GOCA: Farquhar Middle plans don’t conform to Olney master plan

For the record, the Greater Olney Civic Association [GOCA] is on record as opposing the busing of Farquhar students to the Tilden Holding School in Rockville. Our delegates feel it is not in the students' best interest.We have not endorsed any of the remaining options being considered by Montgomery County Public Schools in its recently published Modernization Feasibility Study Draft for the Farquhar Middle School. We are quite concerned about this process and how the voices of an entire community have not been heard.Although we recognize that a master plan does not have the effect of law, we have always been staunch defenders of the Olney Master Plan; many of our officers and delegates were instrumental in developing the language of the current (2005) revision. The Olney community has relied on what the master plan says and the need to adhere to this plan to promote orderly development and maintain an overall vision of what Olney should be.The feasibility study is endorsing a "land swap" option with a 17.2-acre property, formerly part of the Casey Property, adjacent to Farquhar Middle School that is designated to become a local park. While this may seem a simple solution on the surface, it opens a myriad of concerns...

Read entire letter to Gazette from GOCA here.