Save Rock Creek Hills Park!

Last night...

2012-02-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

Last night the site selection advisory committee for Bethesda - Chevy Chase Middle School #2 held its final meeting. After lengthly consideration of private sites, the group evaluated the two remaining public sites, ranking Rock Creek Hills Park above North Chevy Chase Park.

The two park sites will undergo "mandatory referral" review by the Planning Board, after which the Superintendent of Schools will recommend a site to the Board of Education, who would then request the County Council to fund construction.

Rock Creek Hills Park fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the official site evaluation criteria. The site does not appear to provide parity with other middle schools in the county.

A thank you to the Parks Department.

2012-02-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

A thank you to the Parks Department, for recent landscape improvements to Rock Creek Hills Park, and the refreshed & repainted park sign.

(Photo 2/18/12; click image for larger version.)

"The role of parks in a community..." [repost]

2012-02-20T05:30:00.000-05:00

"The role of parks in a community is really so important to people of all ages."

- from comments by Montgomery County Councilmember Ms. Nancy Floreen at the 7/25/11 joint meeting of the Council's Education (ED) and Planning, Housing & Economic Development (PHED) Committees.

"I moved into my house ... because it's down the street from a park." [repost]

2012-02-20T05:00:00.000-05:00

"I moved into my house – it's rather small, not much room – because it's down the street from a park."

- from comments by Mr. Christopher Barclay, Vice President, Montgomery County Board of Education, at the 6/30/11 joint meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Maryland – National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

What does the 2011 "feasibility study" say about Rock Creek Hills Park? [repost]

2012-02-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Rock Creek Hills Park is unique among listed candidate sites for B-CC middle school #2 in that a "feasibility study" regarding the proposal to replace the park with a middle school complex has been completed. Given the expenditure of money, time, and effort on this feasibility study, it is prudent to ask: What does the 2011 feasibility study say about Rock Creek Hills Park as a potential middle school site? In fact, the feasibility study illuminates site deficiencies that are consequences of the decision made thirty years ago to deed one-third of the former Kensington Junior High School site to the Housing Opportunities Commission, which built the Kensington Park Retirement Community on much of the footprint of the old school. Consider:

The 2011 feasibility study shows that Rock Creek Hills Park is too small.

• In June, when the first design schematics were presented by Samaha Associates, the Virginia firm that was paid $67,500 to conduct the feasibility study, two of the three options presented routed school buses over basketball courts:

Busball, anyone? Early signs of struggles with the small site.

• In October, all three final feasibility study options used "overlaid" playing fields:

When is a soccer field not a soccer field?

Whenever someone's playing softball.

When is a tennis court not a tennis court?

Whenever someone's running track.

(And when is a basketball court not a basketball court?

When "portable classrooms" are parked on it.)

• In December, the Montgomery County Public Schools Director of Construction wrote that "none of the three [final feasibility study] options provide the 125 on-site parking [spaces] called for in the educational specifications".

The 2011 feasibility study shows that Rock Creek Hills Park has inadequate access.

One official site criterion is "access", which has four parts: Frontage on a primary (70 foot right-of-way) road; three access points; a separate service drive; community sidewalks. The park fails to meet each of these elements, and in particular:

• None of the three final feasibility study "options" have three access points;

• None of the three final feasibility study "options" have a separate service drive.

The 2011 feasibility study shows that the proposed construction would obliterate Rock Creek Hills Park.

• In July, the Montgomery County Parks Director said that construction would "obliterate" the park.

• In August, Montgomery County Public Schools appeared to agree that "there's not going to be any trees left":

"... you're doing grading and adjusting the levels everyplace,

so there's not going to be any trees left."

The 2011 feasibility study proposed a middle school that is too small to meet projected enrollment; to meet bus, faculty, parent and visitor parking; and to provide adequate playing fields. To accommodate 1200 students would require expansion, which will increase costs and limit sports programs even more. The site does not provide parity with other middle schools in the county.

Don't Pave Paradise. [repost]

2012-02-16T07:45:00.000-05:00

[Watch on YouTube]

But Can They Build It?

2012-02-10T15:00:00.000-05:00

Rock Creek Hills Park is unique among listed candidate sites for B-CC middle school #2 in that a "feasibility study" regarding the proposal to replace the park with a 3–4 story middle school complex has been completed. At Wednesday's meeting of the site selection advisory committee, Montgomery County Public Schools staff briefed committee members on the results of that study, without mentioning that all final feasibility study options require extensive & expensive regrading (for example, the athletic field would be dropped four feet) and the destruction of stands of specimen and significant trees, which would require Planning Board approval.

MCPS has not submitted a Forest Conservation Plan to the Planning Board, whose review is required and binding. An appropriate Forest Conservation Plan that preserves identified priority-one forest would result in 8.17 acres of buildable land, smaller than the MCPS-specified 10.1 acre minimum for a middle school (at Wednesday's meeting, the site of the former Lynbrook Elementary School was eliminated from consideration after its buildable area was found to be 8.5 acres).

Also at Wednesday's meeting, Parks Department staff reiterated Planning Board Chair Carrier's stated position that "parks are not free," and that compensation would be required for the loss of this very valuable asset.

Double Feature!

2012-02-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

Today's Gazette newspaper includes two articles by Alex Ruoff:

For more on the latest site selection advisory committee meeting, see:

"The Battle Continues" in Julie Rasicot's "Education Matters" blog at BethesdaMagazine.com
"Middle School Siting Could Pit MCPS Against Parks: The Two Departments Disagree on the Use of Open Space" by Damian Garde at Patch.com

Is Rock Creek Hills Park "available"?

2012-01-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

Last night, the second meeting of the site selection advisory committee for Bethesda – Chevy Chase middle school #2 took place. Presentations by staff from Montgomery County Public Schools and the Maryland - National Capital Park and Planning Commission touched on the question of whether Rock Creek Hills Park is "available":

• MCPS staff testified that the use of federal Land and Water Conservation Funds and/or state Program Open Space funds to develop Rock Creek Hills Park does not result in any encumbrances to conversion of the site to non-park use. They based this conclusion on one letter taken from a stream of communications between citizens and government officials. However, both the recipients and the author of the letter acknowledge that the letter was followed by other communications, that substantive issues still exist and are pending, and that the author of the letter committed to responding to the substantive issues. The core issue is that parks developed with LWCF and/or POS funds are protected by strict conversion restrictions, and arbitrary limits on enforcement of these restrictions have no basis in law.

• M-NCPPC staff explained the process of "mandatory referral," which is the technical term for Planning Board review of a construction proposal. Staff explained that while mandatory referral review is generally only advisory, their review of a site Forest Conservation Plan is binding. This raises questions about the availability of candidate sites with significant forested areas, including Rock Creek Hills Park.

Last year, MCPS conducted a "feasibility study" for construction of a middle school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park. The 2011 feasibility study proposed a middle school that is too small to meet projected enrollment; to meet bus, faculty, parent and visitor parking; and to provide adequate playing fields. To accommodate 1200 students would require expansion, which will increase costs and limit sports programs even more. The site does not provide parity with other middle schools in the county. We are confident that the new site selection process will yield solutions superior to the site of Rock Creek Hills Park, which fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the official site evaluation criteria.

"Dear Dr. Starr,"

2012-01-23T06:12:00.000-05:00

An email to the Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent:

A Shocking Omission.

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Montgomery County Public Schools staff threaten credibility of new site selection process.

In November, MCPS Superintendent Dr. Joshua P. Starr explained that our county's use of Land and Water Conservation Funds (LWCF) and/or Maryland Program Open Space (POS) funds to develop Rock Creek Hills Park "... was inconsistent with the reclamation terms of the transfer agreement under which the M-NCPPC took title to the property. This was the case since use of these funds places restrictions on future public use of parks, in contradiction with the terms of the original transfer agreement."

Indeed, the Act authorizing LWCF states that "No property acquired or developed with assistance under this section shall, without the approval of the Secretary [of the Department of the Interior], be converted to other than public outdoor recreation uses." Under the law, parks developed with these funds may not be converted from park use without providing replacement land of equal value in the community. Similar restrictions apply to parks developed with funds from Maryland's POS.

So, it was very surprising last week, at the first meeting of the new site selection advisory committee for B-CC middle school #2, during a discussion of "pros" and "cons", when MCPS staff claimed that a "pro" for selection of Rock Creek Hills Park was that MCPS has a "reclaim right" to the park, without mentioning Dr. Starr's stated concerns regarding strict conversion restrictions resulting from use of LWCF/POS funds.

MCPS staff asserted a conclusion on the status of the site, despite the fact that the Superintendent requested that the site selection be restarted, in part, because the status of the site is in question. By claiming that there exists an unencumbered reclaim right – and omitting mention of the concerns noted by Dr. Starr – MCPS staff risked misleading the public and the members of the committee who are charged with making decisions based on such statements. Sadly, this shocking omission threatens the credibility of the new site selection process.

(Public records show that Federal Land and Water Conservation Funds, administered through Maryland's Program Open Space, were used to develop Rock Creek Hills Park.)

[Please note: This posting was delayed in order to give MCPS staff time to clarify their remarks. However, it has now been more than a week since these concerns were communicated to MCPS.]

Quick Question:

2012-01-18T14:30:00.000-05:00

The Montgomery County Public Schools official descriptions of the candidate sites for B-CC middle school #2, which form part of the formal basis for the work of the site selection advisory committee, contain significant factual inaccuracies.

Our community's representative brought these to the attention of MCPS staff before the first meeting of the committee, but MCPS declined to make any corrections before or at that meeting. Indeed, as of this writing, MCPS still has not corrected these errors.

So, we ask:

Why would anyone think that a decision based on faulty information would withstand scrutiny?

A Curious Omission.

2012-01-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, during the first meeting of the new site selection advisory committee for B-CC middle school #2, Montgomery County Public Schools staff presented, with no advance public notice, a new minimum requirement of 10.1 acres for a middle school site. Setting a minimum site size is not unreasonable, especially in light of the fact that the official list of candidate sites for last year's deeply flawed site selection process was widely criticized for including sites as small as 4 acres, which is clearly inadequate. However, the new official minimum requirement of 10.1 acres is still remarkably small when compared to all existing county middle schools (when "co-located" parks are factored in; see below) – and given that the official list of public candidate sites for B-CC middle school #2 now includes six sites of 17 acres or more (including two sites larger than 30 acres). Furthermore, the presentation of this new minimum was marked by a curious omission.

Here is the MCPS powerpoint slide that presents the new minimum:

The slide states that the new minimum is based, in part, on the building footprint of a single middle school, identified as "Lakelands MS":

In fact, the school in question is the Lakelands Park Middle School:

(Go Falcons! Banner from official school website.)

Got that? The name of the school is "Lakelands Park":

(Good luck on exams! School sign.)

The Lakelands Park Middle School is so named because it is adjacent to the 11.6 acre Lakelands Park, and the school uses the park's fields for physical education classes and for team sports. The combined size of the school and park is 19.7 acres:

(click image for larger version)

This is an example of school/park "co-location". Indeed, every MCPS middle school on a site that is smaller than 13 acres is adjacent to a park. A middle school built on a 10.1 acre site, without an adjacent (or "co-located") park providing field space, would be uniquely inadequate, county-wide. Would anyone in the Bethesda – Chevy Chase cluster want that?

So, why did MCPS staff omit the word "Park" from their slide? It certainly wasn't for lack of room:

(Plenty of room – shown in yellow – for a "Park"!)

In July, Mr. Damian Garde reported in the Kensington Patch on an interview with Ms. Mary Bradford, Montgomery County Director of Parks:

Bradford said the Parks Department has long been amenable to sharing the use of sites with MCPS, but that the proposed middle school [in Rock Creek Hills Park] would leave no room for that. "This is not a matter of finding a space where it works together with the park," she said. "It would obliterate the park, and that's different from sharing the site. We want to work to find a better way."

The Parks Department wants to work to find a better way, but MCPS risked misleading the site selection advisory committee by failing to acknowledge that their "template" school is co-located with a park. In their presentation to the committee, MCPS staff even chose to omit the word "Park" from the name of the school. What a curious omission.

Let's make things better!

2012-01-11T14:45:00.000-05:00

This evening, the new site selection advisory committee for Bethesda - Chevy Chase middle school #2 will hold its first meeting. Our community is looking forward to participating in an open fact-based site selection process that we are confident will find solutions superior to Rock Creek Hills Park, which fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the official site selection criteria. (On November 17th our County Board of Education rescinded their April 28th decision to take Rock Creek Hills Park from the Parks Department, but the park remains at risk as a "candidate site".)

