{"id":81964,"date":"2025-12-04T23:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/81964\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T23:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:25:08","slug":"group-gathers-at-howard-county-board-of-ed-in-support-of-high-school-renovations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/81964\/","title":{"rendered":"Group gathers at Howard County Board of Ed. in support of high school renovations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\".\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Students, parents and teachers urged officials at the Howard County Board of Education to revive plans for renovations at a high school.<\/p>\n

The group gathered Thursday night to vouch for Oakland Mills High School, even though the proposal was not formally on the meeting agenda.<\/p>\n

Still, several community members planned to speak during the public comment period to demand action.<\/p>\n

Protesters said the condition of the building, which was constructed in 1973, has worsened to the point of being unsafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only right that our taxpayer dollars give them water they can drink, air they can breathe and classrooms that are climate-controlled enough that they can focus,\u201d said Amy Brooks, a teacher at Oakland Mills who has been advocating for improvements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have lead in the water that I drank for years,\u201d said Nik Berry, another teacher. \u201cWe have asbestos in our HVAC unit. We have black slime that comes into our TV studio. We have mold in our media center books. This is not a health or safe environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jake Favero, the school\u2019s Student Government Association president, said he buys bottled water every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur water fountains have so much lead in them,\u201d Favero said.<\/p>\n

The Board of Education initially planned to include Oakland Mills in the 2027 budget, but then the board\u00a0voted 6-1 against moving forward with the high school in November<\/a>. The board instead opted to fund a greater number of smaller construction projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say, \u2018What changed?\u2019 Because the new formula they\u2019re using doesn\u2019t have us next in line. It has us 40th in line,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n

Community members said the deteriorating building doesn\u2019t reflect the strong, vibrant school community inside. They hope board members will reconsider their decision, but said they will continue pushing regardless of the outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important for us to continue to advocate as we have for decades,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop because, ultimately, the building is getting worse. With only one working boys\u2019 bathroom right now, we know it\u2019s not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two board members, Jolene Mosely and Andrea Chamblee, released statements acknowledging the community\u2019s concerns and the broader funding challenges facing school infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, funding for public school facilities has not kept pace with the high levels of need and rising construction costs,\u201d the two wrote.<\/p>\n

They added that they will continue advocating for increased funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that through the remainder of the process, the county will be able to increase their portion of capital funding to pair with the limited state funding we receive so we may be able to begin high-need projects such as Oakland Mills High School.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Students, parents and teachers urged officials at the Howard County Board of Education to revive plans for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[46708,46709,31067,37281,46710,46711,37893,37887,46712,46713,46714,46715,143,145,37883,37889,144],"class_list":["post-81964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-amy-brooks","tag-andrea-chamblee","tag-berry","tag-brooks","tag-chamblee","tag-favero","tag-howard-county","tag-howard-county-board-of-education","tag-jake-favero","tag-jolene-mosely","tag-mosely","tag-nik-berry","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-mills","tag-oakland-mills-high-school","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}