Proposal to close SSIMS in 2031

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

The existing Eastern building will still be operating as a school while the new Eastern building is being constructed on site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

This doesn't make any sense. Where do you put the Eastern kids while the new Eastern is being built?

[Anonymous]

The main thrust of is the need for a secondary holding school. MCPS doesn’t care much about the community and they need somewhere to put kids in communities they do care about while they get new buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

I believe the existing Eastern needs to be demolished to allow room for fields/etc on site.

Also the existing Eastern only has a capacity of about 1000 which is too small as a holding school for some middle schools-- SSIMS plus SCES is around 1800, meaning it could accommodate any middle school as a holding school and some high schools as well.

[Anonymous]

This part in the email to SCES families infuriates me:

Again, I know that many in the community have raised the alarms about these conditions for several years; I am both grateful for your dedicated advocacy and sorry that it took this long for MCPS to hear you. This year’s submission of the Capital Improvements Program is my first opportunity as Superintendent to respond and start to make it right. I knew that we needed to make a meaningful investment in Silver Spring and some tough decisions to go along with that investment. None of these recommended decisions was made lightly, but all are in response to your advocacy.

--


Parents were advocating to fix the schools, not close them. It's manipulative and condescending to say that this is a "meaningful investment in our schools." It's the exact opposite -- it's closing them in favor of investing in orther schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This part in the email to SCES families infuriates me:

Again, I know that many in the community have raised the alarms about these conditions for several years; I am both grateful for your dedicated advocacy and sorry that it took this long for MCPS to hear you. This year’s submission of the Capital Improvements Program is my first opportunity as Superintendent to respond and start to make it right. I knew that we needed to make a meaningful investment in Silver Spring and some tough decisions to go along with that investment. None of these recommended decisions was made lightly, but all are in response to your advocacy.

--


Parents were advocating to fix the schools, not close them. It's manipulative and condescending to say that this is a "meaningful investment in our schools." It's the exact opposite -- it's closing them in favor of investing in orther schools.

Same gaslighting in the letter to the SSIMS community. Sorry, absolutely *no one* advocated to increase the populations of Eastern and Sligo MS by 50% because you need to find a place for the 1000 SSIMS students that will be displaced so that you can have a holding school to support construction of replacement facilities in other parts of the county.

[Anonymous]

Research shows that the most effective middle schools are between 400-800 students. Why are we making schools much, much larger than this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Research shows that the most effective middle schools are between 400-800 students. Why are we making schools much, much larger than this?

You can thank Jerry Weast and Pat O’Neill for the change. Montgomery County used to care about children, but then they wrote children out of the policy.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/10/lost-school-planning-process.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

I believe the existing Eastern needs to be demolished to allow room for fields/etc on site.

Also the existing Eastern only has a capacity of about 1000 which is too small as a holding school for some middle schools-- SSIMS plus SCES is around 1800, meaning it could accommodate any middle school as a holding school and some high schools as well.

I think they will build a new bigger school on the field and then demolish the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Research shows that the most effective middle schools are between 400-800 students. Why are we making schools much, much larger than this?

And MCPS' own CIP states that the recommended size for a middle school is 750-1200 students. Yet under this proposal they would be building capacity at Eastern for 1500 kids! This is about the size of Einstein HS. How can that be effective for learning? And who would want to teach at such a school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

I believe the existing Eastern needs to be demolished to allow room for fields/etc on site.

Also the existing Eastern only has a capacity of about 1000 which is too small as a holding school for some middle schools-- SSIMS plus SCES is around 1800, meaning it could accommodate any middle school as a holding school and some high schools as well.

I think they will build a new bigger school on the field and then demolish the school.

That was my understanding too. What other school renovations are planned besides Eastern and Sligo? I'm not following why, prior to demolition, one of the Eastern buildings (new or old) can't be used as a holding facility for SSIMS and Sligo while work is being completed on those schools. I know it's not ideal because it would delay athletic faciltities at Eastern and you still need to find somewhere for SCES, but surely that's better than closing SSIMS altogether and creating two mega-middle schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

I believe the existing Eastern needs to be demolished to allow room for fields/etc on site.

Also the existing Eastern only has a capacity of about 1000 which is too small as a holding school for some middle schools-- SSIMS plus SCES is around 1800, meaning it could accommodate any middle school as a holding school and some high schools as well.

I think they will build a new bigger school on the field and then demolish the school.

That was my understanding too. What other school renovations are planned besides Eastern and Sligo? I'm not following why, prior to demolition, one of the Eastern buildings (new or old) can't be used as a holding facility for SSIMS and Sligo while work is being completed on those schools. I know it's not ideal because it would delay athletic faciltities at Eastern and you still need to find somewhere for SCES, but surely that's better than closing SSIMS altogether and creating two mega-middle schools?

