The Wicomico County Board of Education is planning to redistrict schools, starting with elementary in order to decrease class sizes. Many of the classrooms are over capacity by as much as 50% of the state's recommended class size.
One thing the school district or news outlets are not saying is why the school system has to redistrict, and it's not due to natural population growth over time. There has been an influx of immigrants that have been relocated to Wicomico County by the Biden Administration, with most being undocumented immigrants that are not here legally. A large portion are hispanic, but the majority of migrants are of Haitian descent.
In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Plyler v. Doe that public schools must provide education to all students, regardless of their immigration status. This ruling ensures that migrant children who register in public school can attend.
Back then, we didn't have this issue of a mass flood of migrants illegally crossing the border like we have today. The system was designed to accommodate proper immigration and could handle a few that trickled through under normal circumstances.
Many people worry that providing education to undocumented children might negatively impact the learning opportunities for other students and could pose safety risks. Educating these children takes a considerable amount of resources, which can impact the overall learning environment. Challenges such as overcrowded classrooms, the need for additional school facilities, additional staff, and challenging student-to-teacher ratios are just a few of the obstacles that schools are currently facing.
These financial resources have to come from somewhere, and the local school system is not compensated for the students that are added after the beginning of the current school year. Wicomico County Public Schools (WCPS) are funded based on a calculation of federal, state, and local county funding that's based on the enrollment at the start of the school year. It won't be until the following year that WCPS will receive the standard per pupil cost, plus $223,617 from federal Title III funds to help address this issue.
Until then, resources are taken from current students to reallocate to migrants in the name of equity. In addition, a priority is given to the migrants over our own citizens for enrollment into programs such as pre-k and other needs-based school programs.
Below are the school years and enrollment numbers of all students in Wicomico County Public Schools. You can see the enrollment growth over time as specified in the WCPS annual budget reports:
School Year # of Students
2020-2021 14,354
2021-2022 14,664
2022-2023 14,900
2023-2024 15,086
2024-2025 *
We don't know the current enrollment numbers for 2024-2025 as the district does not make that publically available until the following year. What we do know is that for the 2024-2025 school year, there are 2,463 Multilingual Learners (ML) that have been enrolled in Wicomico County Public Schools. This number was revealed at the Wicomico County Board of Education Special Meeting/Work Session that was held on November 19, 2024.
Below are the student demographics of MLs in Wicomico County Public Schools:
Source: 11/19/2024 WCBOE Special Meeting/Work Session 1
For 2025-2026, the migrants enrolled today will impact the county's appropriation of the per-pupil cost, which is called Maintenance of Effort (MOE). The county will have to come up with approximately $3,700 per migrant student, with the majority belonging to undocumented parents who do not pay county taxes. This number is growing rapidly, and can break the county. It's nearly impossible for the county or school system to accurately budget. As a result, our taxes will most likely go up.
The redistricting to shuffle children around will take place. It is uncertain at this time how mass deportations under the Trump Administration will impact these enrollment numbers or taxes for the citizens of Wicomico County.
Fellows & Editors
December 4, 2024. DelmarvaPTC.org.
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Sources:
WCBOE Special Meeting/Work Session 11/19/2024
WCBOE Annual Budgets 2020-2024
Plyler v Doe - Justia https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/202/
Maryland Class Sizes - Maryland Public Schools: https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/OCP/SpecialReports/ClassSizeReport-2021-2022.pdf
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