Emergency Legal Filing Seeks to Halt MCPS Plan to Close Wootton High School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

This isn’t really about “wait until it happens to you.” It’s about recognizing that decisions like this set a precedent. If a school can be relocated after years of renovation being deferred, with limited options presented late in the process, that’s a model that can be applied elsewhere.

I would hope so. Getting a new building is a good outcome for most. You're just salty your kids school will say Gaithersburg, kind of hard to humble drop Potomac when you kids go to school in North North North Potomac

Getting a new building several miles away in a high traffic area was never the plan—people asked for Wootton to be renovated where it is.

This only became about relocation after MCPS deferred renovation multiple times and created a situation where moving the school now solves its own poor planning problems. That may be convenient for MCPS, but it comes at the cost of disrupting an entire established community.

Reducing it to “people just don’t like the label” completely misses that point.

It’s a reasonable solution. Lots of kids commute several mikes away. Should we not bus any kids and build more neighborhood schools by your logic? Who pays for that. The school was deferred because other schools needed it more. You lobbied for a solution and got one.

Most of the community is fine with Crown.

It’s not really about whether kids can or can’t commute a few miles—of course they do all over the county. The question is whether relocating an entire established school is the best solution compared to other options that were originally on the table.

No one is arguing against shared resources or against prioritization across the CIP. The concern is that Wootton was repeatedly deferred, and then relocation becomes the “solution” that also conveniently resolves a separate capacity issue.

And on “you lobbied for a solution and got one”—that’s exactly the disagreement. People asked for renovation at Wootton. What’s been decided now is not that request being fulfilled in a delayed way, but a fundamentally different decision that comes with much larger community disruption.

As for support in the community, there are clearly a range of views—but disagreement isn’t the same as opposition to Crown itself. The issue for many isn’t the building, it’s the decision to relocate an existing school to fill it.

Sure, but unless you invented a time machine, we're at the place we are now. The Parkway building is in bad shape, the Crown building is brand new and located within the existing Wootton boundary and enrollment doesn't support opening Crown as a new high school. The decision they came up with to move Wootton seems reasonable.

I can understand having complaints about how this all happened, but it was caused by a series of decisions made by people who aren't around anymore. Taylor wasn't superintendent when the decision to build Crown was made nor the boundary study started. A lot of the current BoE wasn't around either.

There is another boundary study starting up, there's a lot of BoE and County Council seats up for grabs, so the next study is the one where everyone's voice can have the most impact.

If relocation was truly the only workable solution, it’s fair to ask why it wasn’t the starting point instead of something introduced late as Option H. Why roll out such a major change at the last stage and right before the holidays if it was always the clear answer?

It is fair to ask, and I agree that the entire process was a tad chaotic.

The answer is probably going to be unsatisfying, which is that they didn't get complete up-to-date enrollment projections until October / November 2025, which showed an actual drop in enrollment. MCPS also prepared the CIP request around the same time period, which gave MCPS a better idea of the facility needs and planning.

So, new superintendent, getting a fresh look at the needs of the county and being surprised at what he found is probably why it wasn't included in the initial 2 option rounds. It took a fresh set of eyes for someone to question "Do we really need to open another high school if enrollment is dropping?"

Again, complaints about how the process went is fair and MCPS had a couple slides in the last presentation where they addressed the concerns and promised to do better in the next boundary study. Wootton itself has one of the weaker arguments for being treated unfairly compared to other schools like Wheaton, where a community was moved out of the walk zone, or Brown Station, where they didn't get moved until after the superintendent's recommendation went out. There's also Magruder, which has the same facility concerns as Wootton, but is not being moved to a new school because Wootton makes more geographic sense to move to the Crown site (also Magruder wasn't part of the boundary study).

For me, the end result (regardless of process) for Wootton seems the best solution out of a bad situation. Additionally, despite my issues with the entire process, it seems legal, given how weak the filing from Save Wootton is.

The filing is just the beginning for Wootton. MCPS will have the opportunity to make a smarter decision at every turn. The more they double down, the worse the legal fight will become for them.

