Breaking Ground on Waverly School

After years of fighting to build a new Waverly Elementary/ Middle School, the process of erecting a $22 million facility is set to begin.

At 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday at 3400 Ellerslie Ave., city officials, parents, students and advocates will gather for the ceremonial ground breaking at the site of the new school.  

"It took more than a village, it took a city of people to get this to happen," Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke said.

The school will serve the Waverly, Oakenshawe and Ednor Gardens-Lakeside neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods were promised funding from the state as far back as the late 1990s to build the school. But residents and advocates continually had to lobby the Baltimore Public School System and the state to follow through on that promise. 

"Our efforts show that when the community unites to advocate for its school, great things can happen. We are thrilled that Waverly will finally have the kind of school building it deserves.” Karen DeCamp, GHCC’s Director of Neighborhood Programs, said in a news release announcing the groundbreaking.

Clarke, chairwoman of the City Council’s Education and Youth Committee, said  the school's administration, parents and other advocates are now working to develop a program to raise the school’s academics to the level of the new building.

"We’re working really hard to get the academics to meet the bricks and mortar," Clarke said.

A program to allow some qualified students throughout the city to attend the middle school is also being developed.

"It’s more than just for Waverly, it’s for all of Baltimore in that regard," Clarke said.  

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