White Flint development worries parents, school officials
By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
October 14, 2009
Plans for urban development along Montgomery County's Interstate 270 corridor have angered parents and school officials threatened by overcrowded classrooms and possible redistricting.
A draft proposal by the county's planning commission to develop new homes and businesses near the White Flint Metro station would bring more than 400 new elementary students, according to school district projections. Similar plans -- with similar potential for controversy -- are moving forward at other sites along the corridor, such as Germantown, Gaithersburg and Clarksburg.
But the White Flint plan, released in July, does not set aside land for a new school near the affected area, and instead proposes one on a larger chunk of land two miles away, within different high school boundaries. The proposed site is on Rocking Horse Road, on district-owned property.
Some families residing within the boundaries of Bethesda's Walter Johnson High School -- one of the county's best -- would face redistricting to the less prestigious "Downcounty Consortium" high schools to the east, including Albert Einstein and Wheaton.
"Cavalier recommendations for redistricting show a supreme disregard for the importance of the high school to families moving into a cluster," Parent-Teacher Association representatives within the Walter Johnson schools wrote to the county's school board, which met Tuesday.
Liz King, representing a group that formed solely to lobby for a new school within the White Flint plan, said the plan as drafted "will generate hundreds of students at each level of the Walter Johnson cluster, which would swamp our elementary and high schools."
At-large school board member Phil Kaufman proposed a resolution that the board "strongly oppose the Montgomery County Planning Board draft plan due to its failure to include an elementary school site within the sector plan area." His colleagues unanimously supported the resolution.
District officials seemed surprised by the proposal, saying the Planning Board had initially supported a new school site within the sector, near White Flint Mall.
"We need to go back and recapture that school site," Superintendent Jerry Weast said. "I am asking the County Council to do that."
Valerie Berton, spokeswoman for the Planning Board, said the schools and community would have ample opportunity in coming months to plead their case before the County Council.
"It's called a draft, and we use that for a reason," Berton said. "These things can change, and sometimes they change a lot."
