The eastern part of the county is in the FCPS news as construction all around New Market booms. The Frederick County Board of Education is studying how to redistrict the county’s schools, with its main focus on the Linganore, Oakdale, and Urbana area.

According to the Frederick News-Post, some middle and elementary schools that will be targeted are New Market Middle, Liberty Elementary, Twin Ridge Elementary, Spring Ridge Elementary, and Governor Thomas Johnson Middle schools. Over half of the county will be affected, but students in the Linganore, Oakdale, and Urbana feeder patterns will have many changes.

This development is not new. Before Oakdale opened, students from Linganore High School went to school in the building that is now Oakdale. During that time, the building now known as Linganore High School was under re-construction, which eventually led the redistricting in the east part of the county. 

According to the Office of the County Executive of Frederick County, “In order to provide school seats for the students expected to be generated from the approved residential pipeline, and to address areas of the County currently dealing with school overcrowding, Frederick County will need approximately $510 million of capital funding based on today’s cost.”

This redistricting plan is being made under the assumptions that all schools in the county are built as planned, on-time and include the number of seats the county expects from these projects. Another assumption is that these students will be full-time public school students.

2012 Linganore graduate, Matt Freibaum said, “I grew up around Linganore, so when we were temporarily redistricted to the Oakdale building, I was worried that the new Linganore building would not be built on time for my graduation.”

Based on the map of the construction area it will most likely affect the Lake Linganore area.

In 2010, another redistricting occurred that caused students to go to different high schools that they had anticipated. It caused many students to have to go to different schools than there siblings.

Valerie Becker was in seventh grade and her sister was attending Urbana High school. The redistricting, however, caused Becker to go to Linganore High school.

2016 Linganore graduate, Becker said, “Both my parents and I were very upset and it was kind of a bummer since we were so used to the Urbana atmosphere. It was especially hard since we were an Urbana family, and then I started to go to Linganore which was their rival school.”