Baltimore County, MD Hello Baltimore County, 12 Oct 2016

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From YouTube: Schools for Our Future

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Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz gives an update on the County’s aggressive $1.3 billion school renovation and construction program.

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( ♪♪♪ ).

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Hi! welcome to hello, baltimore county., I'm ellen kobler., we're here today in county executive, kevin kamenetz's office in the historic courthouse in towson to talk about the schools for our future program.

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county executive,. Thank you so much for having us. and thanks for joining us here.

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Sure! so in 2011, you announced.

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An aggressive $1.3 billion schools for our future program.

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Can you tell us a little bit about it and update us on the progress?.

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Well, back then,, I inherited a situation in which 80 percent of our schools.

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Were more than 40 years old and we had what I consider to be.

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The twin dilemma of aging infrastructure, but also rising enrollment;.

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We needed more seats., so we embarked on this historic commitment to renovate our schools, build new schools,.

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And also to air condition them. in fact, back then, 90 of our schools did not have air conditioning.

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And that has now been, as a result of this program, been reduced to 36 schools without air conditioning.

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And next year, we'll be down to 13 schools without air conditioning,.

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And then we'll complete the job thereafter., so we're very excited about it,. But of course it's more than just air conditioning and we believe that central air conditioning is the appropriate investment.

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We are also building 15 new schools, 11 additions;.

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We're modernizing our schools; wi-fi technology, public safety, features;.

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Really creating a modern learning environment for our kids.

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For this next generation. and importantly, no county in the history of this state.

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Has ever embarked on such a record investment.

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In school, construction and renovation., and for every one dollar we receive from the state,.

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We are putting in two county tax dollars.

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How do you finance that?,.

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Because baltimore county has a reputation for being very fiscally strong;.

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The tax rates haven't been raised in decades.

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well,. We have the highest credit rating of any county across the country.

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And it allows us to borrow money at very low interest. Rates.

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And we are devoting the majority of our bond funding.

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To this record school construction program., but again,, it's a good investment.. Not only are we providing modern learning environments for our children,.

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But these types of schools also help to stabilize strong neighborhoods.

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So what kind of projects are you talking? About?.

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Air conditioning has been in the news, but it's much more than that.

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You say that most of the schools, or many of the schools are 40 years old,. So that's a lot of modernizing to do.

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Well,, just this school year,, we celebrated the ribbon cutting.

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Of the $50 million renovation of pikesville high school,.

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Which was built in 1964.

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and when you walk through there today,, it looks like a brand new building.

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Is that right?.

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We are also opening up three schools that we--.

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In the southwest area;, a new catonsville elementary school.

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That has replaced a 100-year-old, building, plus two additional schools in that area:, westchester and westowne..

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So,, it really is symbolic of what we're doing all across the county.

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I'm really proud of the job that we're doing. and of course,. I know air conditioning has been kind of a hot button. Issue,.

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Especially when the weather is still warm., we can't just put in room air conditioners,, as some have suggested, because think about the age of our buildings. More than,, you know,, more than--.

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The majority of them don't have the wiring to handle room air conditioners., yeah.

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Oh, the electrical systems, yeah., because part of what you're doing with these renovations is --.

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I assume it's electrical, you're, putting in all new plumbing, new rooms.

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I mean, this is serious: construction. oh,, we're tearing down the walls and rebuilding, of course. you're, basically gutting them, yeah., but it's not, again,, just not air conditioning.. It's also adding additional seats.

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we're going to have a surplus of 6,000 seats to accommodate future growth., oh, good!, so you're actually doing it in a way.

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Not just to keep up but to try to project into the future.

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Get ahead of the curve, yeah. now recently,, the interagency committee on school construction.

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Approved a waiver so that you could speed along the air conditioning installation.. Can you tell us how that works? well, so we're going to be down to 13 schools, un-air conditioned next year,.

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But in order to get the job rolling soon enough, we want to be able to start the bidding process. Now.

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Before the board of public works makes its funding decisions in january.

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And the state committee on school construction,.

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Including the governor's appointees, approved our plan.

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And we really appreciate that they see the tremendous progress that we're making and getting this job done and doing it. The baltimore county, way.

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okay, and some people refer to you as the "tech exec.".

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Can you tell us a little bit about your partnership with dr. dallas dance.

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To bring the latest technology --, you mentioned wi-fi -- in the schools?.

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What all is involved in this digital conversion, as they call it?.

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Well,, I want you to think about today's kids.

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We really live in a different life for them in terms of using digital devices.

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It's the language they use outside of the classroom., so by using digital devices in the classroom,.

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It keeps them engaged and keeps them motivated.

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So we think that's a great investment for our future.

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and just, again,. I was at pikesville high and that's one of the first high schools now to have digital devices.

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It's almost a silence in the classroom: because...

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...The kids are all fully engaged and work at their own pace.

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On their own laptop., so they're very focused,, you think in part because of the technology?.

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Yeah, absolutely. yeah,, plus clearly,, that's where the workplace is going.

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You know, even everybody from a graphic artist to an architect, --.

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It's all computer-based., well, and again,. The kids are more comfortable with it than the parents.

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Yeah, indeed., so it's a good thing.

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They're the technical natives, right?

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right. you mentioned sometime ago, how you visited patapsco high school.

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And found the use of technology there to be particularly interesting.

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Well,, it's a great example, again, of how we're using technology.

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So, in the old days,, if there was some type of research, project,.

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The kids would go into the library and try and look up in books.

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Well, of course, most books today are out of date by the time they're printed.

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How about that? yeah.

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And now they just go online for information.

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This particular class had a research project and the kids would go from station to station and there were posters on the wall that had a qr code,.

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Which they would just scan with their phone and then instantly get the bibliography of information.

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That they needed to complete the project., and then they went from station to station.

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in another classroom,. They were using twitter feed to answer questions.

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So the teacher would pose questions and the children would respond by tweets.

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And all the children could then see the responses..

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That teacher told me that they actually keep that twitter feed.

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Going over the weekend,, so if a child has a question,, the teacher can answer,, but all the other students can also participate in that learning process..

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Then you go into the spanish class there and they're tweeting in spanish.

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So, really a great opportunity to keep kids engaged,.

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Keep them motivated, and it's been very successful.

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Nice. in the minute, or so that we have left,.

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Can you give people kind of a quick, overview, again, of your ¤1.3 billion schools for our future program?.

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We're just really pleased with the progress that we've made.

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We're going from 90 schools un-air conditioned down to 36 this year down to 13 the following year.

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And those remaining 13, the reason why they're kind of at the end.

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Is because six of them will be brand new schools.

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and, of course, we're not putting air conditioning in an old building.

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That we're going to tear down.

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Yeah,, you wouldn't do a temporary fix in a building that you're about to replace. yeah.

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Right. and the others are major high school renovations,, which take a while longer because of the size of the schools.

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Okay. well county executive kamenetz,. Thank you for sharing with us.

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Your $1.3 billion schools for our future initiative.

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Thank so much. sure. and thank you for watching hello, baltimore county..

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We will see you next time. (, ♪♪♪ ),.