S/O: New middle school for BCC - opinions?

[Anonymous]

This is a spinoff from the other thread on the Superintendant's recommendations on boundary changes for the elementary schools that feed into BCC. One of the posters raised concerns about the new middle school, with the implication that it will be a lesser school than Westland.... is this a reasonable assumption?

I have a child at RHPS and younger children as well, and personally I just thought a new middle school would be great because the bus ride to Westland seems like a nightmare. Plus I would assume that a new school would have a lot of new resources, etc. But that may be naive.. what am I missing here?

Also, can someone please explain why the Kensington crowd has gone so ballistic over the prospect of the middle school being in their neighborhood? Again, I'm a little clueless, but I would think parents would be thrilled to have a neighborhood middle school. Instead, they seem to be up in arms. It strikes me as a little self-defeating that they are trying to mobilize other RHPS parents against the idea - every time I read one of these hysterical posts on the RHPS listserv about how bad it would be to put a new middle school in Rock Creek Hills, I actually find myself more inclined to support the idea. But I figure I ought to try to develop an objective opinion, so please DCUMs educate me if you can!

[Anonymous]

Here's the deal: The site is a portion of the old Kensington Junior High site. When KJH closed, over 1/3 of its land, including a separate access road, was transferred for the building of an elder care facility. What remained, which includes slopes with 50 ft. drops covered in specimen tress next to a tributary to Rock Creek, is the park. County Council Resolutions, Planning documents, and an Executive Order at the time spoke of concerns for dual use of the site, and enumerated uses that would be appropriate. Now, MCPS wants to shoehorn a school on less than 2/3 the old site, with no separate access road. The community would lose its only green space, including trees, slopes, 2 regulations soccer fields, a hockey rink, courts, playground, etc., and the resulting school would be insufficient by MCPS’s own standards (it has 3 field overlays, not enough parking, etc.). Plus, to build it will cost a fortune because they have to wipe out the tress and drop the entire site by 4 feet to make everything fit. No boundaries have been identified, and so, no real traffic study can be completed. No major roads lead to the site, and there are no sidewalks. Add to that the fact that the selection committee excluded representation from RCH and RH, and that sites excluded (some conveniently near the towns represented on the committee) were excluded based on faulty descriptions, and you can understand why RH and RCH were/are upset. Add to that the fact that MCPS doesn’t even know if the site is available (because certain funds were spent for the park that prevent it from being reclaimed), and you can see why RCH is furious. And add to that the fact that MCPS’s process to move forward was just found to have violated the Open Meetings Act, and you can understand why RCH is ballistic. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal: The site is a portion of the old Kensington Junior High site. When KJH closed, over 1/3 of its land, including a separate access road, was transferred for the building of an elder care facility. What remained, which includes slopes with 50 ft. drops covered in specimen tress next to a tributary to Rock Creek, is the park. County Council Resolutions, Planning documents, and an Executive Order at the time spoke of concerns for dual use of the site, and enumerated uses that would be appropriate. Now, MCPS wants to shoehorn a school on less than 2/3 the old site, with no separate access road. The community would lose its only green space, including trees, slopes, 2 regulations soccer fields, a hockey rink, courts, playground, etc., and the resulting school would be insufficient by MCPS’s own standards (it has 3 field overlays, not enough parking, etc.). Plus, to build it will cost a fortune because they have to wipe out the tress and drop the entire site by 4 feet to make everything fit. No boundaries have been identified, and so, no real traffic study can be completed. No major roads lead to the site, and there are no sidewalks. Add to that the fact that the selection committee excluded representation from RCH and RH, and that sites excluded (some conveniently near the towns represented on the committee) were excluded based on faulty descriptions, and you can understand why RH and RCH were/are upset. Add to that the fact that MCPS doesn’t even know if the site is available (because certain funds were spent for the park that prevent it from being reclaimed), and you can see why RCH is furious. And add to that the fact that MCPS’s process to move forward was just found to have violated the Open Meetings Act, and you can understand why RCH is ballistic. Hope this helps.