Also legality isn’t simply determined by the outcome. The process matters just as much even if you think the end result is “right.”

Well, yes, that's what I've been trying to argue. We may be unhappy with the way the process went, but whether or not its legal is not based on if it was an emotionally satisfying process, but whether MCPS followed their own policy.

And given how vague Policy FAA is written, it seems like they followed the process. And given the only objections Save Wootton filed for were "it's actually a de facto closure" and "we don't like the data they used", they haven't found an actual violation of the policy either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

This isn’t really about “wait until it happens to you.” It’s about recognizing that decisions like this set a precedent. If a school can be relocated after years of renovation being deferred, with limited options presented late in the process, that’s a model that can be applied elsewhere.

I would hope so. Getting a new building is a good outcome for most. You're just salty your kids school will say Gaithersburg, kind of hard to humble drop Potomac when you kids go to school in North North North Potomac

Getting a new building several miles away in a high traffic area was never the plan—people asked for Wootton to be renovated where it is.

This only became about relocation after MCPS deferred renovation multiple times and created a situation where moving the school now solves its own poor planning problems. That may be convenient for MCPS, but it comes at the cost of disrupting an entire established community.

Reducing it to “people just don’t like the label” completely misses that point.

It’s a reasonable solution. Lots of kids commute several mikes away. Should we not bus any kids and build more neighborhood schools by your logic? Who pays for that. The school was deferred because other schools needed it more. You lobbied for a solution and got one.

Most of the community is fine with Crown.

It’s not really about whether kids can or can’t commute a few miles—of course they do all over the county. The question is whether relocating an entire established school is the best solution compared to other options that were originally on the table.

No one is arguing against shared resources or against prioritization across the CIP. The concern is that Wootton was repeatedly deferred, and then relocation becomes the “solution” that also conveniently resolves a separate capacity issue.

And on “you lobbied for a solution and got one”—that’s exactly the disagreement. People asked for renovation at Wootton. What’s been decided now is not that request being fulfilled in a delayed way, but a fundamentally different decision that comes with much larger community disruption.

As for support in the community, there are clearly a range of views—but disagreement isn’t the same as opposition to Crown itself. The issue for many isn’t the building, it’s the decision to relocate an existing school to fill it.

Sure, but unless you invented a time machine, we're at the place we are now. The Parkway building is in bad shape, the Crown building is brand new and located within the existing Wootton boundary and enrollment doesn't support opening Crown as a new high school. The decision they came up with to move Wootton seems reasonable.

I can understand having complaints about how this all happened, but it was caused by a series of decisions made by people who aren't around anymore. Taylor wasn't superintendent when the decision to build Crown was made nor the boundary study started. A lot of the current BoE wasn't around either.

There is another boundary study starting up, there's a lot of BoE and County Council seats up for grabs, so the next study is the one where everyone's voice can have the most impact.

If relocation was truly the only workable solution, it’s fair to ask why it wasn’t the starting point instead of something introduced late as Option H. Why roll out such a major change at the last stage and right before the holidays if it was always the clear answer?

It is fair to ask, and I agree that the entire process was a tad chaotic.

The answer is probably going to be unsatisfying, which is that they didn't get complete up-to-date enrollment projections until October / November 2025, which showed an actual drop in enrollment. MCPS also prepared the CIP request around the same time period, which gave MCPS a better idea of the facility needs and planning.

So, new superintendent, getting a fresh look at the needs of the county and being surprised at what he found is probably why it wasn't included in the initial 2 option rounds. It took a fresh set of eyes for someone to question "Do we really need to open another high school if enrollment is dropping?"

Again, complaints about how the process went is fair and MCPS had a couple slides in the last presentation where they addressed the concerns and promised to do better in the next boundary study. Wootton itself has one of the weaker arguments for being treated unfairly compared to other schools like Wheaton, where a community was moved out of the walk zone, or Brown Station, where they didn't get moved until after the superintendent's recommendation went out. There's also Magruder, which has the same facility concerns as Wootton, but is not being moved to a new school because Wootton makes more geographic sense to move to the Crown site (also Magruder wasn't part of the boundary study).