In November, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr wrote: ‎"As we enter into a new site selection process for the new middle school, a priority is to avoid the pitfalls we experienced on the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site selection." Accurate descriptions of candidate sites are critical to avoid the pitfalls of the last site selection. Unfortunately, the new MCPS description of Rock Creek Hills Park (which forms part of the official starting point for site evaluation by the new site selection advisory committee) contains significant factual inaccuracies:

• DESCRIPTION:
The MCPS description of Rock Creek Hills Park as "Formerly Kensington Junior High School" does not reflect current land use:

Rock Creek Hills Park is a portion of the former KJH site. Thirty years ago, after KJH was closed, about one-third of the former school site was deeded to the Housing Opportunities Commission, which built the Kensington Park Retirement Community on much of the footprint of the old school. The remainder of the former school site (minus one-third of the land, road access to the North, and a through roadway) was developed into Rock Creek Hills Park.

• TOPOGRAPHY:
The MCPS description of Rock Creek Hills Park topography states: “Level area with lower level additional parking. Generally slopes towards stream valley to the west.” That's inaccurate. Look:

(Click image for larger version.)

As the topographical map shows, the park slopes to the South and the West, and has a steep 50-70' drop. Indeed, a June 10, 1985, MNCPPC memo from Jim Crawford to Gail Price noted that the site slopes “steeply toward the Kensington Parkway stream valley park.” The memo noted that “[s]teep slopes ... limit development potential," and that “development would be constrained” because of the “severe topology”.

• ACCESS:
The MCPS description of Rock Creek Hills Park states that the park has two access roads. That's misleading. As seen on the map (above), from the standpoint of physical roadways, there is no arterial road, and there really is only one road along the park, which changes naming conventions. Haverhill is merely a small connection road between Littledale and Saul Roads. Had the developers chosen to name the right fork of the traffic triangle Haverhill and the left fork Saul, we would be speaking of only one road. In contrast, other candidate sites have multiple physical roadways.

• CONSTRAINTS:
The MCPS description of Rock Creek Hills Park states that the only "constraints" are the use of the site as a park, and its topography. That's wrong. Look:

As this document shows, Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and/or State Program Open Space (POS) funds were used to develop the park. The respective governing statutes make clear that land “acquired or developed” with such funds may not be converted to non-park use without undergoing a restrictive conversion process that includes the identification of replacement land of equal monetary and recreational value in the community. This constraint is substantial, and inquiries are pending on the matter with the Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources. To our knowledge, other sites do not face this significant constraint, and thus, its implications for Rock Creek Hills Park should be acknowledged.

• AVAILABILITY:
The MCPS description of Rock Creek Hills Park states that its "availability" is "unknown". As stated above, Federal and/or State law create significant uncertainly regarding the legal availability of the site for construction, which should be acknowledged.

Recently, our community representatives brought these and other site description errors and concerns to the attention of MCPS with a request for clarification. Unfortunately, the site descriptions will not be clarified in time for tonight's meeting. We hope that MCPS will correct these important inaccuracies. After all, an official MCPS "Core Value" (from "Our Call to Action: Pursuit of Excellence. The Strategic Plan for the Montgomery County Public Schools") is: "MCPS demonstrates commitment to continuous improvement by reviewing, evaluating, and improving our work..." And, as Dr. Starr has said, "... we are never fully absolved from our responsibility to make things better."

Is Rock Creek Hills Park "available"?

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

This Wednesday, the new site selection advisory committee for Bethesda - Chevy Chase middle school #2 will hold its first meeting. Our community is looking forward to participating in an open fact-based site selection process that we are confident will find solutions superior to Rock Creek Hills Park, which fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the official site selection criteria. (On November 17th our County Board of Education rescinded their April 28th decision to take Rock Creek Hills Park from the Parks Department, but the park remains at risk as a "candidate site".)

Rock Creek Hills Park is unique among listed candidate sites in that it is the only site whose availability has been questioned by our Superintendent of Schools.

Thirty years ago, after Kensington Junior High School was closed, about one-third of the former school site was deeded to the Housing Opportunities Commission, which built the Kensington Park Retirement Community on much of the footprint of the old school. The remainder of the former school site was developed into Rock Creek Hills Park by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) using federal Land and Water Conservation Funds (LWCF) and/or state Program Open Space funds:

(Federal Land and Water Conservation Funds, administered through Maryland's Program Open Space, were used to develop Rock Creek Hills Park.)

In November, Dr. Joshua P. Starr, Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, explained that this "... was inconsistent with the reclamation terms of the transfer agreement under which the M-NCPPC took title to the property. This was the case since use of these funds places restrictions on future public use of parks, in contradiction with the terms of the original transfer agreement." Indeed, the Act authorizing LWCF states that "No property acquired or developed with assistance under this section shall, without the approval of the Secretary [of the Department of the Interior], be converted to other than public outdoor recreation uses." Under the law, parks developed with these funds may not be converted from park use without providing replacement land of equal value in the community. Similar restrictions apply to parks developed with funds from our state's Program Open Space.

We are confident that the new site selection process will find solutions superior to Rock Creek Hills Park, which fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the official site selection criteria – including that most essential criterion, availability.

What does the 2011 "feasibility study" say about Rock Creek Hills Park?

2012-01-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

In ten days, the new site selection advisory committee for Bethesda - Chevy Chase middle school #2 will hold its first meeting. Our community is looking forward to participating in an open fact-based site selection process that we are confident will find solutions superior to Rock Creek Hills Park, which fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the official site selection criteria. (On November 17th our County Board of Education rescinded their April 28th decision to take Rock Creek Hills Park from the Parks Department, but the park remains at risk as a "candidate site".)

Rock Creek Hills Park is unique among listed candidate sites in that a "feasibility study" regarding the proposal to replace the park with a middle school complex has been completed. Given the expenditure of money, time, and effort on this feasibility study, it is prudent to ask: What does the 2011 feasibility study say about Rock Creek Hills Park as a potential middle school site? In fact, the feasibility study illuminates site deficiencies that are consequences of the decision made thirty years ago to deed one-third of the former Kensington Junior High School site to the Housing Opportunities Commission, which built the Kensington Park Retirement Community on much of the footprint of the old school. Consider:

The 2011 feasibility study shows that Rock Creek Hills Park is too small.

Busball, anyone? Early signs of struggles with the small site.

• In October, all three final feasibility study options used "overlaid" playing fields:

When is a soccer field not a soccer field?
Whenever someone's playing softball.
When is a tennis court not a tennis court?
Whenever someone's running track.
(And when is a basketball court not a basketball court?
When "portable classrooms" are parked on it.)

The 2011 feasibility study shows that Rock Creek Hills Park has inadequate access.

• None of the three final feasibility study "options" have three access points;

• None of the three final feasibility study "options" have a separate service drive.

The 2011 feasibility study shows that the proposed construction would obliterate Rock Creek Hills Park.

• In July, the Montgomery County Parks Director said that construction would "obliterate" the park.
• In August, Montgomery County Public Schools appeared to agree that "there's not going to be any trees left":

"... you're doing grading and adjusting the levels everyplace,
so there's not going to be any trees left."

Kids Need Parks!

2012-01-01T11:59:00.000-05:00

Soccer at Rock Creek Hills Park, 11/5/11. (Click image for larger version.)

‎"As we enter into a new site selection process..." [Thanksgiving Day repost]

2011-11-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

‎"As we enter into a new site selection process for the new middle school, a priority is to avoid the pitfalls we experienced on the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site selection."

- from Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr's memo "Site Selection Process for Bethesda-Chevy Chase Middle School #2".

Board Rescinds Park Choice, Restarts Site Search.

2011-11-17T18:46:00.000-05:00

This evening, at the recommendation of Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua P. Starr, who began in that position on July 1st, our Montgomery County Board of Education voted unanimously to begin a new site selection process for the second Bethesda - Chevy Chase Middle School, rescinding their April 28th resolution that had selected the site of Rock Creek Hills Park.

We are confident that the new process will yield solutions superior to the site of Rock Creek Hills Park, which fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the specified site evaluation criteria.

"... this is a breath of fresh air!" [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed hearing]

2011-11-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

Good evening. My name is Lynne Kaplan, and I want to express my thanks to Dr. Starr, Mr. Barclay, and to the Board for providing this opportunity to testify before you today. I also want to thank you, Dr. Starr, for taking action to “restart the process in a transparent and inclusive manner”; this is a breath of fresh air! I value and encourage support for your request by Board and County Council representatives. We are grateful that you have recognized many of the significant challenges attached to the selection of the Rock Creek Hills Park site.

I want to share just a few notes about my personal and professional expertise to provide some context for my thoughts:

I am a mother of two adult children who matriculated at public schools and speak now passionately about the value of learning in a diverse and welcoming environment.
I am a professional facilitator who works with organizations you all know to help them explore complex issues and identify workable solutions. Disney, Nike, the NCAA, and the NFL are just a few of the clients I have supported through my business.
I am a neighbor of the Rock Creek Hills community.

The decision to “restart the clock” on the BCC Middle School #2 site selection process is greatly appreciated. The last process was flawed in both design and execution. Both the identification and the decision to select the Rock Creek Hills Park site were rushed and ignored many of the real restrictions that encumber the land. The Feasibility Study team actually reinvented the term. Staff said their job was not to figure out if a school was feasible but how to make it fit. This yielded a recommendation for a school that will be too small from day one, too expensive because of the costs associated with preparing the site, and created a potential legal landmine for Montgomery County due to inherent facility inadequacies and lack of parity.

I believe a more transparent process is both possible and essential to address the needs of Montgomery County citizens. I support your recommendations outlined in the November 8 memorandum. I also urge the team to look beyond the existing sites to identify viable options that will fit the identified criteria.

That said, I ask you to consider broadening your approach to develop a process that brings together qualified individuals to reexamine all the possible strategies for addressing the overcrowding of Downcounty schools. Given the dynamics of population growth, are there other options that would meet the need and manage scare resources effectively?

Finally, I implore you to protect the Core Values and Best Practices that made Montgomery County a Malcolm Baldrige winner. The values you espouse demand that you take action to protect the racial and socio-economic balance of the BCC community. As a professional, one of my greatest pleasures is designing and facilitating leadership training for men and women who came from disadvantaged neighborhoods. For many of them, a quality public school education was one of the life lines that helped them break the cycle. All students need to learn in diverse environments so that they are prepared to live and flourish in our multicultural world.

I want to thank you again for your visionary leadership and want to confirm our community’s intent to be of service to find the best possible solution for the children of Montgomery County.

"I'm here ... to show my support for Dr. Starr's recommendation..." [Testimony at last night's Board of Ed hearing]

2011-11-11T18:00:00.000-05:00

[Testimony from Ms. Sandra van Bochove]

I’m here today as a resident of Rock Creek Hills neighborhood but foremost, as a mother of a third grader at NCC, to show my support for Dr. Starr’s recommendation to begin a new site selection process for BCC Middle School #2 with transparency, true community involvement, and viable sites that will include private partnerships.

I applaud Dr. Starr’s leadership in recognizing a flawed process, and applaud the Board for recognizing the need for improvement within inter-agency communications, especially with Parks and Planning, and the County Council, both of whom are integral pieces to this complex puzzle.

As many of you have identified, RCHLP continues to be a site with many challenges, ranging from a fee simple conveyance of part of the site that does not identify a reclaim right, to clarification on restrictions imposed by the use of federal funds (LWCF) administered through Program Open Space. The need for clarification has sparked three Congressional inquiries to the DOI and DNR.

Although these challenges are the results of decisions made more than 20 years ago, it is reassuring that you as our educational leaders recognize the need to “cast a wider net on sites and on community engagement”, that goes beyond the role of PTAs.

In that spirit I would also like to voice my concerns regarding the proposed elementary school boundary changes. As a member of that boundary committee, like Dr. Starr, I also voted for Option #5, based on demographics, enrollment projections and appropriate classroom additions for three schools: NCC with 8; BE with either 4 or 8; RHPS with 6.

As a parent of a child at NCC I am very concerned with the current projected enrollment which out of all three schools, puts NCC at the highest capacity of 201% by next year, but yet its 8-classroom additions has been diminished to only a 6-room addition that will not accommodate a significant surge in student influx due to new boundary changes.

