated 140,764.
The census also estimates that all three Southern Maryland counties have growing minority populations, with Charles County leading the way.
According to the 2008 figures, Charles County's population is now 48 percent minority, up from 32.1 percent in the 2000 Census. The county's minority population surged from 38,750 in 2000 to an estimated 67,563 in 2008.
"I really didn't realize that we had reached that point," said William Braxton, president of the Charles County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, commenting on the county's increased diversity. "It's really changing around here."
The trend is slower in the other two counties. In Calvert, the minority population has risen from 12,144 (16.3 percent) to 17,730 (20 percent) in eight years. In St. Mary's County, minorities numbered 16,233 (18.8 percent) in 2000 and rose to an estimated 22,282 (21.9 percent) in 2008.
Charles County's minority population has been growing steadily for the last two decades as residents of Prince George's County have moved into Waldorf and Bryans Road, seeking lower land prices and taxes.
"It's not surprising, because people are comfortable with the living situation here," Braxton said. When asked if he thought the changing demographics of the county would put more political emphasis on equality issues, Braxton said, "I think it just might."
