There are plans for a new Loch Raven Elementary School in Baltimore County. **UPDATE: AS OF JULY 28, 2014, BALTIMORE COUNTY HAS SCRAPPED THE PLANS FOR THE RENOVATION. Read more from the Baltimore Sun article: http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80940737/.**

The design and development phase is supposed to go throughout 2014, while demolishment of the current building at the beginning of 2015, and scheduled construction to begin around May 2015, finishing around July 2016, according to a timeline on the Baltimore County Public Schools website.

Baltimore County Public Schools also has a full powerpoint presentation about the school on their website, which when you click, it automatically downloads, so if you click on the next link, it should download the powerpoint presentation. It doesn’t look like it can be viewed online without downloading as of right now.

The Loch Raven Elementary School is designed to have 610 student seats, and will relocate the students and staff of Halstead Academy to the new school. Then, the current Halstead Academy building would be renovated to accommodate a new Baltimore County school.

Should it go as planned, it will be off Glen Keith Boulevard in Parkville on the east side of Loch Raven Boulevard:

There is a community meeting scheduled for Thursday, July 17, 2014, at 6:30 pm at George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology, 938 N. York Road, 21204, according to a press release on the bcps site.

School boundaries have not been determined as of yet, I am sure that will be a part of the upcoming planning process and community meetings. The school board has stated the students will come from Halstead Academy, Pleasant Plains, and Oakleigh Elementary Schools.

Currently the Loch Raven Village community is opposed to the plan as it stands. (See pages 1 & 3 of the March Loch Raven Village Newsletter and page 3 of the May 2014 newsletter.)

The issue is a big one in the community, and I hope that the Baltimore County School Board and Loch Raven Village families can come up with a plan that works for both.

How do you feel about a new Baltimore County elementary school in Parkville?

Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net