Parents at Potomac Elementary School asked the Montgomery County Board of Education on Thursday night to build their replacement school on the same site rather than send their children to the Radnor Center.
The Radnor Center, a holding school in Bethesda, is too far away and not conducive to after-school or enrichment activities, said parent Kaushika Patel, who spoke for the Winston Churchill High School cluster at a meeting of the board’s Facilities and Boundaries Committee. Patel is the president of the Seven Locks Elementary PTA.
The committee took testimony on the amended capital improvements plan, hearing from parents representing about half the clusters in Montgomery County Public Schools. Another session is planned for Monday, and the board is expected to take its formal vote Nov. 21.
Potomac Elementary at 10311 River Road was built in 1949 and renovated in 1976. A replacement school is scheduled to open in 2020. Patel said the current plan would be for Potomac Elementary students to spend the construction time at Radnor, which is 6.9 miles from Potomac Elementary.
“We’re adding commute times to our young students if we plan to put them in that holding school as a solution during construction,” Patel said.
She told the board that new middle and high schools in the county have been built on the grounds of the school they replace, without requiring students to be sent to holding schools.
Patel said she drove her son to Radnor while it was used during the construction of Seven Locks Elementary. Although the school is only 3 miles away, the travel took 20 to 25 minutes.
After her testimony, school board member Pat O’Neill asked school system staff to look at on-site projects involving elementary schools.
Several parents also mentioned problems with heating and air conditioning issues at schools. Patel said Churchill gets so warm on some days that the students get sleepy in class. O’Neill asked staff to find out whether there are problems with heating and air conditioning at Churchill..
Montgomery County Public Schools
Joy White discusses B-CC issues.
Joy White, speaking for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster, said parents whose children will attend the cluster’s new middle school in Kensington, set to open in August 2017, had three requests:
Parents want district officials to reach out to the community as soon as a boundary decision is made so the community can be part of the finishing touches on the school, she said. Also, a sidewalk is needed on Saul Road, where the school is being built.
And, she said, school officials need to respond to feelings of uncertainty among teachers at Westland Middle School about what will happen to their assignments. The new middle school is being built to relieve crowding at Westland and teachers want to know whether any of the school’s staff will be assigned there.
White also said both Westland and the new middle school need to prepare students for attending high school at B-CC and close testing gaps. She said parents want students to have a united sense of community once they enter B-CC.
