Hail has dented the exterior of the Mary D. Harrison Cultural Arts Center. So have errant tennis balls. Woodpeckers, in the words of the school system’s construction supervisor, love it. The real trouble is what those holes let in, and a $2,358,774 federal grant will now pay to keep the water out.
The Calvert County Board of Education voted 5-0 to recognize the award, raise the FY27 School Construction Fund budget by the same amount to $24,686,581, and authorize staff to plan, bid and carry out the work. Chief Financial Officer Christine Jewitt said she will now take the amended budget to the Calvert County commissioners.
The money comes from the Department of War Education Activity, the Pentagon schools agency long known as DoDEA, through a program for construction, modernization and facilities maintenance at schools serving military-connected children. Applications were due May 22. Jewitt called the award nationally competitive and said it recognizes both the building’s infrastructure needs and the school system’s commitment to military-connected students and families. Calvert has 19 schools with Maryland’s Purple Star designation for supporting military families.
Chuck Davis, CCPS’s supervisor of school construction, said assessments late last year found the center has two kinds of exterior: brick veneer over concrete masonry block, and a foam-based finish known as EIFS. Foam damages easily, he said. Water then gets in, and water in a building leads to mold and other problems.
The fix has three parts. Crews will check all of the brick veneer for stability, since water got behind the brick. They will reinforce metal tiebacks that anchor it to the block where needed. And they will replace the foam system with metal panels, which require far less maintenance. Davis said the work should add 25 to 30 years of life. The roof was replaced about three to four years ago, a staff member told the board, so it is not part of the project.
Of the award, about $1.97 million is for construction. The rest covers contingency, design, engineering and other project costs, all handled under federal grant rules and board procurement policy. The grant runs from July 29, 2026, through July 28, 2031, but Jewitt said the project itself should take a little over two years, with work starting in October and finishing in September 2028.
Davis stressed in the application that the building is not just a Northern High School asset. The center, attached to Northern High in Owings, serves pretty much all of the Northern-area elementary and middle schools, he said, and works as a community resource.
A CCPS official told the board the competition was stiff, with dozens of applicants and requests totaling more than a billion dollars, though the official said exact figures were not at hand. The official also said Davis put the paperwork together largely himself. Board members agreed. One said winning a national award takes work most people never see, and another said the money eases pressure on a construction budget that keeps climbing even as enrollment falls.
The meeting also had a lighter moment. A board member asked who remembered seeing a country music star in the center’s auditorium back when the building was new. No hands went up, and the member admitted that might have been a long time ago.