I would implore you to review our decision based on outdated data and consider not only the enormous capacity levels at NCC, but also the detrimental impact of these boundary changes along socio-economic lines and the diversity make-up of the BCC community which contributes to the success of our cluster nationwide.

As always, we are great supporters of all you do for our schools and the tremendous task you have in front that will be alleviated with true transparency and true community outreach to all stakeholders at hand. I applaud your forward thinking, integrity, and your pursuit to gather support by the community at large.

Thank you.

"You have done our children and community a great service ..." [Testimony at last night's Board of Ed hearing]

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

Good evening,

My name is Teddy Springer and I am a resident of Chevy Chase View. I am here to applaud wholeheartedly Dr. Starr’s recent recommendation to reopen the site selection process for the new middle school in the B-CC cluster. It has not been an easy situation for all involved, with differing opinions and differing approaches. Dr. Starr has taken a difficult step and shown the community that he is willing to do the right thing. He has shown great leadership in doing so, and it is very much appreciated. Now I ask that the members of the Board continue this forward momentum by approving the Superintendant’s recommendation.

I am also pleased to see that Dr. Starr has addressed many of my concerns regarding the Site Selection Advisory Committee. Reaching out to and including various stakeholders, soliciting various site options, and providing the public with the report (if no private property is under consideration) are all vital components in making an informed decision concerning the new middle school site. Equally important is that you direct MCPS staff to provide an objective analysis of truly viable sites, ones that meet your own criteria for a middle school complex, and to tap their creative side to identify options other than parkland.

Naturally, my concerns with the size and adequacy of Rock Creek Hills Park and the cost of building the school there still remain. These concerns consistently lead me back to the issue of equity with Westland and the issue of socio-economic diversity. Our cluster has worked hard over many years to integrate various neighborhoods into the assorted elementary schools, and the caliber of B-CC High School is a testament to our success. I implore you not to turn back the clock and undo this hard-fought achievement by siting the school in a deficient location. A site more centrally situated will ensure the ability of the school system to keep the balance that has produced so many enlightened, well-educated students.

I now look forward to a site selection process that will proceed with input from all affected groups and communities. I sincerely hope that MCPS staff will work diligently to provide well-researched, viable options and that they will think creatively when bringing ideas to the table. As a mother of children in MCPS and a member of the community, I pledge to do all that I can to help this process move forward in a positive and productive manner. And I urge members of other communities, and even those in my own community, with varying opinions to work together in a constructive, affirmative and respectful manner to reach the goal that we all want: a top-notch middle school in our cluster. So although I feel there are still issues that must be studied in order for this school to be built in the best place for our children and our cluster, I am hopeful that we are now closer to that end.

So to Dr. Starr: many thanks for your good work. You have done our children and community a great service by putting a stop to the flawed process and giving us all the chance to do it right. And to the members of the Board: please proceed in this positive direction and approve the recommendation. By doing so, you will ensure that we will build a quality middle school at an appropriate site, something all parents – and taxpayers – want.

Thank you.

"As we enter into a new site selection process..."

2011-11-10T20:00:00.000-05:00

‎"As we enter into a new site selection process for the new middle school, a priority is to avoid the pitfalls we experienced on the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site selection."

- from Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr's memo "Site Selection Process for Bethesda-Chevy Chase Middle School #2".

"... I am here today to support Dr. Starr’s recent recommendation ..." [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-11-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

Good morning, Dr. Starr, Ms. Brandman, and members of the Board.

My name is James Pekar, and I am here today to support Dr. Starr’s recent recommendation to re-do the B-CC Middle School Site Selection, as doing so offers a much-needed period of reflection and assures input from all affected interested parties. I am grateful that you are recognizing some of the significant challenges associated with the Rock Creek Hills Park site.

Dr. Starr noted that all sites considered will be considered again. As I testified and Dr. Starr acknowledged, threshold issues exist regarding the availability of Rock Creek Hills Park for conversion to school use. Given the controversy surrounding the process up to this point, it is imperative that the status of the park be clarified in an open and transparent manner, with specific documentation available for inspection and analysis.

For example, under the Maryland Code, conversion restrictions apply to land “acquired or developed” with Program Open Space funds. Absent is any language limiting enforcement of this restriction, which is noteworthy because, as you know, there is third-hand information indicating that DNR may draw such a distinction as a matter of “practice”. This lack of clarity, coupled with the fact that the only documentation found so far states that the park was developed with Land and Water Conservation Fund money, is what prompted the inquiries pending with the state and with the federal government.

As you conduct your review, we ask that you join our request to secure the following information to clarify this situation:

The sources of the development funds used for development of the park;
The specific documentation that DNR has regarding the use of LWCF and/or POS funds for the development of the park;
The documentation regarding any limitations that were attached to the funds used for the development of that park;
Should any reported DNR “practice” to limit enforcement of any statutory conversion restrictions exist, the statutory basis for that “practice”; and
The statutory or regulatory provisions supporting any conclusions on the legal status of the LWCF and/or POS funds discussed.

As always, we stand ready to assist the Board in finding a site that maximizes educational benefits to all students in this cluster.

Thank you.

"A Wise and Considered Decision."

2011-11-05T13:00:00.000-04:00

WEEKEND UPDATE.

BACKGROUND:
On April 28th, our Montgomery County Board of Education voted to conduct a feasibility study for a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase middle school #2, to be located on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park. Precisely half a year later, on Friday October 28th, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr released his Capital Improvement Program (CIP) recommendations, which included the construction of a middle school for 944 students, at an estimated cost of $46,485,000.00, to open in 2017, on the site of the park. No other information was available, as the feasibility study report for the project had not been made available, including in draft form.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT:
On November 2nd, when Dr. Starr briefed the Board of Education on his CIP recommendations, he recommended that the site selection process for B-CC middle school 2 be re-opened. According to a "public announcement" posted on the MCPS website, Dr. Starr explained that:

"In their opposition to the use of Rock Creek Hills Local Park for the new middle school the community has raised concerns over the process used to select the site and the suitability of the site for a middle school. The controversy over this site has spread beyond the immediate community. At this point I am concerned that we may not have the support of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) — that is critical to having the property transferred back to the Board of Education — and of the County Council — who we need to fund construction of the school."

Dr. Starr provided the Board with an impressively comprehensive history of the Rock Creek Hills Park site, starting in 1937! In particular, Dr. Starr reviewed funds used to develop the park in the 1990's:

"The use of Program Open Space funds was inconsistent with the reclamation terms of the transfer agreement under which the M-NCPPC took title to the property. This was the case since use of these funds places restrictions on future public use of parks, in contradiction with the terms of the original transfer agreement."

Dr. Starr made his recommendation:

"I am recommending that a new site selection process be conducted to review all sites that were previously considered as well as other candidates that may be identified through this process. In the next few days I will be sending a memorandum to the Board of Education outlining how the site selection process would be conducted and the timeframe for the study. The new site selection process for B-CC Middle School #2 will take advantage of the M-NCPPC/MCPS Joint Working Group that is exploring ways to improve site selection procedures."

REACTIONS:

After Dr. Starr made his recommendation Wednesday night, Board members expressed support. Board President Christopher Barclay said "I think that this recommendation satisfies some real concerns that have been expressed." Board member Laura Berthiaume began her remarks by "commending the Superintendent on a wise and considered decision". In the days following, Montgomery County Council members Hans Riemer and George Leventhal expressed support, with Mr. Riemer praising Dr. Starr's decision as "a stand for integrity".

LOOKING AHEAD:
We urge the Board to accept the Superintendent's recommendation to restart site selection, and we look forward to the Superintendent's memo on the new process. We are pleased that the M-NCPPC, which is the County agency with responsibility for land use and planning, will be involved. Our community is looking forward to participating an open, transparent, and fact-based site selection process that seeks a wide range of solutions to the needs of our children. We are confident that such a process will find better solutions than the Rock Creek Hills Park site, which fails to meet essentially all of the Board of Education's official criteria for a middle-school site.

"I am recommending that a new site selection process be conducted to review all sites that were previously considered as well as other candidates that may be identified ..."

2011-11-03T07:15:00.000-04:00

Following are remarks by Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr at last evening's meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education, as provided by Ms. Mary Cobbett, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School PTA Cluster Coordinator:

Statement of Superintendent Joshua P. Starr to the Board of Education Regarding Bethesda-Chevy Chase (B-CC) Middle School #2 (November 2, 2011)

· Before we begin review of my Recommended FY 2013–2018 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) I want to take some time to address one of the most important capital projects I am recommending; construction of a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase Cluster middle school.

· As you know, there has been a good deal of controversy since the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site was adopted by the Board of Education on April 28, 2011, as the location for the new middle school.

· I have been concerned about the issues raised by the Rock Creek Hills community that have been most vocally represented by Mr. Jim Pekar. He and other members of this community are strongly opposed to construction of the new middle school at their local park.

· In their opposition to the use of Rock Creek Hills Local Park for the new middle school the community has raised concerns over the process used to select the site and the suitability of the site for a middle school.

· The controversy over this site has spread beyond the immediate community. At this point I am concerned that we may not have the support of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC)—that is critical to having the property transferred back to the Board of Education—and of the County Council—who we need to fund construction of the school.

· At the same time as these concerns cloud the prospects for the new middle school, increasing middle school enrollment—and the need to reassign Grade 6 students from Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase elementary schools to the middle school level—are pressing concerns of students and parents in the B-CC cluster.

· PTA leaders in the B-CC Cluster are rightfully anxious to see the new middle school project move forward as expeditiously as possible.

· I am sympathetic to the concerns of parents in the B-CC cluster, but I also believe we need consider the issues surrounding the use of the site and resolve these in a productive fashion.

· Following are concerns over reclamation of the site, and concerns over the site selection process.

Reclamation of the Property and Program Open Space Funding

· The transfer agreements that passed ownership of the Rock Creek Hills property from the Board of Education to the county, and then to the M-NCPPC, clearly stated that in the event the property is needed for public school use in the future, then it will be transferred back to the Board of Education.

· This reclamation provision was important to the Board of Education’s action to adopt Rock Creek Hills Local Park as the site for the new middle school back on April 28, 2011.

· Recently it has been determined that there may be more “strings” attached to our ability to reclaim the property for public school use.

· When the M-NCPPC developed the park in the early 1990s they accepted funds from the Program Open Space (POS). This is a program managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to distribute funds from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to preserve open space.

· The use of Program Open Space funds was inconsistent with the reclamation terms of the transfer agreement under which the M-NCPPC took title to the property. This was the case since use of these funds places restrictions on future public use of parks, in contradiction with the terms of the original transfer agreement.

· We are currently conducting research on whether the restrictions may affect our ability to reclaim the Rock Creek Hills Park property.

Concerns with the Site Selection Process

· Beyond the recently identified legal issue of reclaiming the park property, there is the lingering concern over the process leading up to adoption of the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site.

· Staff has developed a detailed chronology of the site selection process, the Board of Education action, and the appeal to the Maryland State Board of Education. In addition, correspondence related to these matters has been provided to me.

· I have been carefully considering the chronology of events, as well as the ongoing input from the Rock Creek Hills community.

· I want to state clearly that I believe the process that was conducted leading up to Board of Education action on April 28, 2011, was conducted in conformance to applicable Board policy and school system regulations.

· In addition, I have confidence in the recent feasibility study that showed how the new middle school can be constructed at the Rock Creek Hills Local park site. This study showed that nearly all of the current open space area can be preserved, including the play fields, and a state-of-the-art middle school can be constructed.

· Although all of the appropriate steps have been followed, I have to acknowledge that there are enough issues still hanging over this project that additional steps are needed to firm up support for the new middle school.

Recommendation of New Site Selection Process

· I am recommending that a new site selection process be conducted to review all sites that were previously considered as well as other candidates that may be identified through this process.

· In the next few days I will be sending a memorandum to the Board of Education outlining how the site selection process would be conducted and the timeframe for the study.

· The new site selection process for B-CC Middle School #2 will take advantage of the M-NCPPC/MCPS Joint Working Group that is exploring ways to improve site selection procedures. This group began meeting on October 26, 2011.

Continue with CIP Recommendation to Open B-CC MS #2 in 2017

· My recommendation to redo the site selection process is not inconsistent with my CIP recommendation to open the new B-CC Middle School #2 in August 2017. There is sufficient time in this schedule to allow for the new site selection process and still open the new middle school by the recommended date of August 2017.

BREAKING NEWS!

2011-11-02T22:09:00.003-04:00

A tweet from Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr, reporting on his recommendation made at this evening's meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education:

Don't Pave Paradise. [repost]

2011-11-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

"The notion that there is no other place to construct this school simply is nonsense..."

