The fate of Golden Ring Middle School is unclear: Some think the Rosedale school is being torn down, others say it’s being turned into an office space. A Baltimore County Public Schools official said it’s being “repurposed,” and a letter from the Golden Ring principal said it could close.

“The system botched the communication of this across two superintendents,” school board member Julie Henn wrote on Facebook March 22. “I have been asking the status of GRMS since July 2019 when Dr. [Darryl] Williams started, only to have received no answers.”

Parents are frustrated that nothing definitive has been announced, especially because of Golden Ring’s role in a recently completed boundary study that will reroute some students to different middle schools as a new one opens in the 2024-25 school year. It wasn’t until mid-March that the principal sent a letter to Golden Ring parents acknowledging the floating questions but not saying what’s happening to the building.

“We have heard from many members of the community who have questions about the potential closure of our school and want to make sure that you are well-informed about the Board’s established process,” the letter stated.

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.

If a school were to close, specific procedures would have to be followed, according to a board policy. The letter states those steps include giving the public a say in the closure and the board approving it. When the letter was sent, the boundary study was wrapping up.

The system is building the new middle school in Rosedale, about three miles from Golden Ring, and expanding Pine Grove Middle School by December 2024. The public and members of a boundary study committee considered several ways to redraw middle school zone maps in the central and northeast parts of the county, but every option indicated that Golden Ring would be “repurposed.” There were no plans to have kids attending Golden Ring.

Melissa Moore was invested in the boundary study because her kids, who attend Red House Run Elementary School in Rosedale, were zoned to go to Golden Ring when they reached middle school. She said there’s been a rumor that the school was closing for years, but she hadn’t seen anything in writing until she read information in February about the boundary study.

A Jan. 25 presentation at a boundary study committee meeting states the health sciences magnet program at Golden Ring will move to the new school, referred to in the study as the Northeast Middle School.

“It very clearly looks like they already made the decision to close the school,” Moore said.

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.

She suspects the system is trying to keep the decision to close “under wraps” because they aren’t following the school closure procedure.

“Even if they say they’re repurposing the building, they’re closing the school,” she said.

Moore tried calling school officials for answers but hadn’t received any. So she took to Facebook last month to voice her frustrations about the lack of communication.

“I am quite upset that the original letter we received as parents regarding this boundary study mentions the Northeast Middle School and the renovations at Pine Grove but does not mention the closure of Golden Ring,” she wrote in a group dedicated to the study. “More parents in the greater Rosedale area would have been involved and willing to participate on this committee if we were given the knowledge that our children would be relocated in every option.”

She noted that a board policy defines a “new school” as a “newly constructed building that adds to the total number of schools in the system.” The term “replacement school” is a new building that’s “occupied by a school that already exists on the same or different site where the total number of schools in the system will not change.”

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.

The school system initially would not answer any questions about Golden Ring’s potential closure and when the community was informed of it, as well as how the school’s fate would affect the boundary study.

However, Director of Strategic Planning Paul Taylor, who was at the March 29 boundary study committee meeting, said Golden Ring is not being closed or replaced. He referred to the middle school as a “program.” Those in the program will be moved to the new school. And that decision was made when the board approved the new school project years ago, he added.

System officials declined to say what that means for Golden Ring staff or whether their positions will transfer to the new school.

Taylor said there’s no guarantee the building will be used for a middle school again, and decisions on the building do not affect the boundary study. The boundary study committee selected a map that sends all students currently zoned for Golden Ring to the new middle school, and that map will go to the school board for approval.

But they considered other options where that wasn’t the case.

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.

In response to Moore’s Facebook post, Henn said the system announced the new school would be home to Golden Ring students back in 2017 by interim Superintendent Verletta White.

She and Taylor said that a process to determine Golden Ring’s fate will still happen. Henn said it’s coming soon.

“The communications will go out — because I pushed them to do it, and have been pushing,” she wrote.

Latisha Eubanks, a teacher at Golden Ring, said parents have been happy about the transfer.

“Parents are asking, ‘So when are we getting a new school?’” Eubanks said.

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.

When it comes to the fate of the building, though, she said there’s still “uncertainty.”

kristen.griffith@thebaltimorebanner.com

More From The Banner