Option H is permanent and the old Wootton HS campus will be closed for good?

[Anonymous]

"MCPS has failed as usual"

The BOE gets their positions via elections. The county council and other local elected officials who influence this situation are also elected. The irony I find in these discussions is that a significant majority of the posters on here voted for our current and prior BOE and County Council. This includes the majority of the Wootton community. These BOE members and other local officials have made their views very clear before people voted for them. So here we are.

[Anonymous]

The most important question to answer is whether the best, currently available data indicates that we need another high school in that part of the county. If not, then repurposing is obviously going to be more appropriate than opening a school we don't need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The most important question to answer is whether the best, currently available data indicates that we need another high school in that part of the county. If not, then repurposing is obviously going to be more appropriate than opening a school we don't need.

Well the whole reason the school was built was because of increasing enrollment projection. Now it’s down. Then it will go up again. There is so much new development around the area. So they are going to close a school just to have to open it again? And then what will happen to all the kids they already “relocated”? It’s so ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most important question to answer is whether the best, currently available data indicates that we need another high school in that part of the county. If not, then repurposing is obviously going to be more appropriate than opening a school we don't need.

Well the whole reason the school was built was because of increasing enrollment projection. Now it’s down. Then it will go up again. There is so much new development around the area. So they are going to close a school just to have to open it again? And then what will happen to all the kids they already “relocated”? It’s so ridiculous.

The "relocated" kids would be long gone, as would their siblings, by the time that would happen.

There also isn't a good reason to assume projections will go up in that area. The county continues to be on an anti-growth path, and the development that is occurring in that part of the county isn't conducive to families. That isn't likely to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most important question to answer is whether the best, currently available data indicates that we need another high school in that part of the county. If not, then repurposing is obviously going to be more appropriate than opening a school we don't need.

Well the whole reason the school was built was because of increasing enrollment projection. Now it’s down. Then it will go up again. There is so much new development around the area. So they are going to close a school just to have to open it again? And then what will happen to all the kids they already “relocated”? It’s so ridiculous.

The "relocated" kids would be long gone, as would their siblings, by the time that would happen.

There also isn't a good reason to assume projections will go up in that area. The county continues to be on an anti-growth path, and the development that is occurring in that part of the county isn't conducive to families. That isn't likely to change.

What are you talking about that the new developments aren’t conducive to families??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To remind everyone of something that should be obvious: It does not matter whether you are in the walk zone or North Potomac; a decent part of your property value is due to the fact that you are zoned for Wootton. If Wootton goes away that school premium goes away. I realize this will delight the trolls but this comes as part of the package.

Your property value will not change because of the schools. Really, there are homes for 800K, that is pretty typical in most neighborhoods, even ones you consider the ghetto.

Are you serious? Are you implying that you will pay the same price for the same house no matter what school? give me a break.

We bought our house for location and neighborhood and didn't really put that much thought into the schools, even though we were fine with them. We bought before having kids.

That’s great. But it doesn’t change the fact that houses are priced the way they are because of the schools they are zoned for. Just because you didn’t care doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

+1. The schools and other public facilities (community centers, transit, roads, etc) contribute to the value of a property whether the current occupants use those facilities or not. The movement in the county (ironically led by people like Van Grack) has been to allow private land owners to capture the value of public facilities as private profit by getting rid of things like impact taxes.

This is so silly and nonsensical. Obviously your school zone impacts home values. If you don’t know that (or are trying not to acknowledge it) you’re an idiot. With that said, I also think there’s a bit of a scare tactic here in that I can’t imagine home values will plummet if Wootton moves to a new school with bells and whistles. If anything, one could argue that house values will increase because of the new building but still ‘Wootton.’

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep it’s overtly racist. Some even use scare quotes for the word “bussing.” Do people in our well-educated cluster really not know the history of post-Brown v Board? TL/DR: the racists didn’t want their kids bussed for integration. They didn’t want their white kids going to school with black kids. They wanted to remain segregated. School boundaries in the decades that followed were purposefully drawn so as NOT to only include geographically close neighborhoods. The whole point of integration was to intentionally create school boundaries that fostered diversity by including dissimilar and incongruous neighborhoods. And here we are in 2026 with the walkers saying Wootton should not only not expand to include more students at the new Crown, but also that some feeders should be removed from the cluster as too far away. This is all for their selfish goals - not what is best for our kids.

If you are so passionate about this why aren’t you pushing for This to happen at Whitman, which is way less diverse than Wootton. Or do you only care about it happening at Wootton and nowhere else? Why do you think that is?

I’m confused - can you be direct? I think it’s pretty clear they care about Wootton because they are probably in that cluster. What are you insinuating is the reason they don’t care about anywhere else?

Because pp gave a whole history of segregation lesson focusing on Wootton being the biggest problem with this. Yet, There are other schools within the cluster that are far less diverse. Not sure how that wasn’t clear or direct.