For me, the end result (regardless of process) for Wootton seems the best solution out of a bad situation. Additionally, despite my issues with the entire process, it seems legal, given how weak the filing from Save Wootton is.

The filing is just the beginning for Wootton. MCPS will have the opportunity to make a smarter decision at every turn. The more they double down, the worse the legal fight will become for them.

Also legality isn’t simply determined by the outcome. The process matters just as much even if you think the end result is “right.”

You need to stop pretending to represent the entire student and staff population when you are with a specific group that opposes it. Most are happy about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Fingers and toes crossed you are right- I was part of the group that wanted to stay at Wootton on the Parkway rather than jump to Churchill but when we were told that that was seeming less of a possibility because of the lack of money I got on board with the move to Churchill since my kids are likely to be involved in lots of afterschool activities and driving to Crown would be terrible from my house. Needless to say, I’d be happy to go back to Wootton @ Crown or to RM- please let our children learn in buildings that aren’t decrepit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Where would the Cold Spring kids go if it closed? Beverly Farms and Wayside? Is there any room at Ritchie Park?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Where would the Cold Spring kids go if it closed? Beverly Farms and Wayside? Is there any room at Ritchie Park?

They are closer to RM, which will be underutilized once IB kids all leave. Churchill is overutilized. You do the math. JY wanted a temporary win for cold spring so she can wash her hands of everything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

This isn’t really about “wait until it happens to you.” It’s about recognizing that decisions like this set a precedent. If a school can be relocated after years of renovation being deferred, with limited options presented late in the process, that’s a model that can be applied elsewhere.

I would hope so. Getting a new building is a good outcome for most. You're just salty your kids school will say Gaithersburg, kind of hard to humble drop Potomac when you kids go to school in North North North Potomac

Getting a new building several miles away in a high traffic area was never the plan—people asked for Wootton to be renovated where it is.

This only became about relocation after MCPS deferred renovation multiple times and created a situation where moving the school now solves its own poor planning problems. That may be convenient for MCPS, but it comes at the cost of disrupting an entire established community.

Reducing it to “people just don’t like the label” completely misses that point.

It’s a reasonable solution. Lots of kids commute several mikes away. Should we not bus any kids and build more neighborhood schools by your logic? Who pays for that. The school was deferred because other schools needed it more. You lobbied for a solution and got one.

Most of the community is fine with Crown.

It’s not really about whether kids can or can’t commute a few miles—of course they do all over the county. The question is whether relocating an entire established school is the best solution compared to other options that were originally on the table.

No one is arguing against shared resources or against prioritization across the CIP. The concern is that Wootton was repeatedly deferred, and then relocation becomes the “solution” that also conveniently resolves a separate capacity issue.

And on “you lobbied for a solution and got one”—that’s exactly the disagreement. People asked for renovation at Wootton. What’s been decided now is not that request being fulfilled in a delayed way, but a fundamentally different decision that comes with much larger community disruption.

As for support in the community, there are clearly a range of views—but disagreement isn’t the same as opposition to Crown itself. The issue for many isn’t the building, it’s the decision to relocate an existing school to fill it.

Sure, but unless you invented a time machine, we're at the place we are now. The Parkway building is in bad shape, the Crown building is brand new and located within the existing Wootton boundary and enrollment doesn't support opening Crown as a new high school. The decision they came up with to move Wootton seems reasonable.

I can understand having complaints about how this all happened, but it was caused by a series of decisions made by people who aren't around anymore. Taylor wasn't superintendent when the decision to build Crown was made nor the boundary study started. A lot of the current BoE wasn't around either.

There is another boundary study starting up, there's a lot of BoE and County Council seats up for grabs, so the next study is the one where everyone's voice can have the most impact.

If relocation was truly the only workable solution, it’s fair to ask why it wasn’t the starting point instead of something introduced late as Option H. Why roll out such a major change at the last stage and right before the holidays if it was always the clear answer?

