Montgomery school officials are re-thinking the way they choose school sites after drawing heated criticism from lawmakers and residents that the process lacks openness and steamrolls over park land. Although Montgomery County Public Schools has only had to select three new school sites in the past three years, booming enrollment means the school board will eye much more property in coming years.
Two more sites are going through the selection process.
“As the county has become more developed, options for locating schools have become much more of a challenge,” said school board President Christopher Barclay. “Our staff is currently reviewing the site selection process,” and will work with the county’s planning board.
The school board was heavily criticized when it chose Rock Creek Hills Park in Kensington as the future site of a middle school for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster. The park originally was the board’s second choice to another park in Silver Spring.
That changed — just hours before the 6-1 vote, shocking many.
“The process is broken,” said Shannon Hamm, a 27-year county resident. “Citizens in the area need to be included in the selection process, not just afterward, because neighbors care about what happens in their neighborhood.”
Planning board Chairwoman Francoise Carrie said she was “very distressed to learn second- or third-hand that the school system had identified one of our parks as a new school site.”
“Parks are not vacant land and we don’t consider them free,” she said.
Councilman Marc Elrich, D-at large, chided the school system, recalling a recent ruling that the school board violated open-meeting laws by voting behind closed doors to lease a former school site to the county for ball fields.
“I’m among those who think there’s a problem and you’re going to have to deal with this,” Elrich said. “You can’t operate like this.”
The district’s student population has swollen by 6,000 children in three years, to about 144,000. James Song, director of facilities management for MCPS, estimated that 10,000 more students will flood the system within six years.
“That’s a very daunting task to prepare for,” he said.
Song and colleagues explained that the selection committee considers environmental impacts, utilities, car and pedestrian access, acquisition costs, and more when choosing sites.
The joint taskforce between the schools and the parks department will discuss solutions at a committee meeting in the fall, then present to the full school board in the early winter.
