Three years ago, Prince George’s County Public Schools came out with a proposal to rezone hundreds of students from overcrowded Whitehall Elementary School to several other schools in the area. The proposal was presented on a rather fast timeline, included questionable numbers for building capacity, involved busing students past other schools and breaking up our community. With the support of the community and our District 5 Board of Education Member Raaheela Ahmed, we were able to stop the proposal from moving forward. The school district decided instead to 1) help address overcrowding by helping to do residency checks, and 2) include our community in a holistic look of rezoning that the school district was planning to do for secondary schools through a consultant.

In an attempt to ensure our community was visibly present and aware of all the changes that would be undergone, the District 5 Boundary Task Force came to be. Over the past three years, the Task Force has been keeping an eye on all matters that relate to rezoning school boundaries in this area, including the residency verification process, the contract development for the boundary consultant, the process of community input by the selected boundary consultancy, and the desires of community members as it relates to the education of our students, namely that all students should be going to schools with quality educational programs and any needed decisions to rezone should be sensible and with minimal displacement for students.  

In following the process, the Task Force came to discover the following:

• The boundary consultants are using old enrollment data. As of December 2021, Whitehall Elementary School's enrollment is in the “ideal” range of school building utilization with temporaries -- why are we rezoning students in our entire community when the sole school with a significant overcrowding issue is in the "ideal" utilization range?
• The school district has not consistently looked at local housing development plans to determine school boundaries, and neither have the boundary consultants. Our area is set to have 3 new developments that will yield over 2100 housing units (Amber Ridge, South Lake and Mill Branch Crossing) -- how can we fathom closing schools when our area is looking at massive growth due to development?
• The proposals presented will displace hundreds of students in our area, and the boundary consultants have not factored the quality of school programs into their decision-making, as it was “not within the scope” of the project -- how can we support proposals that do not look at uplifting all our schools and students via quality programming?
• The proposals presented may create overcrowding at other area schools --- how can we support alleviating overcrowding in one area, while creating overcrowding at others?

In January 2022, before leaving the school board, Board Member Raaheela Ahmed sent an advocacy letter on our behalf to PGCPS Superintendent Dr. Goldson expressing these concerns as well as community-driven solutions.

However, in October 2022, the Superintendent's team selected and presented a proposal to the Board of Education that does not seem to effectively resolve the noted concerns or implement the developed solutions. Amongst the changes proposed for our community is the recommendation to shut down Pointer Ridge Elementary School, and rezone the school's hundreds of students to 3 other elementary schools: Perrywood Elementary School, Woodmore Elementary School and Northview Elementary School.

Pointer Ridge Elementary School is an EGATE (Excellence in Gifted and Talented Education) certified school, with a 4 out of 5 star rating from the Maryland State Department of Education.

We cannot stand for proposals that displace our students this intensely and close high performing schools, especially amidst growing development and future need in the community. Through this platform, send a letter to our elected officials, asking them to publicly advocate against this proposal and save Pointer Ridge Elementary School!

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Note: The Superintendent has the sole legal authority to close schools, without the need for Board concurrence. This is due to a state law passed in 2013 by our legislators, referred to as the "Baker School Takeover Legislation" by the Washington Post, which effects only Prince George's County Public Schools.