Crofton High School Will Only Hold 2 Grades In First Year

CROFTON, MD — Crofton Area High School will only house students in ninth and 10th grades when it first opens for use in September 2020, members of the Anne Arundel County school board were told this week. The school will add 11th grade in the 2021-2022 school year, and 12th grade in the 2022-2023 school year, a news release said.

The $135 million facility, which is 25 percent complete, will have a capacity of 1,696 students and cover 275,768 square feet of space. It is being built just off Route 424 adjacent to Crofton Middle School.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools is establishing a redistricting committee to recommend an attendance area for the school. The committee will have two representatives each from every potentially affected school: Arundel and South River high schools; Arundel and Crofton middle schools; and Crofton, Crofton Meadows, Crofton Woods, Nantucket, and Piney Orchard Elementary Schools. The fact that a school is represented on the committee does not necessarily mean that school’s attendance area or feeder pattern will change, officials say.

The committee will hold meetings in October before submitting a recommendation to Superintendent George Arlotto, who will give his recommendation to the board in December. The committee’s recommendation, which may or may not align with Arlotto's plan, will also be delivered to the board at that time.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools staff will hold community briefings and the board will conduct public hearings before it adopts a plan in April 2019.

A principal for the new school will be in place by July 2019. That person will form a committee or committees to select a school name, which must be approved by the board, and a mascot and colors, which must be approved by the superintendent. A separate committee formed by the Division of Advanced Studies and Programs will determine the school’s signature program.

Crofton Area High School will not be a magnet school. It will offer a full array of AACPS courses, including the Project Lead the Way engineering program.

Whether athletic teams will compete on the junior varsity or varsity levels when the school opens will be determined on a sport-by-sport basis. No decisions have yet been made, the district say.s

Complete information on the new school project can be found on the AACPS website, www.aacps.org, in a box titled Crofton Area High School on the lower right of the page.

Image via AACPS