Superintendent Foose announces agreement with county to transition ownership of Harriet Tubman School Building

October 16th, 2015

Superintendent Renee A. Foose and Howard County Executive Allan H. Kittleman today announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the future use and ownership of the Harriet Tubman School Building in Columbia.

In a joint press conference in front of the school, Foose and Kittleman detailed an agreement between the Board of Education and County that would transfer ownership of the building and surrounding property to the County to be preserved as a historic, educational and cultural center. The county’s only all-black high school, closed in 1965, has been used for more than three decades as office and storage space for the school system’s maintenance and school construction departments.

“This is truly an exciting day. This MOU is the culmination of months of discussion,” said Kittleman. “The property is extremely important to the community, and we have been committed to finding an appropriate way to use the school, so it can tell the story of our county’s past and the story of desegregation to future generations.”

Foose echoed Kittleman’s sentiments, saying, “This agreement represents a win-win solution for the school system, county government and our entire community. This solution will preserve the building as an important historic site that every Howard County resident can benefit from.”

Terms of the agreement allow the school system to transition out of the building, located at 8045 Harriet Tubman Lane, over the next 14 months. The County has agreed to help find new space for the school system functions currently housed in the 25,000-square-foot building. The County expects to complete the ownership transfer by December 2016.

The Harriet Tubman School, which opened in 1949, served as the county’s only all-black high school until it was closed through desegregation in 1965. For the past 50 years it has been used by the school system – first as its Central Office and then for the departments of maintenance and school construction. For a time, it also housed the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center and Head Start classes.

Currently, one room is devoted to the Harriet Tubman Foundation. The County celebrated the 50th anniversary of the school’s closing last month.

“I look forward to witnessing the Harriet Tubman School Building, a vestige of the past racial segregation practices of Howard County, become a site that is celebrated by everyone,” said Board Vice Chairman Ann De Lacy. “Let it not be used solely as a memorial to discrimination, but as a celebration of what we have and will become as a result of integration.”

In coming weeks, Kittleman said he intends to gather representatives from various community groups who have a stake in preserving this property, including the Harriet Tubman Foundation and Howard County NAACP, to develop a plan for how best to use the facility and preserve the historic building.