Changes to Walter Johnson Cluster Schools

On October 13 Superintendent Jack Smith presented his recommendations for the Walter Johnson Cluster.

Read the entire recommendation here.

Highlights:

Enrollment growth and consequential space deficits in the Walter Johnson Cluster result from a combination of housing turnover and new development. At the high school level, Walter Johnson High School will face a deficit of nearly 700 seats by the 2022–2023 school year, and long-term projections indicate that high school enrollment could reach 3,600 students. At the middle school level, the approved Fiscal Year (FY) 2017–2022 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) addresses enrollment growth through the 2022–2023 school year, and long-term enrollment is projected to exceed capacity by approximately 100 students at each middle school. At the elementary school level, three schools have capacity needs not addressed by the current CIP: Ashburton, Farmland, and Garrett Park elementary schools.

 The Roundtable considered a wide range of approaches to address capacity needs that included classroom additions and the reopening of closed schools. The group also explored the possibility of new school construction, grade reorganizations, use of commercial buildings, and changes to school schedules. After careful consideration of the work and input from the Roundtable and feedback received from the wider community, I recommend that the Board of Education adopt the following course of action for the schools in the Walter Johnson Cluster:

 For Ashburton Elementary School, reduce the approved addition project scheduled for completion in August 2019 from 881 seats to 770 seats, relocate the four special education Preschool Education Program (PEP) classes to Bradley Hills and Luxmanor elementary schools beginning in the 2017–2018 school year, and construct a modular classroom addition to open in August 2019 that can be relocated in the future after a new school opens.

 Monitor the enrollment at Farmland Elementary School and consider the reassignment of students to Luxmanor Elementary School beginning in the 2020–2021 school year after completion of the revitalization/expansion project.

 Utilize space in the annex facility adjacent to Garrett Park Elementary School to address the capacity deficit at the school.

 Monitor enrollment in the cluster elementary schools and open a new school in the long term when the capacity deficit may support the need for the new school.

 Continue with the plans for the addition at North Bethesda Middle School scheduled to open in August 2018 with a capacity for 1,229 students and a master-planned addition for up to 1,500 students.

 Continue with the plans to revitalize/expand Tilden Middle School (and collocation with Rock Terrace School) with a capacity for 1,200 students and a master-planned addition for up to 1,500 students.

 Convene a roundtable discussion group to include representatives from the Downcounty Consortium high schools and Walter Johnson High School to study the following:

o Reopen the former Woodward High School to address the space deficits at Montgomery Blair, Albert Einstein, Walter Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Northwood high schools; and in addition

o Explore the possibility and develop a potential model approach to address space deficits at these high schools as well as others countywide, by offering alternative programmatic, career technology education, or other voluntary educational options for high school students through use of non-traditional facilities, including commercial space. 

 Planning and construction funds will be included for the high school solution as part of the Superintendent’s Recommended FY 2019–2024 Capital Improvements Program in October 2017.

More development in WJ Cluster

The Planning Board, which is appointed by the County Council, is starting another Master Plan along the Pike Grovesnor-Strathmore. Staff is introducing the Scope of Work at the Planning Board today.

From the Scope of Work:
"The Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro Area Minor Master Plan Amendment will address approximately 105 acres of land located on the east side of Rockville Pike (MD 355), from Rock Creek Park to the south, to Strathmore Avenue to the north."

Community Facilities The 2016 Subdivision Staging Policy indicates that the Walter Johnson cluster is close to a moratorium for all school levels.  Additional residential development and the pace of its delivery will affect the Walter Johnson cluster, as well as the adjacent Downcounty Consortium secondary schools.  This planning process will assess the impact to the cluster from proposed residential development in the minor master plan area, given anticipated residential development elsewhere in the cluster.

According to the Scope of Work, a meeting was held on July 7, which included Walter Johnson cluster representatives, but that information never appeared in the WJHS listservs.

Schedule:

September 15, 2016: Scope of Work to the Planning Board 

January 2017: Working Draft to Planning Board 

February 2017: Planning Board Public Hearing

March - April 2017: Planning Board Worksessions

May 2017: Planning Board Draft Approved and Transmitted to County Council and County Executive

http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2016/documents/GrosvenorScope-Final_000.pdf

Lots more development in the Walter Johnson Cluster!

Greetings!

 

Please join us on Wednesday, November 18 for the fourth community meeting for the White Flint 2 Sector Plan.  The focus of the meeting will be on transportation and connectivity.  Staff will present an overview of connectivity suggestions that were made by attendees at the last meeting on Oct. 14.  Staff will also provide an update on transportation projects underway and/or proposed within the area, an overview of land use transportation modeling, and discuss the possible strategies for White Flint 2 that were used in the 2010 White Flint Sector Plan.  There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion.

 

**Please make note of the new meeting location and time:

 

Location:              Rocking Horse Road Center, All Purpose Room, 4910 Macon Rd, Rockville

Date:                     Wednesday, November 18

Time:                     6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

 

Updates and past meeting information can be found at the project webpage.

 

Regards,

 

Andrea

Andrea Gilles

Area 2 Planning Division

Montgomery County Planning Department

Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission

8787 Georgia Avenue │Silver Spring, MD 20910

Direct: 301.495.4541│Web: www.montgomeryplanning.org

SCHOOL RAGE: RESIDENTS QUESTION HIGH-DENSITY WESTBARD PLAN, NEW ES SITES NOT LARGE ENOUGH

From Robert Dyer,
Robert Dyer @ Bethesda Row Posted Nov 15, 2014. 
For the full post go here.

"This is crazy!"

Friday brought one of the most contentious meetings of the Westbard Sector Plan charrette, and not surprisingly, the topic was schools. Current and future public school parents in the Wood Acres-Pyle-Whitman cluster acutely aware of existing overcrowding questioned how Montgomery County planners could recommend a high-density growth plan for Westbard in that context.

Concept 1 - all of the red
structures are new apartment
buildings

Planners released their first projections for total housing units, and students to be generated by the plan, at the meeting. Those numbers were met with skepticism. Under a full build-out of Concept 1, Westbard residents would find 2529 apartments dropped into their community. That would, under the current U.S. census bureau statistic of 2.58 persons per housing unit, bring 6525 new residents (and 12724 additional cars!) to the 153 acres that comprise the Westbard Sector. In other words, 43 people per acre, which is quite a change from the area's single-family-home suburban character.

The Planning Department projection calculated Friday predicts 306 new students, with 153 of them being elementary school students. Those numbers generated some grumbling among the crowd of residents at the meeting. If one has been on Westbard Avenue when the school buses stop there in the morning, you know there are quite a few students coming from those few buildings now. In fact, Park Bethesda alone has 59 students, and Westwood Tower adds 65. Unfortunately, the chart shown did not have the numbers for the Kenwood Place condominium, which is also in the Walt Whitman HS cluster.

MCPS' infamous forecaster Bruce Crispell made a late arrival to the meeting, but tried to generate some numbers more in line with what we've seen in the Westbard area. Crispell's calculator gave him a projection of 750 students, more than double what planners forecast - and equal to the size of the entire Wood Acres ES population, one resident noted. In the context of 6525 people coming under Concept 1, 750 still sounds a bit low.