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

[An October 23rd email from Ms. Fern Shepard to Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr.]

Dear Dr. Starr,

I am a parent of three children in MCPS schools in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster, and I am writing to express my strong opposition to your staff's proposal to build a second middle school on Rock Creek Hills Park.

Your staff's proposal for a second middle school at Rock Creek Park is a mistake for three reasons. First, this proposal will result in an unnecessarily expensive and inadequate school. Many other viable and less-expensive options exist to redress overcrowding in our cluster schools, and you have been mislead if you have been told otherwise. Second, we have worked hard in our cluster for racial and economic integration of our schools, and this middle school proposal threatens to unwind decades of success. At the very least, this proposal will exacerbate racial and economic disparity in our cluster, and for absolutely no good reason because the overcrowding can be addressed while maintaining our tradition of integration. Finally, we live in an increasingly crowded and urbanized area, and our park lands are precious resources that cannot be replaced. The unnecessary destruction of a heavily used and important park in this cluster is a more than a waste, it is unforgivable. The notion that there is no other place to construct this school simply is nonsense, and it demonstrates the fundamental failure of the site selection process to consider the full range of options to redress school overcrowding in our cluster.

We ask that you take the time to give us, the parents of the children in this cluster, the opportunity to share with you our options for addressing school overcrowding in our area. This problem can be solved without controversy, without unnecessary expense, and without delay. Please do not approve this project for the CIP without at least taking the time to talk to those of us whose children will be most affected.

Sincerely,

Fern Shepard
Kensington, MD

cc:
County Executive Isiah Leggett
Montgomery County Council
Montgomery County Board of Education
State Senator Richard Madaleno

"Children need both schools and parks."

2011-11-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

[An October 27 email from Ms. Susan Buchanan to Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr, and the members of the Montgomery County Council.]

Dear Dr. Starr and Montgomery County Council Members,

Due to the controversial nature in which the site selection took place for the BCC Middle School #2, I am writing to ask you to include a placeholder in the CIP for this facility and take some time to explore alternatives to Rock Creek Hills as the site for the new school.

I believe MCPS and Montgomery County as a whole should exhaust all options for new school sites before considering parks. Children need both schools and parks. We are an overweight, sedentary society and we should not rob children of their neighborhood outdoor space because it's the cheapest or simplest option. Please select a more balanced site selection advisory committee and give them free reign to explore outside-the-box options for a new middle school site.

For example:

The committee which chose Rosemary Hills/Lyttonsville and Rock Creek Hills Parks didn't explore options like reopening Lynnbrook Elementary School in East Bethesda (still in MCPS inventory) and shuffling elementary boundaries in a way that might allow either Rock Creek Forest or NCC to be renovated and become the new school. If Spanish Immersion were moved to Silver Spring International, this could work. It would also solve the BCC elementary school boundary dilemma by giving East Bethesda the true "walking school" they desire without re-segregating the mini-cluster.
Chevy Chase Lake company owns land they would be willing to sell to MCPS for the new school. Yet, no one from MCPS or the site selection advisory committee explored this option. Perhaps land in the MCPS inventory elsewhere in the county could be sold to raise funds to purchase a plot of land in the down county for the new middle school.
People keep throwing out the idea of building a "sixth grade academy" at Westland, an idea that should be further explored.

Other options and creative ideas abound. Please allow our cluster the opportunity to provide ideas and don't take action to approve Rock Creek Hills Park based on the flawed site selection process conducted for this middle school. We need our green space in the down county - so much land is already paved over and primed for redevelopment. Please don't pave a park to build a school.

Thank you for your consideration of this request,

Susan Buchanan
Silver Spring, MD

$46,485,000 for 944?

2011-10-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday our Superintendent of Schools recommended that our Board of Education propose to our County Council that a middle school for for 944 students be built, at an estimated cost of $46,485,000.00, on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park.

No other information is available, because the "feasibility study" report for the project has not been released, including in draft form.

As considerable uncertainty exists regarding the availability of the site, such a proposal would not be prudent.

Rock Creek Hills Park fails to meet essentially all of the Board of Education's official criteria for middle school sites; building there would be unreasonably expensive, fail to provide parity with existing middle schools, and violate respect for the rule of law.

Before voting on the Superintendent's recommendation, the Board will hold hearings on November 10th & 14th; persons wishing to testify should call 301-279-3617 beginning 9:00 AM this Monday (October 31st).

If the Board approves the recommendation, the proposal would go to the County Council, which will hold hearings before their vote in the Spring.

An appeal to the State Board of Education, filed by the Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, is pending; the Association recently voted (96% to 4%) to continue opposition to this plan, by all reasonable means.

URGENT: Write Now!

2011-10-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

NOW is the TIME to WRITE!

The school Superintendent's capital budget recommendation is due this week, so please click here to let Dr. Starr and the County Council know that you oppose construction of a middle school on Rock Creek Hills Park.

Clicking that link will open an email window. Please make any changes you want, and then please add your name and address at the bottom, before clicking "send".

Yes, let's stress-test!

2011-10-19T22:30:00.000-04:00

At his "Listen & Learn" event last night in Silver Spring, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr said that the decision to build a middle school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park would be "stress-tested".

We could not think of a better way to stress-test the decision, than by using the Montgomery County Board of Eduction's eight official criteria (see below) for evaluating potential middle school sites. Let's apply them to the park, which fails almost all:

Criterion 1. LOCATION: FAIL

"Due to the location of Westland Middle School, at the extreme western side of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Cluster, a site for the new middle school that is centrally located or closer to the eastern side of the cluster is desirable."

The Site Selection Advisory Committee failed to respect the Board's guidance in this matter, as Rock Creek Hills Park is in the far northeast of the cluster.

Criterion 2. SIZE: FAIL

"The .... Board of Education standard for a middle school is 20 acres."

Rock Creek Hills Park is a little more than 13 acres, including a steep creek-side slope that drops more than 50 feet, and specimen trees that would be lost to construction.

Criterion 3. TOPOGRAPHY: FAIL

"The existence of mature trees and steep slopes should be considered as these factors also could increase development costs or render portions of the site unusable. ... In addition to avoidance of steep slopes, ... as previously mentioned, credit is given for avoiding land ... that is designated as public parkland."

Rock Creek Hills Park has specimen trees and a steep creek-side slope and is a public park!

Criterion 4. ACCESS: FAIL

"The ... site should have access to a primary subdivision road, which consists of a 70-foot wide right-of-way. ... sites that have sufficient frontage to accommodate at least three points of access are preferred. ... A separate service drive is needed for deliveries. ... Community sidewalks are preferred to enhance safe student walking access to the school."

Unlike several candidate sites eliminated by the Site Selection Advisory Committee, Rock Creek Hills Park lacks a primary subdivision road. None of the MCPS feasibility study options include three points of access, or a separate service drive. Community sidewalks are not in place.

Criterion 5. UTILITIES: POOR

"A suitable site must have access to public utilities that include water, sanitary sewer, natural gas, electricity, and cable."

Utilities exist, but are inadequate to support the proposed construction, and would require major upgrades.

Criterion 6. PHYSICAL CONDITION: PASS

"Excessive noise, distracting activities, or hazardous industrial-type uses on adjacent land would not be conducive to education."

The park appears hazard-free.

Criterion 7. AVAILABILITY AND TIMING: FAIL

"Site availability is considered..."

Documents suggest that federal Land and Water Conservation Funds (LWCF) and state Program Open Space funds were used to develop the park; as a result, considerable uncertainty exists regarding whether conversion of the site is permissible under state and/or federal law.

Criterion 8. COST: FAIL

"Cost was a consideration..."

If the site is available, which is not clear, then it would be necessary to reimburse the parks department for development costs; these are not known. More importantly, under the federal act authorizing the LWCF program, conversion of the park to non-park use would require provision of land of equivalent value in the community. Crucially, because of the small site and steep slope, construction would cost substantially more (perhaps tens of millions of dollars more) on this site than on a more appropriate site. Finally, the "cost" to the community, and to the county, of losing the much-used park would be considerable.

"Great confidence"?

2011-10-17T06:25:00.000-04:00

At the October 11th meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education, Dr. Joshua P. Starr, Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, said:

"What's most important to me, quite frankly, and what I've been working on with the team, is making sure our community, our funders, everybody, really understands how decisions are being made, because they are extremely complex and there are of course competing interests and demands. But if we step back a little bit and take a look at how decisions are being made, what the data are, so that everybody really understands what's happening, when, and why, I think folks will have great confidence in the capital improvement program (CIP) that we will be presenting in a few weeks."

We agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment! The idea that the closer you look, the better we look, is a guiding principle of many professions, and is an always-appropriate aspiration for a public servant.

So, would it be possible to have "great confidence" in a CIP that listed Rock Creek Hills Park as the site of B-CC middle school #2? If we "step back a little bit and take a look at how decisions are being made", we see that:

And, aside from the general principle of respect for the law, what about the specifics of the proposed construction? If we were to "really understand what's happening, when, and why", then we would see that:

"The MCPS feasibility study [proposed] a middle school that is too small to meet projected enrollment; to meet bus, faculty, parent and visitor parking; and to provide adequate playing fields. To accommodate 1,200 students will require expansion, which will increase costs and limit sports programs even more. The site does not provide parity with other middle schools in the county per MCPS requirements."

A middle school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park would be unreasonably expensive, fail to provide parity with other middle schools, and violate the rule of law. Its inclusion in the CIP would not be consistent with "great confidence" in "what's happening".

"... we decided by a vote of 80 to 3 to continue our opposition to the construction of the proposed middle school on this site."

2011-10-14T22:45:00.000-04:00

[An October 8th letter from Mr. John Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, to Ms. Valerie Ervin, President, Montgomery County Council. Identical letters were sent to Mr. Isiah Leggett, Montgomery County Executive; Mr. Christopher Barclay, President, Montgomery County Board of Education; and Dr. Joshua P. Starr, Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools.]

Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association

9616 Old Spring Road

Kensington, MD 20895

October 8, 2011

The Honorable Valerie Ervin
President, Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850

Dear Council President Ervin:

This letter advises you of the results of the Rock Creek Hill Citizens Association's (RCHCA) meeting on Monday October 3, 2011. RCHCA residents attended to discuss the community’s collective response to Board of Education September 22, 2011 final feasibility presentation for the proposed middle school at Rock Creek Hills Local Park. At the meeting the electronic version of that presentation was available, as well as a handout summarizing the most important site layout and massing diagrams.

Over the course of a one hour and twenty minute discussion period, the community discussed the site layout; environmental issues; the size of the school and its prospects for expansion; probable cost, traffic and safety issues; and environmental issues related to deforestation and storm water runoff. The basis for the discussion was the MCPS Staff presentations and comments presented at the feasibility study meetings.

After the discussion, including arguments for and against the appropriateness of a new school on the Rock Creek Hills Local Park, of the more than 100 members who attended we decided by a vote of 80 to 3 to continue our opposition to the construction of the proposed middle school on this site. The community’s concerns continue to be:

The size, configuration, utility, and equivalence of the physical plant, especially in comparison to other middle schools.
The lack of sufficient space on the site to meet the long term needs of the County school system.
Concern that the curriculum would not be as sophisticated as that at Westland Middle School.
The high cost of the project estimated at 60 to 70 million dollars.
The marginal nature of the athletic fields, again due to the constrained site.
The fact that no option could be configured that would provide for the minimum number of parking spaces for a middle school, especially one expected to be expanded to its maximum capacity of 1200 students.

Our concerns about the adequacy of this site for the proposed middle school are exacerbated by the loss of extensive recreational facilities in high demand and utilized by the broader community, including the two regulation soccer fields developed with state and/or federal funds. It should be remembered that, as noted by MCPS Staff, any school facilities likely will be secured and unavailable for recreational purposes to the community except for minimal times when they are not needed for school purposes. It is clear that there also will be severe, if not extreme, deforestation and strong potential for storm water damage due to the extensive grading that will be required for this site. For example, the existing playing fields will be dropped by four feet and at least two ten foot high retaining walls are required under any of the final options presented at the September 22 meeting. Buffering will be limited accordingly and will take several years to grow in to a point of effectiveness. Moreover, important information, such as the specific points of traffic impact, was not available before the meeting, and there has not even been a study of whether this is a safe community for a walking school.

