More than 200 people rallied against a proposal to permanently move Rockville’s Wootton High School students over to the new Crown High School in Gaithersburg.
The Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s, Ed.D., recently made the recommendation that Wootton should relocate to Crown. The Wootton building would then be used by other campuses under renovation. The Wootton community has been speaking out against this relocation recommendation and they are calling on the school board to make a different decision, most recently with Monday’s rally.
The rally started ahead of a school board public hearing that was supposed to be in person, but went virtual after it snowed. The rally location was going to be outside MCPS headquarters where the school board meets, but after the meeting was moved to an online format, the Wootton community decided to rally outside the high school.
After Taylor’s recommendation, Rockville leaders suggested a modified recommendation, in which Wootton and Magruder High School students would, at separate times, temporarily go to Crown along with local Crown-area students while Wootton and Magruder were being renovated. This way, Wootton would not permanently move to Crown.
“It’s unclear what the board might be up for, because this has been a very opaque process,” said Justin Brandon, a Wootton cluster parent whose children attend Fallsmead Elementary School. Parents say MCPS has not met with them to talk about the proposed move.
Amid concerns after a recent shooting on the campus involving two 16-year-old students, those who want to keep Wootton at its current location say the school is a critical part of the community. It serves as a community center, and the school also partners with Frost Middle School, which is next to Wootton.
MCPS states the move to Crown is a strategic one that “addresses both immediate safety and infrastructure concerns, and long-term fiscal health.” The school system claims it is not a closure of Wootton, rather a move of the school into a new building, one that MCPS calls “a state-of-the-art facility designed for 21st-century learning.”
The school board will make a final decision March 26.
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