It is fair to ask, and I agree that the entire process was a tad chaotic.

The answer is probably going to be unsatisfying, which is that they didn't get complete up-to-date enrollment projections until October / November 2025, which showed an actual drop in enrollment. MCPS also prepared the CIP request around the same time period, which gave MCPS a better idea of the facility needs and planning.

So, new superintendent, getting a fresh look at the needs of the county and being surprised at what he found is probably why it wasn't included in the initial 2 option rounds. It took a fresh set of eyes for someone to question "Do we really need to open another high school if enrollment is dropping?"

Again, complaints about how the process went is fair and MCPS had a couple slides in the last presentation where they addressed the concerns and promised to do better in the next boundary study. Wootton itself has one of the weaker arguments for being treated unfairly compared to other schools like Wheaton, where a community was moved out of the walk zone, or Brown Station, where they didn't get moved until after the superintendent's recommendation went out. There's also Magruder, which has the same facility concerns as Wootton, but is not being moved to a new school because Wootton makes more geographic sense to move to the Crown site (also Magruder wasn't part of the boundary study).

For me, the end result (regardless of process) for Wootton seems the best solution out of a bad situation. Additionally, despite my issues with the entire process, it seems legal, given how weak the filing from Save Wootton is.

The filing is just the beginning for Wootton. MCPS will have the opportunity to make a smarter decision at every turn. The more they double down, the worse the legal fight will become for them.

Also legality isn’t simply determined by the outcome. The process matters just as much even if you think the end result is “right.”

Damn Crown parents are aggressively bitter. I though people in Gaithersburg were friendly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Where would the Cold Spring kids go if it closed? Beverly Farms and Wayside? Is there any room at Ritchie Park?

They're redistricting the elementary schools for the whole county, so there doesn't need to be enough space at a single elementary school currently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

This isn’t really about “wait until it happens to you.” It’s about recognizing that decisions like this set a precedent. If a school can be relocated after years of renovation being deferred, with limited options presented late in the process, that’s a model that can be applied elsewhere.

I would hope so. Getting a new building is a good outcome for most. You're just salty your kids school will say Gaithersburg, kind of hard to humble drop Potomac when you kids go to school in North North North Potomac

Getting a new building several miles away in a high traffic area was never the plan—people asked for Wootton to be renovated where it is.

This only became about relocation after MCPS deferred renovation multiple times and created a situation where moving the school now solves its own poor planning problems. That may be convenient for MCPS, but it comes at the cost of disrupting an entire established community.

Reducing it to “people just don’t like the label” completely misses that point.

It’s a reasonable solution. Lots of kids commute several mikes away. Should we not bus any kids and build more neighborhood schools by your logic? Who pays for that. The school was deferred because other schools needed it more. You lobbied for a solution and got one.

Most of the community is fine with Crown.

It’s not really about whether kids can or can’t commute a few miles—of course they do all over the county. The question is whether relocating an entire established school is the best solution compared to other options that were originally on the table.

No one is arguing against shared resources or against prioritization across the CIP. The concern is that Wootton was repeatedly deferred, and then relocation becomes the “solution” that also conveniently resolves a separate capacity issue.

And on “you lobbied for a solution and got one”—that’s exactly the disagreement. People asked for renovation at Wootton. What’s been decided now is not that request being fulfilled in a delayed way, but a fundamentally different decision that comes with much larger community disruption.

As for support in the community, there are clearly a range of views—but disagreement isn’t the same as opposition to Crown itself. The issue for many isn’t the building, it’s the decision to relocate an existing school to fill it.