To summarize, the proposed middle school on the Rock Creek Hills Local Park would involve high cost, a risk of an inadequate educational program, and severe impacts on the County's recreational facilities and environment. These facts, coupled with the lack of critical information, even at this late date, caused the community to reject the feasibility study and oppose the construction of the school. It should be noted that as suggested by the Council and the County Executive the Rock Creek Hills Community participated extensively in all of the feasibility meetings before reaching this decision.

Sincerely yours,
/s/
John M. Robinson
President,
Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association

cc: The Honorable Montgomery Council Members

"... there's not going to be any trees left." [repost]

2011-10-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

Parks Director Mary Bradford said that construction of a middle school on Rock Creek Hills Park "would obliterate the park", and, as this video shows, Montgomery County Public Schools appears to agree that "... there's not going to be any trees left."

[Watch on YouTube]

"Here's what we've done to help." [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-10-11T13:26:00.000-04:00

Good morning, Dr. Starr, Mr. Barclay, and members of the Board.

My name is James Pekar. I have appeared before you several times to speak against building a school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park. Today, I’d like to suggest an area where, with your assistance, we may find common ground.

As I testified here two weeks ago, a threshold issue exists for you, the county, and the state, in connection with the actual availability of the park site for construction of a school. Documentation shows that, in 1992, federal Land and Water Conservation Funds were used to develop Rock Creek Hills Park. Under the law, parks developed with these funds may not be converted from park use without providing replacement land of equal value in the community. There is third-hand information that Program Open Space (POS) funding may also have been used here, and, if that is the case, restrictions similar to those of the LWCF may apply regarding conversion of the site. For this reason, and to ascertain how the Department of Natural Resources will enforce conversion restrictions, we wrote to the DNR Secretary soliciting his clarification. To date, we have heard nothing from the DNR Secretary on this matter.

Regardless of how one feels about site selection, I think we can all agree that understanding the availability of the site is key to avoiding wasting time, resources, and scarce tax dollars pursuing an option that may not exist. Here's what we've done to help: In addition to contacting the DNR Secretary to seek to clarify the sources of funds, accompanying restrictions, and enforcement, members of our community are also reaching out to Governor O’Malley, to our federal Senators and Congressional Representative, to our state Senators and Delegates, and to our local representatives, to seek clarity on the status of the park.

In the absence of the DNR Secretary's response, it would help the process greatly if you would reach out to these parties and seek their assistance to help clarify the situation. Doing so would be consistent with the due diligence that is required in any site selection, and in this case, it could help avoid enforcement actions or threats to future funding. Please know that we stand ready in this regard to assist you in any way that we can.

Thank you.

"... let’s achieve 'Starr' quality in our new middle school." [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-10-11T13:25:00.000-04:00

Good morning,

My name is Teddy Springer. I am here once again to talk to you about the building of a middle school at Rock Creek Hills Park, to ask you to put a placeholder in the Capital Improvement Program and to explore the alternative sites for a middle school in our cluster.

Last night, Dr. Starr, had you been able to hold your “Listen and Learn” event at B-CC, I hope you would have listened to our community and learned that to achieve a quality middle school, we have to start with a quality site. Rock Creek Hills Park is an A+ park, one used by many people from all over our county and beyond. But it is not a good site for a middle school.

Since beginning your stewardship of our children and our schools, Dr. Starr, I hope you have taken the opportunity to learn these specifics about the park:

Though it was once the home of Kensington Junior High, the site is no longer the same because of the senior community that sits where the school once did.
It does not provide the necessary space for a middle school on par with Westland.
The topography poses a huge challenge to building on this site.
The neighboring streets are too narrow, and without sidewalks, to provide proper and safe access to a middle school complex.
The many valuable specimen trees and a watershed stream make this site environmentally significant.

But most importantly, I hope you have learned that building a middle school at Rock Creek Hills Park is cost-prohibitive, for exactly the reasons I have just mentioned. The price to be paid by the county taxpayer would be considerably more than the price paid for other middle schools; yet the finished product would not provide the cluster with a middle school that would give our children an excellent education. Thus, there would be no equity with Westland.

So please, Dr. Starr, let’s achieve “Starr” quality in our new middle school. Please put a placeholder in the CIP and advise the Board to continue the search for a middle school site, one that is an A+ site, not one that gets a failing grade. We recognize the enormity of your task, Dr. Starr, and the myriad of issues before you, but please honor the numerous requests my neighbors and I have made to meet with you. We want to work together to ensure our cluster continues to provide a gold “Starr” education for our children.

Thank you.

Trees. [repost]

2011-10-11T13:24:00.000-04:00

[Watch on YouTube]

We are not alone.

2011-10-07T05:30:00.000-04:00

At Monday's RCHCA meeting, someone said that only residents of Rock Creek Hills – but no one else! – would oppose construction of a middle school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park.

In fact, we are not alone. Residents of other neighborhoods have gone on record stating that building a school on the site of the park would be bad for kids, and for taxpayers. Some particulars come to mind:

Ms. Lynn Amano, Co-president of the Rosemary Hills Neighbors' Association, testified recently before the county Board of Education, expressing concerns about the park as a location for a school. Ms. Amano's September 13th testimony is available online.
Ms. Donna Savage, Chair of the Coalition of Kensington Communities, representing over 5,000 homes in 9 communities, wrote to Council President Valerie Ervin, opposing the Board's plans to build a school on the site of the park. Ms. Savage's July 22nd letter is available online.
Ms. Caren Madsen, Chair of Conservation Montgomery, wrote to Board President Christopher Barclay, mentioning the "many stakeholders that take advantage of [Rock Creek Hills Park] year round", and urging a meeting with the Planning Board to find an alternate site. Ms. Madsen's June 14th letter is available online.
The Montgomery County Civic Federation resolved that "... parkland should not be treated as surplus or vacant property... " The Civic Federation's June 13th resolution is available online.

We are not alone. We've heard from plenty of folks, from outside Rock Creek Hills, concerned that:

The proposed middle school would not be of the same caliber as Westland, and in particular, would not be an International Baccalaureate school.
The proposed middle school would not have field space to accommodate multiple extracurricular sports at a time, as is possible at Westland.
The proposed middle school would have, given its location in the far eastern side of the cluster, the potential to upend carefully calibrated efforts to integrate our cluster.
The proposed middle school would be unreasonably expensive.
The proposed middle school would destroy a widely-used park, including the fields used by the State Champion B-CC High School girls soccer team.

We are not alone. We've heard from many folks who agree that (in the words of a 1979 M-NCPPC memo):

"Because this site was acquired with public funds, and the outdoor recreational facilities (especially the ballfields) serve acute and irreplaceable needs in the area, the public should be permitted uninterrupted and perpetual use of the outdoor recreational facilities."

"...what is actually at stake is the total loss of Rock Creek Hills Park."

2011-10-05T07:30:00.000-04:00

"While phrases such as '...construction of a middle school in a park...' may conjure images of a tidy schoolhouse set back in a bucolic green space, what is actually at stake is the total loss of Rock Creek Hills Park."

- from our letter in today's Gazette newspaper.

Rock Creek Hills residents vote overwhelmingly to continue to defend Rock Creek Hills Park.

2011-10-03T22:00:00.000-04:00

The Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association tonight voted, 80 to 3, to continue to oppose the Board of Ed's plans to take the site of Rock Creek Hills Park to build a middle school.

Come to the RCHCA Meeting on Monday!

2011-10-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

Come to the Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association meeting Monday night!

Help save Rock Creek Hills Park, Monday night, by attending the 7:30 PM meeting of the RCHA at the Grace Episcopal School, 9411 Connecticut Ave., Kensington. And don't be late; please plan to arrive early.

A deeply flawed and secretive process led to the county Board of Education's hurried April 28th proclamation that it would take the site of the park from the Parks Department to build a middle school. At a May 17th emergency meeting, the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association voted overwhelmingly to oppose this by all reasonable means; an appeal to the State Board of Education was filed, and is pending. A complaint to the State Open Meetings Enforcement Board was also filed, and on September 15th the State ruled that the county BOE's site selection process had violated the Open Meetings Act.

Over the summer, MCPS conducted what they call a "feasibility study", with a final presentation on September 22nd, at which this handout was distributed by citizens:

Monday will be the first RCHCA meeting since the final "feasibility study" presentation, so please attend, to learn more about this issue:

Did you know that MCPS site guidelines calls for at least 20 usable acres, and Rock Creek Hills Park is only 13.2 acres?

Did you know the current plan includes a projected student body of 1200 that would require portables and/or a substantial costly expansion?

Did you know that this site does not provide parity with other middle schools in the county per MCPS requirements?

Don’t let the BOE impact the character of our community without your input. Now is the time to ask MCPS for a quality education for our children. Join us at the meeting to learn more!

[Only Rock Creek Hills residents who are dues-paying members of the RCHCA will be able to vote at the meeting. If you are a Rock Creek Hills resident who is not paid up, you can pay your $35 dues (by check only!) at the meeting. Dues are per household but votes are per person, so make it a date.]

Join friends of Rock Creek Hills Park on Monday night!

RCHCA meeting at 7:30 PM.

Grace Episcopal Elementary School,

9411 Connecticut Ave.,

Kensington.

Kids need parks.

2011-10-01T13:15:00.000-04:00

Soccer in Rock Creek Hills Park, 10/1/11.

Soccer in Rock Creek Hills Park, 6/10/11; in the background is the
Kensington Park retirement community.

"... now we are facing more than a matter of opinion." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-09-26T20:00:00.003-04:00

Good evening, Dr. Starr, Mr. Barclay, and members of the Board.

My name is James Pekar. I have appeared before you several times to speak against building a school in Rock Creek Hills Park because new information just keeps coming up, information that, arguably, should have been addressed during the course of the site selection committee’s work.

Today, I point you to potential legal impediments to the conversion of the park to school use that need to be clarified. There exists documentation that, in 1992, more than $171,000 was authorized from the federal Land and Water Conservation Funds available to the county to develop Rock Creek Hills Park. (You have a copy, attached to my written testimony.) Under the law, parks developed with these funds may not be converted from park use without providing replacement land of equal value in the community. We also have learned that the state Department of Natural Resources believes state Program Open Space funds were used for such development. Under the law, conversion restrictions similar to the LWCF apply.

DNR has said that its “practice” is not to enforce POS restrictions beyond 20 years from the use of funds, but our community does not see authority for this “practice” in law. For that reason, and to identify actual fund sources, we have asked the DNR Secretary to clarify this matter. (A copy of the letter is attached.)

Understandably, people can disagree on the issues of parks versus schools, but now we are facing more than a matter of opinion. We have an issue of law, and the county’s and state’s obligation under the law. An incorrect decision here may trigger enforcement action and/or have an impact on future funding to this state.

With such issues at stake, I ask that you, as stewards of the public’s resources, act prudently. Please halt activity in Rock Creek Hills Park until the provenance of park development funds and associated restrictions is understood, so that we may avoid inadvertently triggering a violation of law.

Thank you.

_________________

Attachments:

1. February 5, 1992 Program Open Space Agenda, Board of Public Works (page 7A).

2. August 31, 2011 letter from Mr. John Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens’ Association, to Mr. John Griffin, Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources.

"...that the Open Meetings Act was violated throughout the site selection process calls into question the credibility of the entire decision..."

2011-09-25T10:30:00.001-04:00

"... [we] respectfully suggest that the fact that the Open Meetings Act was violated throughout the site selection process calls into question the credibility of the entire decision to select the Rock Creek Hills Local Park as the site for a new middle school for the B-CC cluster."

- from the September 19th letter from Mr. John Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, to the Maryland State Department of Education, being "a motion of Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association ... to lodge in this proceeding a copy of the September 15, 2011, opinion of the State of Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board."

Dr. Starr, please provide leadership to MCPS staff.

2011-09-21T19:45:00.002-04:00

A cursory review of the "minutes" released by Montgomery County Public Schools yesterday (September 20th) for the final (August 17th)* "working meeting" of the B-CC middle school #2 "feasibility study" reveals a misstatement of the facts.

There was no vote defined as a "preliminary vote" (a term that appears in the minutes). A vote was taken, and the courtyard** option lost. Then, the facilitator, Mr. Dennis Cross, noted that there was a division between community members and MCPS staff, the latter preferring the courtyard option, and the former preferring the option with more green space.

Mr. Cross asked the MCPS staff to explain their position. There was never any indication that a second vote would be taken.

Given the hour (remember, this meeting was smack in the middle of a workday!), people left. After they left, a second vote was called. Some people abstained from the vote; one voted twice; and MCPS staff held to their position.