I don't think they would want to have two middle schools' worth of students concurrently occupying two adjacent buildings with no athletic fields available for either of them, plus not enough parking spaces or bus loops, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 3 reasons:

1) The facility condition and the cost to address the long-standing problems associated with a very old and neglected facility. They've been avoiding this since the 90s when they decided to reopen the then-moving Blair HS as a combined ES (Sligo Creek ES) and MS (SSIMS) in one building, where they reconditioned, to a degree, the third that became SCES but did the absolute minimum reconditioning on the SSIMS side. They will have to do some work to make it habitable as a holding facility, but not as much as they should have done (long ago, and should be doing now) for the local school.

2) The Purple Line -- they don't want combo ES & MS kids in direct proximity for a variety of safety considerations. As a secondary-level holding school, there would be no walkers, and that seems to be enough of a safety mitigator for them.

3) The only secondary-level facility they have is Woodward, and that's going to be its own school shortly. They need a place to put an entire HS when that ends up under construction, and the combination of SSIMS and SCES, with some build-out but compromising some HS facility provisions (e.g., no real auditorium beyond the gym, limited athletics, etc.), is what they see as their best option.

Who's "they"? I don't ever remember this being brought up as a concern before. This reason seems to be completely made up by Taylor.

It's really infuriating that our kids are going to have to pay for MCPS' continued mismanagement and incompetence. They should have fixed SSIMS long ago, but they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it now.

The Purple Line excuse is pure gaslighting. The proximity of a station to a school came up years ago in PL meetings and was deemed to not be a safety issue. He is using the poor condition of the school (which is entirely MCPS's fault) and the new PL stop as excuses to get what he needs: a holding school to stagger other school renovations. It is terribly unfair that this neighborhood loses its community school so others can have nicer facilities. Now, DTSS, an already congested and urban neighborhood, will have busses coming in to take out of bounds kids to the holding school and busses going out to take neighborhood kids to Sligo or Eastern -- kids who previously could have walked to school. I hope the neighborhood and school communities come together to ardently oppose this. It is not a done deal yet and can be stopped.

+1. Well put.

There must be other options for holding facilities. I know the county leases a number of buildings- have they explored whether any of those would be suitable once current leases are up? Also is anyone familiar with the plans for Eastern- is it meant to be a total tear-down/rebuild? Could they build the new school elsewhere on the property (athletic fields) and then use the existing Eastern building as the holding facility for the other schools? Blair is close by so they could use the athletic field there in the meantime.

Yes, the plan for Eastern is to build the new building on the existing fields while students are still on site in the current building, then tear down the current building and put new fields in that location.

This makes the proposal to close SSIMS even more puzzling. What is Taylor's real aganda?

I don't see why it's more puzzling. A replacement for Eastern was already being discussed anyway, and this just makes it larger in order to also handle the reassigning of hundreds of SSIMS students.

What I mean is, why is SSIMS needed as a holding school when the existing Eastern building could be used as a holding school while the new Eastern is being built and then a new SSIMS building (and potentially Sligo renovation)? It just seems like two of his excuses are manufactured.

I believe the existing Eastern needs to be demolished to allow room for fields/etc on site.

Also the existing Eastern only has a capacity of about 1000 which is too small as a holding school for some middle schools-- SSIMS plus SCES is around 1800, meaning it could accommodate any middle school as a holding school and some high schools as well.

I think they will build a new bigger school on the field and then demolish the school.

That was my understanding too. What other school renovations are planned besides Eastern and Sligo? I'm not following why, prior to demolition, one of the Eastern buildings (new or old) can't be used as a holding facility for SSIMS and Sligo while work is being completed on those schools. I know it's not ideal because it would delay athletic faciltities at Eastern and you still need to find somewhere for SCES, but surely that's better than closing SSIMS altogether and creating two mega-middle schools?

Looks like upcoming renovations or replacements needed include:

John T. Baker MS
Benjamin Banneker MS
Gaithersburg MS
Newport Mill MS
Redland MS
Robert Frost MS
White Oak MS

Not sure where all of those are located and if some of those can go to other holding schools but presumably at least White Oak and Newport Mill would need something down-county?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/FCI/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The main thrust of is the need for a secondary holding school. MCPS doesn’t care much about the community and they need somewhere to put kids in communities they do care about while they get new buildings.

This feels black and white to me. My kid is slated for SSIMS, and now I'm hearing MCPS is investing in a huge new building at Eastern. So kids in my neighborhood will now go to a nice new school instead of a patched up SSIMS. I don't feel like my SSIMS neighborhood is getting screwed by MCPS. A new elementary school for my neighborhood was also on the list. So I'm finding the "MCPS doesn't care about downcounty communities" a little in contrast to the news of new schools. I get that the holding school issue is one the grapple with, but I feel like a lot of folks are ignoring the fact that they're giving us new schools. Little ones in my neighborhood will go to a new elementary, new middle, and new high school. I don't feel ignored in CIP.