The OP knew all this. They are already on the Rock Creek Hills list. They were just baiting this list.

[Anonymous]

Really?? For the same reason that Rock Creek Forest and your own neighbors in Rosemary Hills opposed it in our neighborhood! Everybody wants a new school, nobody wants it in their backyard, but someone's going to have to compromise. For what it's worth, I am a parent in RCF and strongly supported the new middle school possibility for Gwendolyn Coffield Center.

[Anonymous]

I'm the OP, and I wasn't baiting. If you read the discussion on the boundaries for the elementary schools in this area, someone else raised the issue. What I know of this issue comes from the Rosemary Hill school list serv as well as limited press coverage. I started a separate thread so I wouldn't hijack the other one that was focused on the boundaries question. I'm not on the Rock Creek Hills list serv but now I'm curious.

BTW, I don't live in the Rosemary Hills neighborhood but in CC proper. I never really formed any views on the site near RHPS, since it seemed to get taken off the table almost as quickly as it was announced. But I also think the knee jerk opposition of some of the residents of Rock Creek Hills is really counterproductive. You don't really expect to sway people agains the school by insisting the current lack of sidewalks on some streets makes it impossible to site a school there, do you? I find the arguments made by the RHPS PTA much more convincing than what sounds more and more like NIMBYism from the Kensington neighborhood. After reading the latest round of shrieking on the RHPS listserv (from people who don't even appear to have kids at Rosemary Hills any longer!), I actually emailed a note of support for the Rock Creek Hills site to all the County officials whose emails were distributed. Just a thought folks, you might want to rethink your strategy. Many of us in CC and NCC live near MCPS schools already, and it strikes a pretty sour note to take such a vehement opposition to the prospect of having the same in your 'hood.

[Anonymous]

I think the middle school is desperately needed, but can understand why RCH wants to fight it. Nobody wants to lose their green space. Personally, I'd rather lose my green space to a school than to the Purple Line, which is what is happening in my neighborhood. Now that is going to be a really bad neighbor. I'm sure folks in RCH are all excited over the PL though-it's not in their backyard. I'll make you guys in RCH a deal: if you fight the PL, I'll help you fight the middle school.

[Anonymous]

Excellent idea, PP, a NIMBY for NIMBY trade - that way, our kids can fight even more traffic to get to the overcrowded middle school on the other side of the county. I'm sorry, I really don't understand this mentality - I'm no less selfish than the average person but I don't understand why more schools and more transportation are seen as a threat, rather than an improvement to our quality of life. The PL will go through my neighborhood and I'm thrilled since current traffic conditions are unbearable and are only getting worse. So it boggles my mind that others resent the use of land bought by the state as a transportation route for, wow, transportation. And it seems even crazier to me that RCH parents don't want a middle school in their neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Besides the NIMBY issue, some people oppose the idea of a new school because a middle school that draws from the east side of the cluster will contain all of the FARMS and ESOL students, making the new school have a much higher percentage of these students than Westland currently has. With all those kids at the new middle school, Westland will become much much whiter.

People will argue that they don't want a whiter Westland but what they really don't want is a darker new MS...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Excellent idea, PP, a NIMBY for NIMBY trade - that way, our kids can fight even more traffic to get to the overcrowded middle school on the other side of the county. I'm sorry, I really don't understand this mentality - I'm no less selfish than the average person but I don't understand why more schools and more transportation are seen as a threat, rather than an improvement to our quality of life. The PL will go through my neighborhood and I'm thrilled since current traffic conditions are unbearable and are only getting worse. So it boggles my mind that others resent the use of land bought by the state as a transportation route for, wow, transportation. And it seems even crazier to me that RCH parents don't want a middle school in their neighborhood.

