Mountain Maryland Development Ideas?

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by WashCoResident

Maybe if Allegany County would elect Commissioners who could make sensible decisions it would not be the jobless and difficult to live in pit of Western MD. They are making students of eastern Allegany County go over an hour trip to school when they could go to the neighboring county's schools, Washington County, that are ten to thirty minutes away for students.

County Commissioners don't draw school boundaries, or County boundaries. You'd have to have the School Boards in both Allegany and Washington Counties agree to that kind of arrangement. Likely Allegany would have to pay tuition to Washington. That's not even taking into consideration where those student's test scores would be counted.

[ki0eh]

They didn't have to close both Flintstone and Oldtown at once. Any reason they couldn't reopen Flintstone HS?

[drs72]

Originally Posted by ki0eh

They didn't have to close both Flintstone and Oldtown at once. Any reason they couldn't reopen Flintstone HS?

There aren't even close to enough students in that part of the county to reopen a high school, especially considering that Allegany County recently closed two high schools (one with 400 students, the other with 600) and replaced them with one new school. I'd be willing to bet that all of Eastern Allegany County doesn't have 400 students.

As for the controversy over taking the dozen or so Little Orleans students out of Hancock schools, Garrett County did essentially the same thing to us a few years before. Historically, a large number of students from Eastern Garrett County have attended Allegany County schools. Kids from Bloomington went to Westernport schools, kids from the Savage River area went to George's Creek schools, and kids from Finzel went to Frostburg schools. It was always just easier that way. Now that Garrett County requires students in those border areas to travel to Garrett County schools, Allegany County no longer collects all that tuition money. The number of Garrett County students in our schools when I was there was much larger than the number of students effected by our discontinuing the arrangement with Washington County. Make no mistake, it was a hotly contested issue. When the school board announced their decision, the county commissioners initially stated that they would cover the tuition costs themselves. They weren't exactly able to do that but, the fact of the matter is, those in charge felt that we could no longer afford to send these kids to schools in another county. While I think it's unfortunate that those kids have to travel so far, I don't think their parents should just expect the county to subsidize their child's education somewhere else simply because they live way out in the fringes. If you live in Allegany County, go to Allegany County Public Schools. If you don't like our public school system, advocate for changes, send your children to a private school, petition to start a charter school, or pick up and move to Hancock or Paw Paw or what have you where everything is all rainbows and butterflies.

Besides, long bus rides are pretty commonplace in rural areas. Across the river in Hampshire County, West Virginia, some of those kids wait in the dark every morning for their two hour bus ride to the one high school in the county. Many are even limited in their choice of after-school activities because of how far they live from school. I'm sure lots of them would find it easier to attend schools in Mineral County or in Virginia but that's just not how it works.

[boomtownfunlover]

This isn't the answer to a Cumberland revival but the town would make a good retirement destination with some elevator condos or those single-story villa duplexes that can be seen in Hagerstown. Some developer would have to be willing to take the risk and build on spec. ( A few years ago Morgantown promoted itself as a retirement destination. I don't know how that worked out. Seems like a student population and senior citizens would be like oil and water.)

[htownterp]

I think college towns are very popular for active retirees. I know in Hagerstown they are building a new senior center adjacent to (or maybe even on) the campus of Hagerstown Community College.

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by WashCoResident

Maybe if Allegany County would elect Commissioners who could make sensible decisions it would not be the jobless and difficult to live in pit of Western MD. They are making students of eastern Allegany County go over an hour trip to school when they could go to the neighboring county's schools, Washington County, that are ten to thirty minutes away for students.

Look at a map before you start to rant. Exit 68, Little Orleans is about 25 miles from Cumberland, about 10 from Hancock. That is a 15 mile difference. Every kid has to get to the interstate to get to Hancock or Cumberland. So that amount of travel time exists whether you are heading east or west.

Once you get to I-68 you are talking about 15 miles, about 20 minutes on a bus difference each way, not "an hour". 40 minutes (round trip) of life Mon-Fri those kids will never have back. Such is the price you pay to live in a bucolic rural area.

Stay downstate and focus on your own issues and let us real Western Marylanders figure out our own issues. Thanks!

[ki0eh]

So how does retrenchment aid development?

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by ki0eh

So how does retrenchment aid development?

Ok, so the post was crass.....but

the poster was wrong about the geography of the county AND the underlying facts. The local County Commissioners were IN FAVOR of keeping the kids in Washington County schools and went to bat for them.

It was the BOE that made the financial decision to end the school choice program, largely because Garrett County choose to end a similar program with Allegany County. The state BOE upheld the local BOE decision, and two bills introduced in this legislative session that would have overturned the state BOE didn't make it out of committee.

Sorry for the blanket statement about leaving us alone, but I have ZERO tolerance when uninformed outsiders insult my home and call it "a pit" when they don't even have the basic facts straight about the geography or government of Allegany County. A google search would have brought up the information in seconds.

Good ideas from informed posters are always welcome. Sorry for the tone.

[MTFolklore]

Why wonder if Garrett county is industrialized or not. I have folk there and they are happy farming their land. They make enough to live on and then some. They are plain folk who embrace their lifestyle. If you like city culture then go to the city.