Outdoor School day-program plan heads to Carroll school board in December

Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS) will present its plan for turning Outdoor School from an overnight program into a day program to the Board of Education in December, Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said at the board's Nov. 11 meeting.

A top budget official separately estimated the change would add about $80,000 in transportation costs. The meeting did not describe what the day program would look like, and the plan has not been made public.

Outdoor School, which the Board of Education has called a 50-year tradition, has been based at Hashawha Environmental Center, 300 John Owings Road.

The Board of Education voted 5-0 on June 10 to end the overnight portion of Outdoor School. The board said the decision was about student safety, not the program or its cost. In a statement the next day, it said the school system does not own or control the site, which sits in a public park with no perimeter fence, no dedicated overnight security and poor cell reception.

The board also cited an incident in which a person who appeared to be under the influence entered the property and tried to get into buildings before a staff member intervened. The statement also described the overnight program as an arrangement the board said it would never approve today: sixth graders in cabins supervised mainly by high school students, with "a single adult overnight." Misti Kelly, an Outdoor School teacher who retired in June, later disputed the board's account of that incident and of overnight staffing, saying at least three adults were always on site overnight, the same number listed in the risk assessment the school system commissioned before the vote.

The vote paused Outdoor School entirely for the 2026-27 school year. A day program is to start in 2027-28, and students who would have attended as sixth graders this year will go as seventh graders instead. Jonathan O’Neal, assistant superintendent of operations, said in June that the day program would not necessarily be held at Hashawha, and that staff would look at other sites to reduce bus time.

Westminster Wire later obtained, through a Maryland Public Information Act request, that 45-page assessment. In the portions released, the report recommended repairs and procedural fixes, not an end to overnight stays. CCPS has said the report was one of several inputs behind the decision.

McCabe told the board that a transition work group was formed to plan the change and to recommend how Outdoor School will continue as a day program. Representatives of the group are meeting this month with several board-appointed committees to present the plan and gather feedback, she said. She did not name the committees or the work group's members.

The plan then goes to the board at its December meeting, McCabe said, and the public will have opportunities to give input after that meeting. She did not say what form that input would take.

O’Neal, presenting the school system’s early look at the fiscal 2028 budget, which covers the 2027-28 school year, estimated about $80,000 in added transportation costs to convert to a day program. He called it his own estimate and said he and Nicholas Shockney, assistant superintendent of instruction, who is working with the Outdoor School work group, would settle on a final figure.

The $80,000 covers transportation only, not the full cost of a day program. As of August, CCPS had not released the cost estimates staff developed this spring for the repairs that would have kept overnights.

The figure is small next to the rest of O'Neal's presentation. He put projected cost increases at about $36.1 million against roughly $11 million in expected new revenue, a gap of about $25.1 million. Funded enrollment fell by 357 students this year, and by nearly 800 over two years.

McCabe noted that Outdoor School, instrumental music and athletics were among the items considered for cuts last budget season, and said those are the kinds of programs the school system is now down to. She said the situation could be “catastrophic,” and that the school system would need to watch the General Assembly closely and have “very frank conversations” with the community and the county commissioners. O’Neal said earlier that he did not know where further cuts would come from.

McCabe said only that the plan will come to the board at its December meeting. The board's next regular meeting is Wednesday, Dec. 9, at 4 p.m. at 125 North Court Street in Westminster, with public participation.

Three new members will join the board before then. They are to be seated at 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 7, followed by a budget work session. Board President Steve Whisler and members Patricia Dorsey and Tara Battaglia held their final meeting Nov. 11.

Who those three new members will be is not yet final. After the Nov. 5 count, which remains unofficial, Julie Walsh, Marsha Herbert and Sharon Wilhide held the top three spots in the school board race, with Wilhide 199 votes ahead of Shannon Hinkhaus for the third seat. The county Board of Elections is counting provisional and remaining mail-in ballots Nov. 12 and 13.