Kent County Public Schools is not reconsidering the location of the middle school replacement project.
The Board of Education of Kent County voted in 2023 to build a new Kent County Middle School on the Chestertown campus of the current building after a detailed analysis and feasibility study.
The Worton Elementary School building currently houses our transportation office. The building is too small and lacks the appropriate classroom facilities for a middle school.
The Board of County Commissioners of Kent County unanimously approved in fiscal year 2025 nearly $1.75 million for the architecture and design of a new middle school on the Chestertown campus to match more than $1.8 million in state funding for the project’s planning.
Information shared with the Board of County Commissioners on the potential costs of a project on the Worton campus was requested by county officials for comparison only. It was not a plan or option under consideration.
3 Responses
I believe the final decision rests with the County Commissioners, who are tasked with finding funds/methods to pay for this $33million proposal.
Thank you for clarifying the situation. It is too bad that some of the community members feel compelled to muddy the waters about the Middle School replacement plan. I am not sure what their goal is: that school was in terrible condition 30 years ago. I can only imagine what the problems are today.
The process that resulted in the 2023 decision was very much in the public eye. Opposition should have been more organized and vocal at that time. Perhaps the outcome would have been different.
The cost of a change at this point is not only financial, but defers a real improvement for too many years.
Let’s hope this issue is settled.
After extensive public meetings and expert analysis throughout Kent County in 2022 and 2023, our School Board voted unanimously to replace our dilapidated Middle School with a new building on the same campus in Chestertown. After that vote, both Commissioner Price and Commissioner Nickerson spoke in support of the School Board’s decision, while Commissioner Fithian deferred, saying that this was a decision for the School Board. Since that time, nothing has changed except that the state of Maryland finally agreed to increase its share of the construction cost from 50% to 80%. Further delay will only result in higher construction costs and reinforce the image that we are “Can’t County” and unwilling to implement decisions that support our students and their families.
If we are truly serious about attracting investors and young families to Kent County, we cannot, in one breath, talk about reversing decades of population decline and, in the next, ask those same young families to send their children to schools that have outlived a generation of maintenance deferrals. A modern school is not a luxury line item — it is the same kind of basic infrastructure as a paved road or a working water line, and families weighing whether to put down roots here notice it just as quickly.