Everyone seems to agree that a new middle school is needed in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster.
Projected enrollment increases at Westland Middle School and plans to reassign sixth-graders from Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase elementary schools mean a total of about 1,500 middle schoolers in the cluster. That’s too much for Westland to handle.
No one disputes that, but that’s where the consensus ends. In a clear case of the NIMBY syndrome, parents and other residents are once again up in arms over a Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) decision on where to build the new school.
The first site recommended by a MCPS site selection committee—which included representatives from county government, MCPS, the PTAs, and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission—was the Rosemary Hills/Lyttonsville Local Park in Chevy Chase.
Residents protested because they didn’t want to lose their park. Neighborhood list serves buzzed with indignant messages and rallying cries protesting the decision.
Then school officials abandoned that site and chose the selection committee’s alternate location—Rock Creek Hills Local Park on Saul Road in Kensington.
Now that community has erupted with complaints that the residents weren’t notified that the park was under consideration and only learned of the selection hours before the school board voted in early May to approve a feasibility study.
Residents do not want to lose their park, with its soccer fields, tennis courts and playground, and they also contend that the site is too small and that its hilly topography is unsuitable.
County residents and parks officials also have questioned why MCPS was even targeting parks as potential school sites. Although the Kensington Park is now owned by the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission, the county can reclaim it for free because a junior high school was originally located there. That makes the price right in these challenging budget times.
Dozens of residents showed up at Monday’s school board meeting to protest the selection. Some board members acknowledged that the board had fumbled the process, with board member Laura Berthiaume noting: “We do have an actual loss of trust here.”
But board member Philip Kauffman reminded everyone that the selection committee included PTA officials and they should have been keeping their communities informed.
While losing a park is a big loss, would any site meet with unanimous approval?
School board member Patricia O’Neill of Bethesda doesn’t think so. "Everyone wants good schools, although my experience has been nobody wants these good schools in their neighborhood," she said at the meeting.
That doesn’t include Christie Leu, who lives across from North Chevy Chase Elementary School and brought her kids to Rock Creek Hills Park to ride bikes this week.
Leu, who grew up next to a school, sees a neighborhood school as “an asset to the community.” She also would be happy if her kids didn’t have to make the long trek to Westland, located at the extreme western side of the cluster’s boundary.
“I don’t understand why those people don’t want a middle school in the neighborhood,” she said.
Residents can air their concerns in upcoming meetings for the feasibility study. If the site is deemed unacceptable, board members say MCPS will have to wait another two years to request county funding for the new school.
It doesn’t sound like a delay that MCPS can afford.
“The school is needed right now,” O’Neill said.
