Gazette: School board drops Silver Spring park from consideration

Kensington park chosen as site for middle school to serve Bethesda-Chevy Chase students

by Sarah Gantz and Andrew Ujifusa | Staff Writer

Montgomery County Public School officials backed down Thursday night from a proposal to put a middle school in a Silver Spring park, after weeks of protest from community groups.The school board abandoned a recommendation that a middle school be built in Rosemary Hills/Lyttonsville Park and approved the school for a park in Kensington. The 6-1 decision, with member Michael A. Durso opposed, came in response to opposition from the Silver Spring community and the Montgomery County Planning Board, whose chairwoman Wednesday released a letter that blasted the school system for the proposal.
The new site, Rock Creek Hills Park, at 3701 Saul Road, in Kensington, was tapped by the project's site selection committee as the second-best option and was included in the resolution that came to the board Thursday as an alternate location. The board's approval of Rock Creek Hills Park as the preferred location for the school set in motion the next step for the project, a feasibility study.
"Some neighborhood is going to say, ‘We don't want it. It's been a park. It's been whatever.' But our obligation is to kids in the [Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School] cluster," board member Patricia O'Neill said at Thursday's meeting. O'Neill of Bethesda said the Silver Spring site was preferable, but supported the change of location because of the urgency associated with moving the project forward and the "enormous obstacles" at the Silver Spring site.
About 15 people attended Thursday night's meeting wearing green shirts with "Save Our Park" on the front and "Preserve Our Communities" on the back. Many testified vigorously against the proposal to the school board, questioning its decision-making process and whether the recommendation was racially and economically motivated.