The issue about Crown is that they don’t want other students entering the school that they perceive as less. They use high scores as a reason but that’s not it or they would remove all the low preforming students at the school.

DP. If this is truly a move of Wootton, then no students not zoned for Wootton as the boundaries are today should attend Crown. But that isn’t what is happening. MCPS is moving the boundaries at the same time, essentially closing Wootton as it is today.

MCPS took years to perform a series of Wootton boundary studies, received significant community input, held numerous hearings over time, etc. Again, that isn’t what is happening. MCPS is trying to ramp through Option H, despite significant opposition. One has to ask - what’s the hurry?

The hurry seems to be that MCPS wants to move the Wootton students into Crown by the time it opens in the fall of 2027. That way, Crown is filled with high performing students (i.e., transplant, not organic growth) and MCPS avoids the embarrassment in using yet another brand new school building as a holding school.

MCPS had to build a school or lose the Crown land, but one has to wonder why the Crown developers offered such a valuable piece of property for free. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to determine that both MCPS and those developers were eyeing Wootton for transplant. Why else was Wootton removed from the CIP multiple times over the past several years?

MCPS can change boundaries and build new schools, but it cannot use Wootton kids as mere trading cards to cover up its incompetence and possible corruption.

Is using a brand new building, not yet filled and utilized, as a holding school an embarassment?

I think it makes sense, especially with how MCPS says it can help with timetable and costs for renovating the existing schools. Although I kind of question students from the Damascus High area to commute there. Go through crowded 27 and 270 every day?

If I recall and heard correctly, Candlewood ES wasn't filled for a long time, sounded like they had students going there but not enough to fill the school, and part of it was used as offices during that period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most important question to answer is whether the best, currently available data indicates that we need another high school in that part of the county. If not, then repurposing is obviously going to be more appropriate than opening a school we don't need.

Well the whole reason the school was built was because of increasing enrollment projection. Now it’s down. Then it will go up again. There is so much new development around the area. So they are going to close a school just to have to open it again? And then what will happen to all the kids they already “relocated”? It’s so ridiculous.

The "relocated" kids would be long gone, as would their siblings, by the time that would happen.

There also isn't a good reason to assume projections will go up in that area. The county continues to be on an anti-growth path, and the development that is occurring in that part of the county isn't conducive to families. That isn't likely to change.

This will only accelerate the exodus from the county

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To remind everyone of something that should be obvious: It does not matter whether you are in the walk zone or North Potomac; a decent part of your property value is due to the fact that you are zoned for Wootton. If Wootton goes away that school premium goes away. I realize this will delight the trolls but this comes as part of the package.

Your property value will not change because of the schools. Really, there are homes for 800K, that is pretty typical in most neighborhoods, even ones you consider the ghetto.

Are you serious? Are you implying that you will pay the same price for the same house no matter what school? give me a break.

We bought our house for location and neighborhood and didn't really put that much thought into the schools, even though we were fine with them. We bought before having kids.

That’s great. But it doesn’t change the fact that houses are priced the way they are because of the schools they are zoned for. Just because you didn’t care doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

+1. The schools and other public facilities (community centers, transit, roads, etc) contribute to the value of a property whether the current occupants use those facilities or not. The movement in the county (ironically led by people like Van Grack) has been to allow private land owners to capture the value of public facilities as private profit by getting rid of things like impact taxes.

This is so silly and nonsensical. Obviously your school zone impacts home values. If you don’t know that (or are trying not to acknowledge it) you’re an idiot. With that said, I also think there’s a bit of a scare tactic here in that I can’t imagine home values will plummet if Wootton moves to a new school with bells and whistles. If anything, one could argue that house values will increase because of the new building but still ‘Wootton.’

Not when the test scores and graduation rate decrease substantially with the new feeders added.

[Anonymous]

I didn't see any bones for any kind of athletic fields when I drove by Crown recently. Are they just not going to have a football ball field, track or anything else that high schools have? Also it’s so ugly and way too close to the townhouses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep it’s overtly racist. Some even use scare quotes for the word “bussing.” Do people in our well-educated cluster really not know the history of post-Brown v Board? TL/DR: the racists didn’t want their kids bussed for integration. They didn’t want their white kids going to school with black kids. They wanted to remain segregated. School boundaries in the decades that followed were purposefully drawn so as NOT to only include geographically close neighborhoods. The whole point of integration was to intentionally create school boundaries that fostered diversity by including dissimilar and incongruous neighborhoods. And here we are in 2026 with the walkers saying Wootton should not only not expand to include more students at the new Crown, but also that some feeders should be removed from the cluster as too far away. This is all for their selfish goals - not what is best for our kids.

If you are so passionate about this why aren’t you pushing for This to happen at Whitman, which is way less diverse than Wootton. Or do you only care about it happening at Wootton and nowhere else? Why do you think that is?

