$48.9 million secured for new Worcester County schools, surplus funding allocated for after-school programs
WORCESTER COUNTY, Md. – Tuesday, Worcester County Commissioners entered a memorandum of understanding with the county Board of Education, now just pending approval from the Interagency Commission on School Construction (IAC), to secure $48.9 million in state funding for new facilities at Buckingham Elementary and Berlin Intermediate School.
The IAC will likely approve the MOU at their regular monthly meeting on November 14th, though December 19th is a possible alternate date.
“Buckingham is obviously an aging infrastructure and you take one walk through the school. There’s there’s no question of why that school needs to be replaced,” said Commissioner Eric Fiori, who served on the Buckingham Elementary Replacement School Workgroup.
Superintendent Lou Taylor was thrilled by the record funding and the commissioners’ decision to move forward with the project in its current form. “We’ve never received much more than eight or 9 million in the last few years to renovate a school. So we’re real excited as to what happened today,” he said, adding that the need for a new building for Buckingham is two-fold. “Buckingham was built in the seventies. It is not conducive for the learning environment for our young people today. It’s served its purpose at the time…We are running out of space in that school. That area has grown over the last handful of years.”
The MOU specifies that $23.1 million of the state’s contribution will go to Berlin Intermediate School.
Commissioner Fiori said that combining the projects allowed them to achieve greater efficiency and value. “The ability to negotiate for a multi-school improvement plan or construction plan [is] unprecedented that it’s been done this way. And I think it’s a win-win for us, the state, the students, the teachers, everyone involved in the system.”
While Buckingham elementary will be replaced, Berlin Intermediate School could instead see major renovations.
“Once they do a feasibility study, we’ll find out how solid the structure is. And if it’s a solid structure, there’s a good possibility we would renovate that,” Superintendent Taylor said. “We will move as quickly as we can on this because we need to get going.”
Superintendent Taylor said that for Buckingham elementary, they plan to break ground in the summer of 2027.
The memorandum of understanding states that the new Buckingham Elementary School should be open by September 1, 2030.
For Berlin Intermediate School, the target date is exactly one year later, September 1, 2031.
After-School Funding
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioners approved funding to support after-school programs for the school district. The school system requested $228,907 that remained as a surplus from their FY24 budget.
WCPS had obtained grant funding for all but 3 schools in the district: Stephen Decatur High school, Showell Elementary School, and Ocean City Elementary.
These surplus funds will be used to restore after-school programs at those schools.
On the importance of after-school programs, Superintendent Taylor said, “Just because you live in a certain area doesn’t mean [you] don’t have significant learning needs, and that’s our focus in after-school programs, to get additional instructional time with our kids. We do provide some fun activities, but the focus is to meet the needs and the learning needs of our young people. And so we have, through data, we have found through the years that the after-school and summer school really expedites that process of moving kids forward.”
School officials said that while after-school funding has now been addressed, they’re still facing challenges with funding for summer programs.