When the PL goes through the neighborhood and crosses over Jones Mill Road, where our kids are sitting in a school bus waiting for the PL to pass, or the PL is sitting at a stop light waiting for the vehicles to pass, it doesn't ease congestion in the least. To the contrary, there are places along the PL where the congestion will increase unless they build bridges that are not planned at this time. More development is seen as a threat because it takes out the few remaining acres of old growth forest. Which will increase pollution and bring on more development which will in turn decrease our quality of life. People bought homes in suburban neighborhoods. The state of Maryland is turning those suburban neighborhoods into urban areas. Not everybody is excited, even if you are.

Back to the original topic: how would everybody like it if the BOE decided to redistrict everybody. I understand some of the SS middle schools are under capacity. That would be fiscally responsible but politically untenable. It would mean RCH could keep their park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Besides the NIMBY issue, some people oppose the idea of a new school because a middle school that draws from the east side of the cluster will contain all of the FARMS and ESOL students, making the new school have a much higher percentage of these students than Westland currently has. With all those kids at the new middle school, Westland will become much much whiter.

People will argue that they don't want a whiter Westland but what they really don't want is a darker new MS...

I hope that's not the motivation but given some of the attitudes I often see on this board under cover of anonymity, it wouldn't surprise me. I live just on the east side of the big east/west divide in the county and sometimes I think someone will propose building a big wall to keep out all of us negative influences.

[Anonymous]

OK, guys, I wrote the response to the first post, and for the record I didn’t attack anybody. Someone asked a question, and I gave a response, and from there came the accusations of NIMBYism, reverse NIMBYism, and a whole lot of assumptions about motives.

Look, if those knuckleheads at the BOE didn’t sever over 1/3 the KJH site, along with the separate access road to the school, and give it to HOC for an elder care facility, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. They did, and now they want to squeeze in a school on slopes that, back in 1986, the MCPB said couldn’t be developed. Let me ask you, if KJH were still there, would you support severing over 1/3 the KJH site, along with the separate access road, from the school to build an elder care facility? Of course not, and the BOE wouldn’t either. This isn’t about NIMBYism; it’s about common sense.

Oh, and if that weren’t enough, after the BOE transferred the land for a park, the Department of Natural Resources developed the park with money that carried a restriction against converting it from park use. The U.S. Senate has inquiries out because it’s unclear whether the federal or state restrictions apply. Of course, one might ask why the crackerjack SSAC didn’t pick that up, but when you only hold 2 meetings to review 10 sights and don’t keep minutes, it’s kind of hard. Has that even slowed down the BOE? Nope.

[Anonymous]

Okay, PP, if it's the size of the site itself that is your major concern, then do you also advocate moving BCC? Because BCC doesn't meet the 20 acre minimum either; and yet it seems to function pretty well as a high school with much larger capacity than is planned for the new middle school.

Besides, when I see RCH parents demanding the North Chevy Chase park site be reconsidered - despite the fact that it sits smack dab in the midst of traffic hell thanks to the expansion of NIH and BRAC with no traffic mitigation -it's hard to avoid the sense that the neighborhood just doesn't want a school under any circumstances. Still baffled by that attitude (and for that matter by the people near the original site over near RHPS who opposed it as well.)

[Anonymous]

I live in RCH and don't oppose the middle school--it will be traffic, the loss of the park is sad but there are other parks in walking distance, and it would be nice for my child to walk to school vs. being bused everywhere. But I have to say that NCC park is not in the middle of traffic hell. I drive on Jones Bridge twice every morning and often in the afternoons as well. I rarely have any delay at all. In the afternoons it stacks up to turn left on Connecticut but no worse than it did before BRAC. Where is this traffic hell of which you speak?

[Anonymous]

I haven't been following the debate but live in the BCC cluster. Does anyone know why they aren't just using the money to add facility space to and then beautify the building and grounds and athletic fields of Westland?

[Anonymous]

Westland is really overcrowded, the facility is already small, and it is miles away in horrendous traffic from many of the neighborhoods from which it draws.