How could they? The
6 Retaining Walls 7 Retaining Walls going in at the McKenney Hills Elementary School site weren't shown on the
artist's renderings that the Board of Education "voted" to approve on February 17, 2010. As MCPS Director James Song said at the Board table that day, those drawings were only the
"preliminary, conceptual stage" of the design.
First, with apologies to ABC 7 who covered
this story on Monday. There are now at least
6 Retaining Walls 7 Retaining Walls at the McKenney Hills site, not the 4 originally found. 2 new ones have been spotted. (
We note that MCPS' public relations department apparently saw no need to correct the statement that there were 4 on the site.) No wonder the Planning Board staff report called these Retaining Walls
"significant".
Second,
we promised to tell you how we found the Retaining Walls at this site.
6 Retaining Walls 7 Retaining Walls can be seen on the Forest Conservation Plan that was submitted as part of the County's Mandatory Referral process.
Here you go - see how many Retaining Walls YOU can spot on the Forest Conservation plan! (See image above.)
The Board of Education approved the preliminary plan for the McKenney Hills site in February 2010.
They didn't get to see the Forest Conservation Plan with the 6 Retaining Walls 7 Retaining Walls that was submitted to the Planning Board after May 2010.
Having trouble finding those
6 Retaining Walls 7 Retaining Walls on the Forest Conservation Plan? It takes some serious magnification (see image to left) of this document to read the fine print. Here's the drawing again with red lines for the location of the 6 Retaining Walls that have been found so far. We make no guarantee that this is a complete inventory of the Retaining Walls that will go on this site! And we have no idea how high these Retaining Walls will be! All we know is that the Planning Board staff calls them "significant!"
Update: October 28, 2010, MCPS announces to Planning Board that there will be 7 Retaining Walls at the McKenney Hills site.
The Board of Education approved the preliminary plan for the McKenney Hills site in February 2010. They didn't get to see the Forest Conservation Plan with the 
MCPS was also not transparent in sharing its plans with the community to install the large retaining walls as part of the Key MS modernization. However, at Key there was a second issue of transparency: the reason for the retaining walls. At Key MCPS did not disclose its plan to make an extreme change in the school’s elevation and how this would impact the surrounding residents. Is this the case with the other MCPS schools that are getting retaining walls, too?
ReplyDeleteGet over it people. You're trying to stop a school that is there for educating our children. A very green school in one of the greenest areas of the county and with supporters of the school that are green. For those of you that spend your earlier years chained to trees protesting wars, times have changed. The school needs to move forward for not only your future, but more important the children that don't have a voice in this decision. These are the same kids who will get stuck paying for all the national debt that was generated over the last several decades.
ReplyDelete@"Get over it people"
ReplyDeleteWhere would you like this comment posted? This post was about 6 retaining walls going in at this school site. The previous comment alerted readers to the potential meaning of these walls with regard to the elevation of the site.
The current McKenney Hills site was a school for 60 years. The next school building could be there for 100, who knows! The time to get it right is now, not later when the construction begins. Read the posts on this list about "The Wall" at Cabin John Middle School. That community wasn't about to just "get over it."
All,
ReplyDeleteAs someone who may move into the area, chances are that my child would go to this school - I'd like to know why this is such a significant issue. Obviously retaining walls are not necessarily the most aesthetically pleasing architectural design, but other then that: 1) why is this such a big issue 2) Are the parents and community attempting to stop the construction of the school, or is this more of a "gripe". Not passing judgment, just asking...
The retaining walls are a symptom. They are a symptom of overbuilding a school site by pushing the construction to the very edges and creating cliffs.
ReplyDeleteJust a few short years ago, 2005 to be exact, the Board of Education Policy was the elementary schools would be built to house about 500 students. In 2005, the Board of Education signed over the power to set school sizes to Superintendent Jerry Weast. Superintendent Jerry Weast can now set the size of a neighborhood elementary school without any community discussion or a Board vote.
Superintendent Weast wants elementary schools to hold 740+/- students, not 500. So McKenney Hills will be supersized and is being built to hold 734 students. The few parents who screamed for this school to be built have ignored that fact. They have said that they want their children out of a large elementary school. But they are simply trading one large school for another and the staffing issues they have complained about will be exactly the same at McKenney Hills as they are at Oakland Terrace. Lunches will be huge groups, recess will be large groups of students, lines will be long.
In part, some parents have been tricked. The original architect's plans for the new McKinney Hills (Architecture, Inc. June 2009) called for the new school to hold 550 students. But those plans were thrown out. I have a copy and would be happy to make them public if you would like to see them. So parents who attended meetings with "that" architect were told the school was being built for 550 students. Those parents and community members probably don't realize that a new architect was brought in and new plans were drawn up. The old school size is gone and the super sized school is now in the works. Thus the need for 7 retaining walls to squish this massive building on this small school site.
The average MCPS elementary school is about 502 students right now. (We can post that graph also if you would like to see it.) With seats for 734, McKenney Hills will be able to hold a lot more than 500 or 550 students when completed. Does anyone think that the school will open and 200 seats will go unused when so many students in MCPS are in classroom trailers?
According to what the public knows now about the new school to be built on the McKenney Hills site in Silver Spring, the new building will be the 6th largest elementary school in MCPS by square footage, and the 9th largest elementary school in State Rated Capacity out of 132 elementary schools county wide. (There are currently 131 elementary schools, McKenney Hills would make 132 elementary schools.)
MCPS Elementary Schools
State Rated Capacity (How many seats in classrooms under State guidelines)
Galway 867
South Lake 838
Gaithersburg 827
Watkins Mill 803
Rolling Terrace 770
Broad Acres 748
Stedwick 747
Sargent Shriver 736
(McKenney Hills 734)
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/10/building-bigger-elementary-school.html
This is going to be one large elementary school, on one very limited site at the end of a very narrow dead end road.