While their children are still finger-painting and learning ABCs, some Severna Park High School (SPHS) feeder school parents are thinking ahead. They have created an online petition and a campaign to ensure the 50-year-old high school is renovated by the time their kids are freshman.

Spearheading the campaign are Shipley' Choice parent Debbie Young and Severna Park Elementary School parent Kathy Bain. Together with area schools PTAs, PTOs and the high school PTSO, they launched an 'SPHS NOW' campaign' last week.

The petition asks the County Council to keep a $37.5 million modernization of the high school at the top of the fiscal year 2013 budget priority list. The council is scheduled to vote on the budget in May 2012.

“There is a very narrow window of opportunity here to get this project done according to the established plan,” Young said.

“We want the $37.5 million so they can actually start getting the ground ready to be ready to go by July [2013]. Not just partial. We are saying, ‘Stop delaying it,’” Young said. According to the architects at a community meeting on the high school's modernization in January, the new building would be complete by 2015.

See the petition for an outline on the project and contact information on County Council representatives. The fifth Annual Community Connections Day is on Thursday at Severna Park Middle School, where parents can voice their support of the SPHS modernization project to county representatives.