The majority of Dulaney High School’s building was constructed 51 years ago. There’s no debate that it needs a lot of work.
"In almost all of my classes there’s stains on the ceilings, and the floors are gross,” said freshman Zoe Hermann. “It's just not a good learning environment for the distractions that are there."
"The water doesn't always taste as good or it's brown, it's just like not healthy water," freshman Rose Vail said.
“A lot needs to be done to fix this school, I cannot even begin to tell you,” said senior Jozef Orisich.
And the school district plans to do something about it.
"This project is going to be in excess of $40-million to address some of the major systems that have plagued the school for a host of years," said BCPS Chief Administrative and Operations Officer, Kevin Smith.
Thursday night, officials met with about 150 parents, teachers, students and community members to go over a feasibility study outlining the renovation plans and answer questions.
The three year project is extensive, updating structural issues, electrical systems and much more. But many people don't think it's enough.
"You're putting Band-Aids on things,” said one woman. “You're talking about renovations."
"This needs to be a reconstruction, knock down and build new,” parent John Farley said. “Basically they're doing a lot of aesthetic repairs, they're taking down tile and putting up new tile, the biggest thing in it is an A.C. overhaul, which is long overdue."
Dulaney HS is one of four schools scheduled for renovations right now. That's the reason district officials say there's no money in the budget to build a brand new school.
"They say it would be too expensive to build a new building, but we don't even have an estimate of how much it would cost, we have this amorphous it would be double the cost to build," said Dulaney teacher, Davis Quinton-Schein.
"It doesn't sound like there's a very clear idea at all about how much this is going to cost,” said one man. “It sounds like we're gonna break open the walls and we're going to find out that in fact it costs a lot more, and I think that's very imprudent and as a taxpayer a waste of my money."
"It sounds like Executive Kamenetz has decided that we have $40-million and that's what we get," Farley said.
Officials say the renovation should be complete by summer 2019.
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