Overcrowding at Walter johnson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:550 students over at WJ sounds dangerously overcrowded, and 2026 is still quite a few years away. They should open Woodward immediately after the construction is finished & find alternative plans for housing Northwood students. It will only get worse. The only other option is redistricting some of the incoming 9th graders next year to a different high school, but it appears that no other HS around WJ has the room.

So an east county school that badly needs a renovation will get the short straw again??? Developers of all housing including condos and apartments need to provide adequate funding for school construction, the old false paradigm that people with kids don't live in multi housing units is very detrimental. All this could have been predicted and alarm bells were raised many years ago about population trends.

Don't worry, it is not going to happen. Northwood will go in for 2 years (with no fields, no aux gym, etc), and then some from WJ and some from DCC will go in 2026.

This is partly due to the incompetence of the long range planning staff and partly due to lack of funding (which means other peiorities) priorities.

Keep in mind, 3 HSs opening pretty much together is unheard of (Northwood, Woodward and Crown).

That said, as per the bold above, alarm bells were raised by parents many years back, and MCPS staff (then Capital Planning now Long Range Plannin), stalled, delayed, and denied. Their incompetence is truly astounding.

So, are you saying that the 2026-2027 school year is the first possible year that students from WJ will started attending school in the new building in the old Woodward space? When will families within the cluster know whether their kids will either be eligible to attend there or will be "forced" to do so?

And thank you to the cluster parents who have tracked this topic and advocated for our cluster's needs for so many years.

When it opens its going to be used by Northwood for their renovation then opened as a school. No one knows who will transfer there. One can assume a large number from WJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:550 students over at WJ sounds dangerously overcrowded, and 2026 is still quite a few years away. They should open Woodward immediately after the construction is finished & find alternative plans for housing Northwood students. It will only get worse. The only other option is redistricting some of the incoming 9th graders next year to a different high school, but it appears that no other HS around WJ has the room.

So an east county school that badly needs a renovation will get the short straw again??? Developers of all housing including condos and apartments need to provide adequate funding for school construction, the old false paradigm that people with kids don't live in multi housing units is very detrimental. All this could have been predicted and alarm bells were raised many years ago about population trends.

Don't worry, it is not going to happen. Northwood will go in for 2 years (with no fields, no aux gym, etc), and then some from WJ and some from DCC will go in 2026.

This is partly due to the incompetence of the long range planning staff and partly due to lack of funding (which means other peiorities) priorities.

Keep in mind, 3 HSs opening pretty much together is unheard of (Northwood, Woodward and Crown).

That said, as per the bold above, alarm bells were raised by parents many years back, and MCPS staff (then Capital Planning now Long Range Plannin), stalled, delayed, and denied. Their incompetence is truly astounding.

So, are you saying that the 2026-2027 school year is the first possible year that students from WJ will started attending school in the new building in the old Woodward space? When will families within the cluster know whether their kids will either be eligible to attend there or will be "forced" to do so?

And thank you to the cluster parents who have tracked this topic and advocated for our cluster's needs for so many years.

That's correct, the fall of 2026 is the earliest any WJ kids will be reassigned there. From 2024-2026, phase I of the new building will be a holding school for Northwood, while phase II is still being constructed. This timeline assumes no additional delays. New school boundaries are typically finalized in the November of the year prior to the opening.

[Anonymous]

The decision as to what students will move from WJ (and from Einstein, also overcrowded), will not be made until 18 months prior to opening (so, spring 2025). There is a process that will involve PTAs from all schools involved, but MCPS always does whatever it wants anyway (more of a check the box process to say they have involved the community).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what’s going on with WJ regarding overcrowding? Heard about a new high school to split up WJ. Sorry I am new to this area

You're late to the party. Search on Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The decision as to what students will move from WJ (and from Einstein, also overcrowded), will not be made until 18 months prior to opening (so, spring 2025). There is a process that will involve PTAs from all schools involved, but MCPS always does whatever it wants anyway (more of a check the box process to say they have involved the community).

Spring 2025 is when the boundary study is likely to start, meaning there will be community meetings, different maps will be drawn up and debated, etc. But the decision won't be made until the fall. The superintendent's recommendation usually comes out in October, and the BOE has the final say when they vote in November. However, last year Seth Adams indicated that they could use a different timeline than usual for Woodward, Northwood and Crown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can find lots of info about the new Woodward HS plans here:

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

But the opening date has recently been pushed back to fall of 2026.