The MCPS-favored option won by one vote, despite the departure of community members.

When Mr. Cross asked if the one-vote winner was the preferred option, community members noted the aforementioned circumstances, and it was agreed that, to be fair to those who had left assuming that voting was complete, both options would be described as preferred by the committee.

Of course, the damage had been done, as equalizing the two options allows the MCPS-preferred option to be selected without being viewed as contrary to the clear vote of the committee.

The "transition team report" recently prepared for our new Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Joshua P. Starr, calls for the "use of transparent processes to promote broader engagement." We call upon Dr. Starr to recognize that these events – like so much of what has transpired regarding Rock Creek Hills Park! – are contrary to that guidance.

___________

* That's right, minutes that were to be posted "within five days" of the meeting were posted more than one month later.

**Another error in the minutes is the statement that with a courtyard, "more classrooms will have natural light". This is of course incorrect, as by law, all classrooms must have natural light.

BREAKING NEWS: State rules that Montgomery County Board of Education's site selection process for Rock Creek Hills Park violated the Maryland Open Meetings Act.

2011-09-16T17:00:00.001-04:00

In an official opinion dated yesterday, the State of Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board "... conclude that the County Board [of Education] violated the [Open Meetings] Act ... and that its site selection committee violated the Act in numerous regards."

From page 5: "We conclude that the site selection committee violated the Act by holding meetings without giving notice to the public, by failing to keep minutes, and by failing to follow any of the procedures required of a public body meeting out of the public eye."

"... we respectfully request that you clarify any restrictions that apply to the conversion of the RCHLP to non-park use ..."

2011-09-16T09:25:00.000-04:00

The loss of Rock Creek Hills Park could violate federal law. Two weeks ago, John Robinson, President of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, wrote to John Griffin, Maryland's Secretary of Natural Resources (a scan of the letter including all attachments is available):

Please contact Secretary Griffin & Governor O'Malley, and courteously request that Secretary Griffin respond to Mr. Robinson's August 31st letter regarding the use of federal Land and Water Conservation Funds to develop Rock Creek Hills Park:

Department of Natural Resources
Mr. John R. Griffin, Secretary
Tawes State Office Building
580 Taylor Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401-2397
e-mail: jgriffin@dnr.state.md.us
phone: 410-260-8101
fax: 410-260-8111

Governor Martin O'Malley
100 State Circle
Annapolis, MD 21401-1925
e-mail: governor [this link opens an online form]
phone: 410-974-3901, 1-800-811-8336 (toll free, Maryland)
fax: 410-974-3275
tdd: 410-333-3098

Would Park Loss Violate Federal Law?

2011-09-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

This 1992 document confirms that federal Land and Water Conservation Funds were used to develop Rock Creek Hills Park:

Loss of the park would therefore appear to violate federal law, as Section 6(f)(3) of the Act authorizing LWCF states that "No property acquired or developed with assistance under this section shall, without the approval of the Secretary (Department of the Interior), be converted to other than public outdoor recreation uses."

From the Rosemary Hills Neighbors' Association [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-09-13T21:00:00.002-04:00

Superintendent Starr and Board Members,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on my community's behalf. My name is Lynn Amano, and I live in Silver Spring. I serve as Co-president of the Rosemary Hills Neighbors’ Association, representing approximately 300 houses surrounding Rosemary Hills Primary School.

We are very concerned about two issues that you are considering in the coming weeks: Proposed boundary changes to Rosemary Hills Primary School, and the new Middle School #2 which is currently being studied for Rock Creek Hills Park.

We believe a vocal constituency is working to undo the successful integration policies that have made our schools the desirable cluster they are today, under the guise of geographic convenience. Nationwide, this is known as a movement to create “Neighborhood Schools.”

The committee that developed the boundary criteria for RHPS was made up primarily of residents from just one community, while the community surrounding the school went unrepresented. The resulting criteria were based almost solely on geographical proximity. Most of the resulting options would double the FARMS and minority population at North Chevy Chase Elementary and cut the same population at Bethesda Elementary by half.

The new middle school planned for Rock Creek Hills is of concern to us for the same reason. The decision made to locate the new Middle School in the "Far North or East of the cluster" sets up a potential geographical divide along racial and economic lines in our cluster if proximity is used as a determining factor for attendance.

The decisions to send Bethesda and Chevy Chase children to Rosemary Hills Primary School and Rosemary Hills children to Westland Middle school, while not geographically convenient, were put in place to balance our cluster and provide an equal education for all BCC students. The national ranking of our schools has shown this to be a successful plan.

The Board of Education’s Quality Integrated Education policy stresses the importance of balanced demographics over geographical considerations.

We respectfully ask that the Board not allow political pressure from a vocal, self-interested minority to undo the gains to all of our cluster’s students made through integration.

Thank you,

Lynn Amano

Co-president

Rosemary Hills Neighbors' Association

"Do the right thing." [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-09-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

Good morning.

My name is Teddy Springer. I am a resident of Chevy Chase View and a parent of two children in MCPS schools. I sit before you today to ask that you put a “place holder” for a new middle school in our cluster in the upcoming Capital Improvement Program. I have sat here before, I have told you my concerns about building a middle school at Rock Creek Hills Local Park. And you’ll forgive me, but my words may sound very familiar, because my message has not changed. My opinion was not altered during the feasibility study process. Actually, the meetings only furthered my belief that this site is not appropriate for the construction of a middle school.

I will start with an example made clear to me Sunday night. My daughter is an eighth grader at Westland Middle School. Her Back to School Night is this Thursday, and Danny Vogelman, her principal - and an excellent one, by the way - made his usual Sunday night phone call to families. In his message, he talked about parking concerns for the evening. He warned parents that parking would be limited and suggested that we use the parking lot of the Giant located behind the school. What luck that Westland, which is built on 26 acres and yet still has limited parking, has a shopping plaza behind it. As I understand it, the plans for middle school #2 show a parking lot that is deficient in the number of spaces. What will happen at the inevitable evening events at the new middle school? Where will all the parents park? The obvious conclusion is that, because the architect has made many concessions due to the site size constraints, the cars will overflow onto the streets of Rock Creek Hills. And these streets are, in turn, too small to support the kind of traffic flow that results from school-wide events and are too small to be used as a parking lot.

Rock Creek Hills Park is a heavily-used and well-loved park, not just by neighbors, but also by residents all over Montgomery County. But it is a small park, and sacrificing it for the building of a middle school does not serve our students well or use our tax dollars wisely. Because the site is so small, the architect has scaled back the size of the school. Therefore, MCPS will be providing a school that will be too small for its own projected numbers, calling into question the use of portables. This is not the way to properly provide for our children.

Please, listen to the Parks Commission; listen to County Council members; listen to the people in our community. Do the right thing. Use a “placeholder” in the CIP. Because there are options to explore, there are other solutions, there is a way to serve your constituency and provide our children with a quality middle school.

Thank you.

"Please ... work with the Parks & Planning Commission to find a 'better way'." [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-09-13T12:59:00.000-04:00

Good morning, Dr. Starr, Mr. Barclay, and members of the Board.

My name is James Pekar, and today I am here to ask you please to build a school that will meet the projected need for classroom space for 1200 middle school students. The school that MCPS staff propose to replace Rock Creek Hills Park is too small, and challenges associated with the site would not represent prudent use of taxpayer dollars.

Consultation with the County Council confirms that it is possible to use a "placeholder" for a new BCC middle school in the upcoming Capital Improvement Program, and I encourage you to work with the Council to exercise this option.

The process of developing the plan for the middle school has been flawed from the beginning, and appears inconsistent with your policies, your regulations, and state law. As Planning Board Chairperson Carrier has informed you, there may be state and federal impediments to conversion of the site to non-park use. The appeal pending before the State Board of Education raises questions about the availability of the site. Given these outstanding questions, a CIP proposal for a school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park would simply not be prudent.

Parks Director Bradford has said that a middle school would "obliterate" Rock Creek Hills Park, and offered: "We want to work to find a better way." Of course, the "better way" would yield a better school.

Please, make the prudent choice, spare a small park that is very important to many Montgomery County citizens, and build a better school on a better site. Please, work with the County Council on a CIP placeholder, and work with the Parks & Planning Commission to find a "better way".

Thank you.

Top three myths about the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park: Myth #3 - "Smaller".

2011-09-08T06:00:00.001-04:00

Presenting a special back-to-school feature: The top three myths about the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park! Today, myth number 3: "Smaller."

MYTH: The "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park resulted in a smaller school, that will allow for preservation of more green space.

IN FACT: The "core capacity" of the school is unchanged, at 1200 students.

PROOF: Numerous official Montgomery County Public Schools documents state clearly that the core capacity of the proposed school is 1200 students. While the proposed initial construction would provide classroom space for fewer students, the plans already include a building addition to bring the school to its final capacity of 1200 students. Of course, the site of the small park is inadequate for a 1200-student school. And, if anyone tells you that a "smaller school" will leave more trees, just ask them to watch this half-minute video: http://youtu.be/K493b9vhqw8

Top three myths about the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park: Myth #2 - "Integrity".

2011-09-07T05:30:00.002-04:00

Presenting a special back-to-school feature: The top three myths about the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park! Today, myth number 2: "Integrity."

MYTH: The "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park was professionally conducted, with consistency and integrity.

IN FACT: As reported by Sarah Gantz in the Gazette newspaper, the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park was run by Montgomery County Public Schools using rules that changed midway through. MCPS showed a lack of good faith in addressing neighborhood concerns.

PROOF:

• If anyone tells you that the "feasibility study" was conducted with consistency and integrity, just ask them to watch this one-minute video: http://youtu.be/Pouf84Vwm2w

• If anyone tells you that community concerns were addressed in good faith during the "feasibility study", just ask them to watch this minute-and-a-half video: http://youtu.be/nOzFAv0zDs0

Tomorrow, myth number 3: "Smaller".

Top three myths about the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park: Myth #1 - "Feasibility".

2011-09-06T06:00:00.003-04:00

Presenting a special back-to-school feature: The top three myths about the "feasibility study" for Rock Creek Hills Park! Today, myth number 1: "Feasibility."

MYTH: The purpose of a "feasibility study" is to determine whether it is feasible to build on a site.

IN FACT: The primary purpose of a Montgomery County Public Schools "feasibility study" is to develop a site plan and cost estimate for a construction project (the secondary purpose is to allow MCPS to claim that the neighboring community has been given a chance to have their concerns addressed).

PROOF: On May 17th, at the emergency meeting of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, MCPS Director of Long Term Planning Mr. Bruce Crispell explained: "The term 'feasibility' is a special term used in the county, that may not be the usual interpretation of the term. It's a study that the County Council requires us to do before we submit a request for capital funds, for the big dollars to build something, and they call it a 'feasibility study'. In almost every case, it's a project that we are fairly confident can be built..." And, on July 11th, at a Town of Kensington meeting, Mr. Crispell confirmed: "I understand that you don't like the term 'feasibility' because in a sense it's not the dictionary definition."

Tomorrow, myth number 2: "Integrity."

"... with a new Superintendent, there is a great opportunity ..." [Testimony at last week's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-09-01T11:30:00.001-04:00

Testimony by Ms. Cathy Fink at the August 24, 2011 meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education:

I'd like to welcome our new superintendent, Dr. Starr, and encourage you, and the full Board, to consider supporting a continuance of a placeholder request from the County Council so that the BOE/MCPS can regroup to conduct a more diligent site selection process for the BCC Middle School #2.

To a certain extent, the BOE has inherited some unfortunate circumstances from past Boards. Many possible school locations, including 1/3 of Rock Creek Hills Park, were sold or leased prior to your tenure here and now, you are charged with finding enough land to satisfy the needs for classrooms and education. I don't envy that position.

But, with a new Superintendent, there is a great opportunity to make sure that you don't leave similar problems for future members of the Board of Education when you have moved on.

The problems of site inadequacies that are identified in the hard media and under intense discussion in social media are only the tip of the iceberg. There are serious questions to be answered about the school's diversity and enrollment. There are concerns about lack of adequate athletic opportunities. There are major concerns about the realities of traffic in a neighborhood with such small streets. This is a piece of cake in Japan, but not in Montgomery County.

As reported on the well read blog, Save Rock Creek Hills Park, the recent site selection report "lists only two meetings of the site selection committee: December 14, and January 25. Mr. Jeffrey Bourne referred to the January meeting as 'the announcement meeting', implying that the committee spent only a single meeting, that of December 14, actually evaluating candidate sites, and making their selection."