I’m confused - can you be direct? I think it’s pretty clear they care about Wootton because they are probably in that cluster. What are you insinuating is the reason they don’t care about anywhere else?

Because pp gave a whole history of segregation lesson focusing on Wootton being the biggest problem with this. Yet, There are other schools within the cluster that are far less diverse. Not sure how that wasn’t clear or direct.

The issue about Crown is that they don’t want other students entering the school that they perceive as less. They use high scores as a reason but that’s not it or they would remove all the low preforming students at the school.

DP. If this is truly a move of Wootton, then no students not zoned for Wootton as the boundaries are today should attend Crown. But that isn’t what is happening. MCPS is moving the boundaries at the same time, essentially closing Wootton as it is today.

MCPS took years to perform a series of Wootton boundary studies, received significant community input, held numerous hearings over time, etc. Again, that isn’t what is happening. MCPS is trying to ramp through Option H, despite significant opposition. One has to ask - what’s the hurry?

The hurry seems to be that MCPS wants to move the Wootton students into Crown by the time it opens in the fall of 2027. That way, Crown is filled with high performing students (i.e., transplant, not organic growth) and MCPS avoids the embarrassment in using yet another brand new school building as a holding school.

MCPS had to build a school or lose the Crown land, but one has to wonder why the Crown developers offered such a valuable piece of property for free. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to determine that both MCPS and those developers were eyeing Wootton for transplant. Why else was Wootton removed from the CIP multiple times over the past several years?

MCPS can change boundaries and build new schools, but it cannot use Wootton kids as mere trading cards to cover up its incompetence and possible corruption.

This post is another level of crazy...

Nope it's very on point.

I have been on cluster committees for Wootton for years. This is exactly what has happened and going to happen.

MCPS has failed as usual.

Crown should not be Wootton nor should it be a holding school for Damascus that is stupid

You think that 20 years ago they secretly expected decreasing enrollment, maintaining a conspiracy for two decades, across several sets of county, city, and MCPS leaders, to hijack the Wootton site?

Crazy, obviously.

Nice strawman you built there. Sounds like you need to visit the Wizard of Oz before posting again.

Wootton was on the CIP multiple times in the past 20 years. It was removed from the CIP every time. Is it a coincidence that the timeframes match the Crown land grant? Are you saying no one within MCPS or the BOE ever discussed moving Wootton to the new Crown High School during that time? Is it also a coincidence that Wootton was removed from the CIP in November, and then Option H magically appeared in December? December is often when governments release future plans in the hope that citizens are so busy with the holidays to notice until its too late.

[Anonymous]

I do not think there was a 20 year conspiracy to get rid of Wootton. The explanation is much simpler. Montgomery County has historically had liberal leaning BOE members. In November of 2024 we moved from liberal to extremely liberal. I recently went back and read some of their campaign statements and literature. They weren't hiding anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To remind everyone of something that should be obvious: It does not matter whether you are in the walk zone or North Potomac; a decent part of your property value is due to the fact that you are zoned for Wootton. If Wootton goes away that school premium goes away. I realize this will delight the trolls but this comes as part of the package.

Your property value will not change because of the schools. Really, there are homes for 800K, that is pretty typical in most neighborhoods, even ones you consider the ghetto.

Are you serious? Are you implying that you will pay the same price for the same house no matter what school? give me a break.

We bought our house for location and neighborhood and didn't really put that much thought into the schools, even though we were fine with them. We bought before having kids.

That’s great. But it doesn’t change the fact that houses are priced the way they are because of the schools they are zoned for. Just because you didn’t care doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

+1. The schools and other public facilities (community centers, transit, roads, etc) contribute to the value of a property whether the current occupants use those facilities or not. The movement in the county (ironically led by people like Van Grack) has been to allow private land owners to capture the value of public facilities as private profit by getting rid of things like impact taxes.

This is so silly and nonsensical. Obviously your school zone impacts home values. If you don’t know that (or are trying not to acknowledge it) you’re an idiot. With that said, I also think there’s a bit of a scare tactic here in that I can’t imagine home values will plummet if Wootton moves to a new school with bells and whistles. If anything, one could argue that house values will increase because of the new building but still ‘Wootton.’

It’s probably not going to plummet immediately. However, moving opens a can of worms. It begins with an overcrowded school that will only become more overcrowded over time. This, in turn, creates boundary instability, with some families being rezoned out either initially or down the line. It could even lead to Crown being split into two schools, and there’s no way to know which school you’d ultimately end up in.

[Anonymous]

it would be supreme if a group could put together a Last Dance style docu next year.

[Anonymous]

Just curious, would the Wootton community be happier if they named the Crown building Wootton? Or are people more upset about having to drive or be bussed further away? Would the community rather stay in a dilapidated building? All genuine questions that seem to be getting deflected.