You can thank Elrich's Net Zero changes to capital projects for that. It adds so much cost, they have to delay projects all over the place to make room in the budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone brings it up, because prior to Woodward being named in the CIP as relief for the DCC and WJ, it ALSO mentioned BCC.

At the time, BCC parents had a hissy fit (apparently, just like they are doing now), and it was removed from the CIP the following year.

If you go back and look at the current master/sector plans for Lyttonsville, it says that overcrowding at BCC will be relieved by Woodward.

No one knows 100% what schools will be named as part of the process to attend Woodward (other than WJ and DCC), until the process happens in Spring 2025. If you want to continue to argue about it, please go ahead, but you are all wasting your breathe.

But what is known is that instead of home team bleachers on the football field Woodward will have a cell tower compound.

There are bleachers on both sides of the field in the plan that was selected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know WJ freshman class size this year?

WJ has just welcomed its largest class ever - 900+ students - they received many more freshmen enrollments than expected, possibly because of new families moving to the area (due to rise in housing options) and students returning to public schools from private post-Covid. WJ is immensely crowded and is understaffed, as well. Class sizes are quite large this year and there are now 15 portable classrooms.

The completion of the Amalyn development will be horrible for the local schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know WJ freshman class size this year?

WJ has just welcomed its largest class ever - 900+ students - they received many more freshmen enrollments than expected, possibly because of new families moving to the area (due to rise in housing options) and students returning to public schools from private post-Covid. WJ is immensely crowded and is understaffed, as well. Class sizes are quite large this year and there are now 15 portable classrooms.

The completion of the Amalyn development will be horrible for the local schools.

As compared to all the other developments?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know WJ freshman class size this year?

WJ has just welcomed its largest class ever - 900+ students - they received many more freshmen enrollments than expected, possibly because of new families moving to the area (due to rise in housing options) and students returning to public schools from private post-Covid. WJ is immensely crowded and is understaffed, as well. Class sizes are quite large this year and there are now 15 portable classrooms.

The completion of the Amalyn development will be horrible for the local schools.

As compared to all the other developments?

They're probably against having MPDUs near them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone brings it up, because prior to Woodward being named in the CIP as relief for the DCC and WJ, it ALSO mentioned BCC.

At the time, BCC parents had a hissy fit (apparently, just like they are doing now), and it was removed from the CIP the following year.

If you go back and look at the current master/sector plans for Lyttonsville, it says that overcrowding at BCC will be relieved by Woodward.

No one knows 100% what schools will be named as part of the process to attend Woodward (other than WJ and DCC), until the process happens in Spring 2025. If you want to continue to argue about it, please go ahead, but you are all wasting your breathe.

But what is known is that instead of home team bleachers on the football field Woodward will have a cell tower compound.

There are bleachers on both sides of the field in the plan that was selected.

That doesn’t fix the 1/2 that are missing from the home team side for a cell tower compound. What other mcps stadium has 1/2 the home team side as a cel tower compound with diesel generators?

[Anonymous]

Janice, enough with the cell towers. You lost the battle re: the cell phone towers. Let. It. Go.

There will be bleachers on both sides of the stadium field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janice, enough with the cell towers. You lost the battle re: the cell phone towers. Let. It. Go.

There will be bleachers on both sides of the stadium field.

There is yes excuse to have the cell towers there. Who is Janice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know WJ freshman class size this year?

WJ has just welcomed its largest class ever - 900+ students - they received many more freshmen enrollments than expected, possibly because of new families moving to the area (due to rise in housing options) and students returning to public schools from private post-Covid. WJ is immensely crowded and is understaffed, as well. Class sizes are quite large this year and there are now 15 portable classrooms.

The completion of the Amalyn development will be horrible for the local schools.

As compared to all the other developments?

We’ll, this thread is about overcrowding at WJ and Amalyn is a huge development that will impact WJ, NB and Ashburton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janice, enough with the cell towers. You lost the battle re: the cell phone towers. Let. It. Go.

There will be bleachers on both sides of the stadium field.

There is yes excuse to have the cell towers there. Who is Janice?

No clue. The BOE flyover of the new school shows 1/2 of the home team bleachers replaced with a cell tower compound. Home team parents will only be able to sit on one half of the field. No access to other side of home team side.