It is decidedly NOT the question as to "whether relocating an entire established school is the best solution compared to other options that were originally on the table." That's the entire glaring point you all miss! The Superintendent has full and total discretion to recommend what he deems to be the best option based on Policy FAA as a result of the long process and the BOE gets to vote on that. The community and CEPA don't get to say "hey, no fair, we think using Crown as a holding school was a better option, we want that." That's what you fail to grasp. The legal standard is not whether MCPS chose the best option. It is only whether MCPS's option was unlawful and arbitrary. Since it aligns with Policy FAA, it is not. All of your complaints that they shouldn't have built Crown, they should have renovated Wootton years ago, they should have proposed option H in the beginning of the process - none of those are relevant or matter in any way shape or form to the issue at hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

You are definitely trying to give some of these posters the benefit of the doubt. But this post was in response to a person who said that being assigned a different school after years of paying taxes was like “putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over.” Plenty of people here don’t know how school districts (or taxes) work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Imagine being such an entitled POS that you compare having your kid's assigned public high school relocated 3 miles away to a brand new building to which your child will receive free bus service, and thinking that is somehow analogous to buying a new car and having it given to your neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Where would the Cold Spring kids go if it closed? Beverly Farms and Wayside? Is there any room at Ritchie Park?

Ritchie Park will be heavily underutilized once the Fallsgrove people are moved out because of the non-contiguous island assignment. So yes, RP will need new students to maintain itself open.

[Anonymous]

I went to cold spring in the 80s and they were talking about it closing it then before they brought the GT program there. Glad to see nothing ever changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Where would the Cold Spring kids go if it closed? Beverly Farms and Wayside? Is there any room at Ritchie Park?

Ritchie Park will be heavily underutilized once the Fallsgrove people are moved out because of the non-contiguous island assignment. So yes, RP will need new students to maintain itself open.

Fallsgrove goes to Ritchie Park? That's crazy.

[Anonymous]

So I was reading something from someone regarding Wootton today and it made it sound like they really believe Wootton is "closing"... are they the exception or are there really a significant number of people who genuinely consider this an actual closure (despite how obviously untrue that is)?

I kind of just assumed that the Wootton people have been using dramatic "our school is closing!!!" language because they don't like the location swap and want to keep Wootton in the original building that they can walk to, and figure that pretending it's a closure will serve those goals.

But there's no way any reasonable person could actually confuse a location change with a school closure, could they?





I thought that was just dramatic language to try to get their way because they don't want

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying all your high taxes for decades, only to have your local school closed down and your students bussed miles away to another community. Like putting away money for a new car, only to have it given to your neighbors on the next block over, who offer to let you come and use it instead of getting your own.
I hope they prevail.

Did you just figure out you live in a society? Taxes fund public schools, but they are not tuition payments. You pay them even if you don’t have kids. And kids who live in cheap apartments and pay very little taxes still get to go to the same school. You pay taxes to the county, and the county decides how to spend it based on who we all vote for. Just like you don’t get better postal service or trash collection or national defense based on how much you pay in taxes, you also don’t get better schools.

I don’t think anyone is confused about how taxes work. No one is saying taxes are tuition or that paying more should get you a better school.

The issue is simpler than that. People expect a public system to plan responsibly and follow through on what it said it was going to do. When that doesn’t happen—and the solution ends up being something much more disruptive—it’s fair to question it.

“You live in a society” doesn’t really answer that. Of course decisions are collective and resources are shared. But that doesn’t mean every decision is automatically the right one, or that communities shouldn’t push back when something doesn’t make sense to them.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about wanting more than anyone else. It’s about expecting consistency and reasonable planning from the system everyone is paying into.

Exactly! Which is why the same people who are bashing Wootton are going to be screaming when their school gets closed in the next round. If it happens to Wootton and you didn’t care, don’t be crying when it happens to you.

I’m a Cold Spring mom and fully expect to have our school closed in the next round. I am grateful because the school isn’t up to modern standards.

Be careful what you wish for. When cold spring closes, I don’t think yall are staying with Churchill… JY won’t be on the board anymore to cut backroom deals

Where would the Cold Spring kids go if it closed? Beverly Farms and Wayside? Is there any room at Ritchie Park?

They are closer to RM, which will be underutilized once IB kids all leave. Churchill is overutilized. You do the math. JY wanted a temporary win for cold spring so she can wash her hands of everything

Um no, Cold Spring is not closer to RM than to Churchill.