I wanted to share this short article about Silver Spring International Middle School

[Anonymous]

Silver Spring International Middle is falling apart. The auditorium is abandoned, there are wires hanging from the ceilings, cracked ceiling tiles line the hallways and classrooms, and it is massively overcrowded. SSIMS and its more than 300 ADA violations need a renovation now. Montgomery County Public Schools has long avoided giving SSIMS the renovation it deserves. In this article, we call on MCPS to renovate SSIMS so every student can succeed.
One specific problem with the SSIMS school building is its lack of ADA accessibility.
According to The Karlin Law Firm, LLP “The ADA requires 60 inches minimum width for passing.” The smallest hallway at SSIMS is only 32 inches wide and is also one of the busiest hallways in the school. Even if passing was not needed in the hallway it would still violate the absolute minimum width of 36 inches.
According to Silver Spring International Middle School’s Ada Title II Assessment (accessible on the MCPS website), SSIMS has 338 violations and 148 of those were priority 1 items.
As you can see SSIMS is nowhere near accessible for students with disabilities, or for that matter all students.
Silver Spring International also has a downright ridiculous layout. The main hallway of the school is a quarter-mile long and a walk down to the gym is another quarter-mile. If a student’s schedule involved walking from the band room to the gym, then back again, that would be a mile-long walk. A study in Belgium recommended children aged 11-12, about 0.9 miles was a reasonable walking distance to school. If 0.9 miles is a good distance for just commuting to school, 1 mile is an insane amount for getting to just 2 classes, and that’s not even including the other five classes.
Silver Spring International Middle School has a lot of flaws. Easy accessibility is really important in schools, whether that means correcting 338 ADA violations, or just not wanting to walk several miles every day.

[Anonymous]

It was renovated in 1999, and getting an addition. The video looks nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFkCS_bsygY

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/facilities/construction/project-final/SD%20Brochure%20Final.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was renovated in 1999, and getting an addition. The video looks nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFkCS_bsygY

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/facilities/construction/project-final/SD%20Brochure%20Final.pdf

That video is not showing the currently planned addition, which was scaled back more recently. All they're doing is demolishing the old auditorium and building a new gym plus a few new classrooms in its place.
You can see the current plan here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/construction/project/ssims.aspx

[Anonymous]

The renovation is scaled back quite a bit from earlier versions that, themselves, did not address most of the facility problems. The thing that is driving it is not getting SSIMS to a reasonable standard, but to get the kids inside for gym so that they can formally abandon the old Blair HS field house currently in use. This was only on the table in the first place because of concerns about the Purple Line -- ostensibly to protect middle schoolers in gym shorts from the eyes of the commuting public, but probably so that they could avoid ongoing maintenance of the separate structure (not that it is well maintained) and resolve to some end not-so-education-related property line issues left when Blair was divided into SSIMS, SCES and the park (and subsequent apportionments to the Purple Line).

The 1999 "renovation" appears to have been as limited and slipshod as they could possibly have made it and still come out with a functional school. They don't have inexpensive options to bring things up to snuff, so they throw up their hands. Lots of blame to go around, whether you want to target leadership from 20-30 years ago or more recently. Generally, a failure to plan for how to maintain services in areas of older development/higher density in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Silver Spring International Middle is falling apart. The auditorium is abandoned, there are wires hanging from the ceilings, cracked ceiling tiles line the hallways and classrooms, and it is massively overcrowded. SSIMS and its more than 300 ADA violations need a renovation now. Montgomery County Public Schools has long avoided giving SSIMS the renovation it deserves. In this article, we call on MCPS to renovate SSIMS so every student can succeed.
One specific problem with the SSIMS school building is its lack of ADA accessibility.
According to The Karlin Law Firm, LLP “The ADA requires 60 inches minimum width for passing.” The smallest hallway at SSIMS is only 32 inches wide and is also one of the busiest hallways in the school. Even if passing was not needed in the hallway it would still violate the absolute minimum width of 36 inches.
According to Silver Spring International Middle School’s Ada Title II Assessment (accessible on the MCPS website), SSIMS has 338 violations and 148 of those were priority 1 items.
As you can see SSIMS is nowhere near accessible for students with disabilities, or for that matter all students.
Silver Spring International also has a downright ridiculous layout. The main hallway of the school is a quarter-mile long and a walk down to the gym is another quarter-mile. If a student’s schedule involved walking from the band room to the gym, then back again, that would be a mile-long walk. A study in Belgium recommended children aged 11-12, about 0.9 miles was a reasonable walking distance to school. If 0.9 miles is a good distance for just commuting to school, 1 mile is an insane amount for getting to just 2 classes, and that’s not even including the other five classes.
Silver Spring International Middle School has a lot of flaws. Easy accessibility is really important in schools, whether that means correcting 338 ADA violations, or just not wanting to walk several miles every day.

There's a lot demonstrably wrong with this post, which makes me doubt even the things that cannot be independently verified. For example, the longest hall at SSIMS is not a quarter mile long. It's about 600 feet, so 1/8 of a mile. The distance from the back door to the gym is also not a quarter mile. It's about 400 feet even if you take the long way.

This lack of veracity makes me doubt other claims, like the hallway being 32 inches. That's less than three feet, so less than two middle schoolers standing side-by-side. I do not believe there is a hallway at SSIMS so narrow that children can only walk single-file.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Silver Spring International Middle is falling apart. The auditorium is abandoned, there are wires hanging from the ceilings, cracked ceiling tiles line the hallways and classrooms, and it is massively overcrowded. SSIMS and its more than 300 ADA violations need a renovation now. Montgomery County Public Schools has long avoided giving SSIMS the renovation it deserves. In this article, we call on MCPS to renovate SSIMS so every student can succeed.
One specific problem with the SSIMS school building is its lack of ADA accessibility.
According to The Karlin Law Firm, LLP “The ADA requires 60 inches minimum width for passing.” The smallest hallway at SSIMS is only 32 inches wide and is also one of the busiest hallways in the school. Even if passing was not needed in the hallway it would still violate the absolute minimum width of 36 inches.
According to Silver Spring International Middle School’s Ada Title II Assessment (accessible on the MCPS website), SSIMS has 338 violations and 148 of those were priority 1 items.
As you can see SSIMS is nowhere near accessible for students with disabilities, or for that matter all students.
Silver Spring International also has a downright ridiculous layout. The main hallway of the school is a quarter-mile long and a walk down to the gym is another quarter-mile. If a student’s schedule involved walking from the band room to the gym, then back again, that would be a mile-long walk. A study in Belgium recommended children aged 11-12, about 0.9 miles was a reasonable walking distance to school. If 0.9 miles is a good distance for just commuting to school, 1 mile is an insane amount for getting to just 2 classes, and that’s not even including the other five classes.
Silver Spring International Middle School has a lot of flaws. Easy accessibility is really important in schools, whether that means correcting 338 ADA violations, or just not wanting to walk several miles every day.

Pro-tip without a byline/attribution/source - this is not an article.