High School #13
This site is about the opening of the 13th Howard County High School in Jessup, MD off Mission Rd.
Last Updated: 8/21/2023
Timeline: Ribbon Cutting
February 7, 2018

I was taking a look at last year's proposal for high school redistricting that was later dismissed in favor of creating the JumpStart program as well as opening a new high school sooner in 2022 rather than later in 2025. What's interesting to see is that if they had redistricted, the immediate student populations would've been more equitably distributed amongst all of Howard's high schools.  Meaning, if they were to open a new high school in the eastern part of the county, both Mission Rd. and Troy Park would have been equal contenders IF you solely focused on nearby school population numbers (which, unfortunately many seem to do while ignoring the 14 other criteria in Policy 6000).

Here is what we have today.  Notice the overcrowding in the northeast side of the county (shown in red)…
And this is what we would have had if we redistricted for the 2018/19 school year.  Notice that no school is shown as overcrowded which the county defines as being over 110%
So now where would you put a new high school?

The answer is anywhere on the eastern side in order to address the gerrymandering school districts (Atholton in particular) and the fact that the highest future growth will occur along the eastern corridor as this map shows…
To translate this into overcrowding by high school, refer to the table below which was taken from the Howard County Public School System 2017 Feasibility Study that shows expected high school populations for the 2028/29 school year…
Somewhat amazingly, Howard HS doesn’t even make it into the top 5 under the redistricting plan.  

So what does this all mean?  It means that neither site "deserves" a high school.  You can shape these polygons almost any way you want to make any area look like it is more in need.  Therefore, it's pointless to debate high school population numbers with our current district maps since any new school WILL cause redistricting to happen invalidating the maps, polygons and population numbers we seem to be fixated on today.
January 27, 2018

Presently, two sites are being considered for the next high school in Howard County, otherwise known as High School 13 (HS13). They are Troy Park in Elkridge and Mission road in Jessup.

The determination for a site to be considered for a school is dependent on meeting several requirements described in Howard County's School Site and Acquisition Policy 6000 document. That document can be found here. No standard appears to carry any more weight than any other so I've created a table that evaluates both sites and checked off whether either site meets each standard in the Policy 6000 document (there are 15).

Currently, there are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the site at Troy Park.  What little we do know about the proposed school site can be found here.
January 11, 2018

As some readers of this site already know, the main and compelling argument for placing a high school in Elkridge is to remedy the projected overcrowding at Howard, Long Reach and Centennial high schools.  To be sure, these 3 schools will be the most over-crowded by 2022 compared to other schools in the county at 145%, 142% and 136% respectively.  However, there has also been a fair amount of bogus claims made that the Elkridge site is a better.  They are that crime is lower (see here why it's not) and that there will be a lot of noise, blasting, dirt and pollution from the quarry.

Since our family lives in the Heritage Woods neighborhood which is one of the neighborhoods closest to the quarry, I can say firsthand that all the noise/dirt/pollution concerns are unfounded.  There is very little noise that can be heard from the quarry.  The only noise that can sometimes be faintly heard is their rock grinder.  But that noise is nothing compared to the traffic on I-95 which is the predominant noise contributor.  Also, no berm currently exists between the quarry and our neighborhood.  The site development plans that were shown during a pre-submission meeting back in April of 2017 shows a berm would be built up between the land occupied by the school and the quarry.  That would largely eliminate what little quarry noise there is.

The blasting is seldom, about 2 times a week.  You never hear them, you just feel them.  Most times, you question whether you felt a blast at all.  Pollution and dirt have also never been a concern.  One reason for that is our neighborhood is located due west of the quarry.  For anyone who lives in Maryland likely knows, we rarely have winds blowing in from the east and when we do, they are damp ocean breezes.  Due to these meteorological factors it is unlikely we or the proposed school site, which would be located southwest of the quarry, would experience very much if any quarry pollution and dust.  I should add that the quarry currently has measures in place to minimize the amount of dust it does create by spraying rock and roadways with water.

My final comment on the quarry is in all likelihood, if someone didn’t tell you a quarry was on Mission Rd. you wouldn’t know!

Going back to the high school populations, let's look at the projected 2022 population percentages for our 12 existing schools…
From looking at these numbers it's easy to see there is more of a need to fix overcrowding in the northern county schools than in the southern part.  The question is, can a Jessup HS also alleviate crowding in those northern schools?

Let's look at the county's current high school polygon map (schools are highlighted in yellow).  A larger version of this map without the highlighted sections can be found here.
The two northern orange squares represents the previously on-the-table Rockburn Elkridge site and the new on-the-table Elkridge Troy Park site.  The green square represents the Mission Rd. Jessup site.

If one were to look at the polygons of the neighborhoods that these high schools pull from you will find that Howard, Long Reach, Oakland Mills, Reservoir, Hammond and Atholton all have fingers that extend to the eastern side of the county.  The reason for that is there are simply no schools on the eastern side of the county.  If a school was centrally placed there, a lot of these fingers could be reduced or eliminated.  This I see is a primary advantage the Jessup/Mission Rd. site has over an Elkridge school located in the upper-right corner of the county.

Based on just this polygon map, I imagined what the polygons would look like if either site had a new high school.  There is other info I don't have which is typically factored into a school polygon map and they are future population demographics and density but for the sake of argument, let's say all areas will be equal.  The point of this exercise is to see whether a Jessup school could potentially alleviate over-crowding in the Centennial, Howard and Long Reach schools simply by reshaping the polygons around the Jessup HS.  For the record, I have accepted the belief that a high school located in Elkridge would alleviate crowding in those schools just due to its close proximity to those schools.

To start off with, Hammond currently covers a large area that would likely be served by the new Jessup HS.  Roughly, everything east of I-95.  With that huge chunk freed up, it allows Hammond to tap into the Oakland Mills polygon.  Given that Oakland Mills is not projected to be overcrowded in 2022, this creates a huge vacancy for that school.  A vacancy that could be filled by taking students from Long Reach.  Furthermore, Long Reach has a large polygon finger east of I-95 that would likely also be served by the new Jessup HS.  That finger currently serves a high population area on Rt. 1 north of Rt. 175.  Between the Oakland Mills and the new Jessup school taking students away from Long Reach, that could potentially create a large enough vacancy at Long Reach to absorb excess students at Howard and Centennial.

Mt. Hebron hasn't been discussed but it too will be at a critical population juncture.  It's unclear whether it would benefit from a high school at either Elkridge or Jessup due to its distance from either location.  However, given that its western high school neighbor Marriotts Ridge will only be at 93% and that school’s western neighbor Glenelg will only be at 81%, it’s possible a western shift of the Marriotts Ridge polygon could provide relief for Mt. Hebron.

So at first pass, I think the Jessup HS could potentially work to alleviate overcrowding for the northern schools that need it most.  I just don't know if anyone has seriously looked into it.  Is this answer as simple as placing a school in Elkridge?  Perhaps not but it isn't exactly novel either.  For many years Howard County has shifted polygons westward to less populated schools to alleviate eastern overcrowding.  Also, given the centrally located eastern site of the Jessup school, I would think it would be better positioned to absorb future growth in the Rt. 1 corridor than a school tucked up into the far northeast side of the county.

I think the main takeaway from this exercise is that Jessup should be given a fair shot.  I think the last thing any one of us wants to see is valuable eastern sites being given up affording us even fewer options in the future.