A placeholder would give time for the BOE to step back, regroup with a more diligent site selection committee and explore a fully vetted group of options for a new middle school. The best way to regain the community's trust, which BOE members have openly admitted to have lost, is to improve the process, involve a well rounded and diverse group of stakeholders, and buckle down to that work.

I thank you for your time and offer to participate in further discussions.

"Please, make the prudent choice, spare a small park ..., and build a better school on a better site. " [Testimony at today's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-08-24T13:00:00.002-04:00

Testimony at the August 24, 2011 meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education:

Good morning, Dr. Starr, Mr. Barclay, and members of the Board.

My name is James Pekar, and today I am here to ask you to build a school that will meet the projected need for classroom space for 1200 middle school students. The school that MCPS staff propose to replace Rock Creek Hills Park is too small, and challenges associated with the site will not represent prudent use of our tax dollars.

Although the option of "not feasible" for the site was never an option for the MCPS "feasibility study", it should have been. We need space for 1200 students, and the student body should reflect the socio- and economic diversity of our cluster. Aside from a lack of infrastructure required physically to support the school, there is also a lack of public transportation; so I have to ask, "how will the parents of students from families without cars, visit the school and become involved in their children's education?"

I recently learned that it is possible to have a "placeholder" for a new BCC middle school in the upcoming CIP [Capital Improvement Program] and I would encourage you to work with the County Council to exercise this option.

The process of developing the plan for the middle school has been flawed from its inception, and appears inconsistent with your policies and regulations, and with state law. As [Planning Board] Chairman Carrier has informed you, there may be state and federal impediments to conversion of the site to non-park use. And, the appeal pending before the State Board of Education raises questions about the availability of the site. These outstanding questions will raise concerns about a proposed budget for a school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park.

Parks Director Bradford observed that a middle school would "obliterate" Rock Creek Hills Park, and stated: "We want to work to find a better way." To be sure, the better way would yield a better school. Please, make the prudent choice, spare a small park that is very important to many Montgomery County citizens, and build a better school on a better site. Please, work with the County Council on a CIP placeholder, and work with the Parks & Planning Commission [M-NCPPC] to find a better way.

Thank you.

"This is arrogant and unresponsive government run amok. "

2011-08-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

"The Montgomery County Board of Education insists on building a middle school in Rock Creek Hills Park that would be inadequate from the day it opens, destroy a much-loved neighborhood park, damage a community, and endanger the lives of both children and seniors. ... How could the board have made such a terrible decision? In its rush to build a school, it never consulted the community or visited the site."

- from a letter by Mr. Howard Gleckman in today's Gazette.

"... there's not going to be any trees left."

2011-08-23T05:45:00.000-04:00

Parks Director Mary Bradford recently said that construction of a middle school on Rock Creek Hills Park "would obliterate the park", and, as this video shows, Montgomery County Public Schools appears to agree that "... there's not going to be any trees left."

[Watch on YouTube]

Trees.

2011-08-22T05:30:00.001-04:00

[Watch on YouTube]

How much time would you have put into this decision?

2011-08-18T07:00:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, the Parents' Coalition for Montgomery County shared an April 20th email from Mr. Jeffrey Bourne, Chief of the Division of Facilities and Capital Programs of the Montgomery County Department of Recreation. As previously mentioned, Mr. Bourne's email raises the question of whether the B-CC middle school #2 site selection report, dated March 8th, was secretly modified afterwards.

However, the email raises an additional question: How much time did the site selection committee actually take to, um, select a site?

The site selection report lists only two meetings of the committee: One on December 14, and one on January 25. Mr. Bourne's email refers to the January meeting as "the announcement meeting". This implies that the committee spent only a single meeting, that of December 14, actually evaluating candidate sites, and making their selection.

We have previously been informed that committee members did not visit the sites. Now it appears that they spent only a single meeting evaluating and selecting sites. Assuming that the meeting was a couple of hours long, and given that there were ten candidate sites, that works out to about twelve minutes per site.

Is twelve minutes per site a reasonable way to make a 50 million dollar decision that will affect the education of generations of students?

Missed 12 hours of meetings? Watch 2 minutes of highlights!

2011-08-17T22:45:00.000-04:00

Following today's final "feasibility study" meeting for B-CC middle school #2 on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park, here are links to brief videos of highlights from the process:

• Meeting 1 highlight: http://youtu.be/zakEsGaV800

• Meetings 2 & 4 highlights: http://youtu.be/Pouf84Vwm2w

Was a report dated March 8th secretly modified afterwards?

2011-08-17T20:00:00.001-04:00

From the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County comes yet another question about the integrity of the site selection process.

"Time to reopen middle school site selection process."

2011-08-10T22:30:00.002-04:00

"... there is overwhelming factual evidence that a school on this site cannot be created with full parity to Westland. There simply is not the space to build a full academic facility and the complete athletic program of Westland. Should we build a school that will disappoint parents on the day it opens because it can not offer all of the programs that Westland offers?"

- from a letter by Ms. Cathy Fink in today's Gazette.

"The rules have suddenly changed mid-way through and we have to ask why."

2011-08-10T08:30:00.002-04:00

An article by Sarah Gantz in today's Gazette quotes Bruce Crispell of Montgomery County Public Schools as stating that it is "impossible" for a feasibility study committee to vote, but then points out that MCPS's Dennis Cross presided over such votes at two meetings of the feasibility study for B-CC middle school #2 on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park:

"Because anyone can attend each meeting without obligation to attend every meeting, the group cannot have an official membership; without an official membership, it is impossible to vote, [Crispell] said.

...

However, Cross has called for a vote at two meetings. ...at the third meeting, July 13, the group voted to eliminate four of seven designs..."

Three Things You Should Know about MCPS & Rock Creek Hills Park – Special 100 Days Edition!

2011-08-06T08:00:00.002-04:00

[An earlier version of this appeared on July 22nd; those familiar with it may wish to scroll down to item 3 below.]

100 days ago, the Montgomery County Board of Education proclaimed that they would take the site of Rock Creek Hills Park to build a middle school.

Why didn't Montgomery County Public Schools work with our County's Parks & Planning Commission to find a site for the new middle school that our County's children deserve – one that would provide parity with Westland? Why did MCPS instead use a deeply flawed and secretive process whose outcome calls for the destruction of a cherished community resource in order to expensively cram an inadequate school onto a deficient site?

3 things you should know about MCPS and Rock Creek Hills Park:

1. Site selection appears to have been illegal.

The Montgomery County Board of Education did not consult with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission before their April 28th proclamation that they would take the site of Rock Creek Hills Park to build a middle school, in apparent violation of §4-116 of the Maryland Education Act, which states: "(a) (1) If there is a commission or agency with legal responsibility for county planning for land use, the county board [of Education] shall: (i) Consult with the commission or agency; and (ii) Ask its advice in choosing land for a school site."

2. MCPS staff have repeatedly mischaracterized the site.

For example, in a May 26 letter: "Kensington Junior High School was closed in 1979 and the property transferred to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission for redevelopment as the park that exists today." At a July 11 briefing: "That was a former school site. It was the former home of Kensington Junior High School, which was closed in 1979 because of declining enrollment, ultimately passed into the M-NCPPC, and into a park."

Such claims are not accurate. In fact, the "former home of Kensington Junior High School" included what is today the location of the Kensington Park retirement community, which provides independent living, assisted living, and Alzheimer's care to 200 seniors. When the KJH site was broken up, more than eight acres were deeded to the Housing Opportunities Commission, who financed with tax-exempt bonds the construction of the senior housing, which stands on much of the "footprint" of the former school. This took about a third of the acreage; took the road access to the North; and severed what had been a through North-South road – all rendering the remainder, Rock Creek Hills Park, stunningly deficient as a potential middle school site.

3. Midway through the "feasibility study", MCPS changed the rules.

Residents of Rock Creek Hills have been participating in ongoing MCPS "feasibility study" meetings in good faith, to try to minimize the harm done if a middle school complex is to "obliterate" the small park. At the 2nd and 3rd meetings of the "facility advisory committee", an MCPS official presided, as Sarah Gantz reported in the Gazette, as "... the group voted to eliminate four of the seven total options, including all three original designs." Then, at the 4th meeting, the same official announced: "This is not a formal committee. We call it a committee but it's really nothing more than a work session. ... So we really can't vote on anything ... because we don't have a committee." Why the change of rules, mid-stream? Was voting forbidden midway through the feasibility study because the process highlights site deficiencies? Consider:

At the 2nd meeting, two out of three options presented by the architects ran the bus lanes over the basketball courts.
At the 3rd meeting, MCPS said that none of the design options met all of the educational requirements.
At the 3rd meeting, MCPS said that the site of Rock Creek Hills Park cannot be compared to Westland.
At the 4th meeting, the architects presented options in which the sprint track ran over the tennis courts.

_____________

Notes:

1. MCPS's lawyers have claimed that site selection has not yet occurred. Sort of like arguing about what the meaning of "is" is. Yes, lawyers get paid to write stuff like that, but come on, let's not pretend that MCPS has not picked a site.

2. Aerial photographs are available.

3. Recently-completed MCPS feasibility studies (Farquhar, Wheaton) cite facility advisory committee endorsements & preferences, which would not have been possible if those committees had been barred from voting. So, the new rules for the B-CC middle school #2 feasibility study are a departure from how other recent feasibility studies have been run.

"... members of the County Board recognized that Rock Creek Hills had no effective notice that its local park would be selected ..."

2011-08-06T07:59:00.001-04:00

“The County Board does not dispute ... that [their] resolution to select the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site ... was not available until 2:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting and was not available to the public as a whole before then. For this reason several members of the County Board recognized that Rock Creek Hills had no effective notice that its local park would be selected as the site of new middle school. The County Executive, therefore, wisely urged the County Board not to act until the Rock Creek Hills community had a chance to express its views on the site selection issues, advice which the County Board ignored.”

- from the July 27th letter from John M. Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, to the Maryland State Board of Education, being the "Response of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association, et al. to the Montgomery County Board of Education Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, Motion for Summary Affirmance" (emphasis in original).

"The rush to build an inadequate middle school."

2011-08-03T22:00:00.001-04:00

"I feel badly for MCPS, that it must go forward with the current feasibility study to try to design a school for such an inadequate site. It already sees from the third out of six feasibility study meetings that this proposed middle school does not meet, under any of the design options presented to date, all of the educational requirements."

- from a letter by Ms. Shannon R. Hamm in today's Gazette.

MCPS "Feasibility Study" Process Lacks Integrity.

2011-07-30T14:25:00.000-04:00

"Good Afternoon, Council Members."

2011-07-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

Testimony by Ms. Shannon Hamm at the July 25th joint meeting of the Council's Education (ED) and Planning, Housing & Economic Development (PHED) Committees:

Good Afternoon, Council Members.

My name is Shannon Hamm, I am a 19-year resident of Rock Creek Hills and a 27-year resident of Montgomery County. Both of my children are B-CC graduates in the IB program. I moved to this county to send my children to our wonderful public school system. We have Great Schools. Great Schools Need Great Locations.

There is no question in my mind that Westland is at capacity, the statistics support that. But how is this being addressed? Have we done our homework? I suggest not.

Today’s joint hearing between the Education Committee and the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee is my opportunity to state for the record that the Site Selection process was flawed. Members of the Board of Education are on record agreeing to this, staff from MCPS are on record agreeing that the process was flawed. Two clear examples were that the Citizens’ Association in Rock Creek Hills did not receive adequate notice before the vote was taken on April 28 by the BOE, as no one from our neighborhood was on the site selection advisory committee. Secondly and more importantly, the BOE failed to consult with the Planning Board before making its decision. Even though the SSAC report indicates that staff from MNCPPC were members, Chairwoman Carrier’s letter dated April 29, states her clear concerns over this matter.

Given that so many officials in the county agree that the Site Selection Advisory Committee process was flawed, we cannot continue to support a broken process and make another bad decision. Let’s work together to make this a great outcome for our citizen’s and our children.

I have thoroughly read the Site Selection Advisory Committee Recommendation Report for B-CC MS #2, dated March 8, 2011. I have to say as a public servant, the report lacks strong analytics, performance measures for determining the outcome, as well as lack of quantitative criteria for developing options. This is not a report I would want to put my reputation behind. I do not understand why there was such an urgency to generate this report, when MCPS has a long range planning department that projects school capacity. We have very smart staff working in the county and I am not clear how this became such an emergency.

Thus, I ask that the Council direct the BOE to start a new more collaborative process for conducting a more expansive Site Selection Process that is collaborative and inclusive. Now is the time to start thinking outside of the box, and look to public/private partnerships. Seek out new relationships with agencies and developers that moves us forward with building a Great School. Allow the BOE to recommend to the County Executive that a placeholder for constructing a new middle school in the B-CC cluster be accepted in the CIP this fall.

To continue to conduct the Feasibility Study for the B-CC MS #2 at Rock Creek Hills Park, will lead to building a clearly inadequate school that will not meet MCPS’ educational specifications due to the small acreage and topography. Specifically, the site is less than 2/3 the size it was when Kensington Junior High School existed, owing to the long term leasing of 8.22 acres to our elderly residents at Kensington Retirement Community. To date, no option presented can meet all of the educational requirements. More importantly, this middle school will divide the middle schools demographically.

I know that finding available sites in the lower county for schools is a difficult challenge. I also know that parks are not vacant land. Rock Creek Hills Park is home to 2 regulation soccer fields that support the Westland and B-CC athletes, as well as supports over 400 permits a season. Without Rock Creek Hills Park, where then will students in the cluster be sent for their athletic requirements? It appears to be a recipe for even more travel time for students.

We need to work together in the county to partner with each other to solve tough land use issues. Our Great Schools have produced Great Minds that can, if the will is there, do the right thing and find a Great Location for a much needed school.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

"This is not a formal committee. ... we really can't vote on anything."

2011-07-28T22:30:00.000-04:00

Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone responds well to requests that mistakes be corrected.

The first meeting of the B-CC middle school #2 "feasibility study" took place on June 8th. When the draft minutes of that meeting were posted, we noticed four errors and omissions that we thought were important and worthy of correction. We wrote at 1:50 PM on Tuesday, July 12th, to MCPS's Mr. Dennis Cross, requesting corrections. At today's "feasibility study" meeting, in response to our email request for corrections, we were told by Mr. Cross that none of our requests would be addressed. And we were told this:

"This is not a formal committee. We call it a committee but it's really nothing more than a work session. ... So we really can't vote on anything. We can't even vote on the minutes, to approve them, because we don't know whether we have a quorum or not, because we don't have a committee."

Got that? A committee (that has voted at prior meetings) has suddenly become a non-committee that cannot vote. So, we ask: Are they just making this stuff up as they go along?

"Many of the current conflicts might have been avoided ..."

2011-07-28T07:31:00.001-04:00

"Many of the current conflicts might have been avoided if the School Board had complied with the statute and had consulted the Planning Board before making a site selection."

- from the July 18th letter from John Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, to Valerie Ervin, President, Montgomery County Council, included in the official packet for the July 25th joint meeting of the Council's Education (ED) and Planning, Housing & Economic Development (PHED) Committees.

"The role of parks ..."

2011-07-28T07:30:00.000-04:00

"The role of parks in a community is really so important to people of all ages."

-from comments by Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Floreen at the July 25th joint meeting of the Council's Education (ED) and Planning, Housing & Economic Development (PHED) Committees.

Front page news!

2011-07-27T19:00:00.001-04:00

Council: School site, overcrowding are big problems
School board, planning board to consider joint management of land

The article by Andrew Ujifusa appears in today's Gazette.

" ... at about 2:00 p.m. on April 28 ... the Superintendent's recommendation changed ..."

2011-07-27T06:30:00.001-04:00

From a July 18th letter from John Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, to Valerie Ervin, President, Montgomery County Council, included in the official packet for the July 25th joint meeting of the Council's Education (ED) and Planning, Housing & Economic Development (PHED) Committees:

"... the School Board failed to provide an adequate opportunity to comment. ... It was only at about 2:00 p.m. on April 28, 2011 that the Superintendent's recommendation changed to include the Rock Creek Hills Local Park ... Given the lack of any notice of this possible change in plans, the County Executive wisely urged in his April 28, 2011 letter to School Board President Barclay that a decision be delayed until Rock Creek Hills had a chance to present its views. However the School Board chose to proceed with the decision to select the Rock Creek Hills Local Park, even though there was more than passing recognition by several of its members that notice had been at least practically, if not legally, inadequate."

"It would obliterate the park ... We want to work to find a better way."

2011-07-26T21:15:00.000-04:00

From an article by Damian Garde in Kensington Patch, featuring comments by Montgomery County Parks Director Mary Bradford on Rock Creek Hills Park:

"Bradford said the Parks Department has long been amenable to sharing the use of sites with MCPS, but that the proposed middle school would leave no room for that.

'This is not a matter of finding a space where it works together with the park,' she said. 'It would obliterate the park, and that's different from sharing the site. We want to work to find a better way.' "

"... inadequate from day one ..."

2011-07-26T08:15:00.000-04:00

From a report by Matt Bush this morning on WAMU-FM, on yesterday's joint meeting of the Montgomery County Council’s Education (ED) & Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committees:

"Some, including Shannon Hamm, believe [Rock Creek Hills Park] is too small to build a school that will give students the same education provided at the middle school that currently serves the area: Westland Middle School.

'If a school was opened at that site in 2015, it would be inadequate from day one,' Hamm says."

"... second- or third-hand ..."

2011-07-26T05:30:00.000-04:00

From an article by Lisa Gartner in the Washington Examiner, on yesterday's joint meeting of the Montgomery County Council’s Education (ED) & Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committees:

"Planning board Chairwoman Françoise Carrier said she was 'very distressed to learn second- or third-hand that the school system had identified one of our parks as a new school site.' "

"... please don't build a costly and deficient school on this little park." [testimony at tonight's Board of Education meeting]

2011-07-25T21:00:00.000-04:00

Good evening Dr. Starr, Mr. Barclay, and members of the Board. My name is James Pekar.

Dr. Starr, I'm here tonight to welcome you to Montgomery County, and to ask you not to build a middle school that would be uniquely inadequate, county wide, on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park. Such a school would be the middle school on the smallest site, in the entire county, without an adjacent (or "co-located") park to provide space for outdoor recreation and athletics.

Please note that descriptions of the park as "the former middle school site" or a "site that formerly housed a school", and so forth, are inaccurate, incomplete, and misleading. The "previous location of Kensington Junior High School" included what is today the location of the Kensington Park retirement community. When the KJH site was broken up, about eight acres were deeded to the Housing Opportunities Commission, which financed with tax-exempt bounds the building of the senior housing, which stands on much of the "footprint" of the old school. This took about a third of the former school site; took the road access to the North; and severed what had been a through North-South roadway – all rendering the remainder, Rock Creek Hills Park, remarkably deficient as a potential middle school site.

Dr. Starr, and members of the Board, please don't build a costly and deficient school on this little park. Please, work with the Parks and Planing Commission to find a site for the school our County's children deserve. Please, embrace opportunities to identify creative solutions. Please, create a school that will support out students with offerings that will be equitable with those at Westland middle school, and with other middle schools in our County.

Thank you.

A letter from the Coalition of Kensington Communities.

2011-07-25T06:00:00.000-04:00

Coalition of Kensington Communities

A Unified Body of Civic Associations

Founded To Enhance the Quality of Life in the Kensington Area

Member Associations:

(number of homes)

Capitol View Park (330)

Garrett Park Citizens Association (325)

KenGar (110)

Kensington Estates (425)

Kensington Heights (711)

Kensington View (125)

Parkwood (925)

Rock Creek Hills (660)

Rock Creek Palisades (1,700)

July 22, 2011

Council President Valerie Ervin

Montgomery County Council

100 Maryland Avenue

Rockville, MD 20850

via email: County.Council@montgomerycountymd.gov

Re: BCC Middle School #2, proposed for Rock Creek Hills Park

Dear Council President Ervin and the County Council:

The CKC represents nine communities (approximately 5,000 residences) in the greater Kensington area; our purpose is to enhance the quality of life in our community. Our member civic associations participate equally, with a rotating chair from among association representatives.

We recognize and agree that the BCC school cluster needs more middle school space to service an increasing middle school population. However, the CKC is opposed to the currently proposed site for such a school – Rock Creek Hills Park – for the following reasons. Other groups and individuals have provided background and specifics for these points so we will not repeat that information, and only provide you with our unanimously voted position.

1. The Council should not allow to stand a conclusion based on such a flawed process. A seriously flawed process has led to a seriously flawed selection of Rock Creek Hills Park for this new school. The decision to build on this site appears arbitrary and not well thought out, with an absence of objective criteria to review all possible sites.

2. Another site for the new junior high school should be found. The site of the old Kensington Junior High School was divided into two parcels – approximately one-third of the land is occupied by the Kensington Park Retirement Community and two-thirds is occupied by Rock Creek Hills Park. The proposed site for BCC middle school #2 is too small to include the facilities necessary to provide a school of comparable quality to other middle schools in the County, and it would not be adequate for the indoor and outdoor needs of middle school students. In addition, all aspects of this Park are extremely well used, and the Park should not be sacrificed; our Downcounty communities need all the playing fields and greenspace we can get.

3. To support funding for this needed new school, a “placeholder” should be included in the current CIP budget. A placeholder would not specify the location of this new school but would still allocate necessary funds. In this way, a school could be built once a reasoned approach to and process for choosing a site occurs.

Thank you for considering the opinion of our communities in making a decision about the Board of Education’s proposal to dismantle this well-used Park.

Sincerely,

/s/ Donna R. Savage

Donna R. Savage

Current Chair for the CKC

Kensington, MD

Copy:

Isiah Leggett, Montgomery County Executive

Christopher S. Barclay, President, MC Board of Education

Françoise Carrier, Chair, MC Planning Board

Three things you should know about MCPS & Rock Creek Hills Park.

2011-07-22T07:30:00.002-04:00

Why didn't Montgomery County Public Schools work with our County's Parks & Planning Commission to find a site for the new middle school that our children deserve – one that will provide parity with Westland? Why did they instead use a deeply flawed and secretive process whose outcome calls for the destruction of a cherished community resource in order to expensively cram an inadequate school onto a deficient site? Especially if finding a site appears to present a challenge, then engaging with the County agency charged with land use and planning is only common sense – and it's required by State law. Is MCPS above the law?

Here are three things you should know about MCPS and Rock Creek Hills Park:

1. Site selection appears to have been illegal.

The Montgomery County Board of Education did not consult with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission before their April 28th proclamation that they would take the site of Rock Creek Hills Park to build a middle school, in apparent violation of §4-116 of the Maryland Education Act, which states: "(a) (1) If there is a commission or agency with legal responsibility for county planning for land use, the county board [of Education] shall: (i) Consult with the commission or agency; and (ii) Ask its advice in choosing land for a school site."

2. MCPS staff have repeatedly mischaracterized the site.

For example, in a May 26 letter: "Kensington Junior High School was closed in 1979 and the property transferred to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission for redevelopment as the park that exists today." At a July 11 briefing: "That was a former school site. It was the former home of Kensington Junior High School, which was closed in 1979 because of declining enrollment, ultimately passed into the M-NCPPC, and into a park."

3. MCPS claims, erroneously, to own the site.

The official MCPS website includes a claim that the park is "owned by" MCPS:

This claim that the park "is owned by the school district" is incorrect. While the transfer agreement includes a "take-back" clause, which has not been executed, and which requires the concurrence of the County Executive, the owner of a property is its deed-holder, and Rock Creek Hills Park is deeded to the Parks Commission.

____________

Notes:

2. Aerial photographs are available.

3. At 1:20 PM on Tuesday, July 19th, we wrote to the MCPS webmaster, requesting a correction of their mistaken claim of ownership. We received a prompt auto-response stating: "Thank you for contacting MCPS Web Services. We will respond to your email within 1 business day." However, we have heard nothing since.

UPDATE [25 July 2011]: The MCPS web page for the May 23rd meeting has been corrected to state that Rock Creek Hills Park is owned by the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission. As the page is annotated "Updated July 22, 2011", it appears that the correction was made on that day.

"Council President Ervin,"

2011-07-21T05:30:00.000-04:00

Date: July 20, 2011 11:44:31 AM EDT

To: councilmember.ervin@montgomerycountymd.gov

Subject: July 25 hearings on site selection

Council President Ervin,

Thank you for initiating hearings to discuss the BOE’s process for selecting school sites. Unfortunately, there have been too many instances where the BOE has misused its authority and misled the communities it should be helping.

Last year, I took part in the Roundtable Discussion Group to find solutions to the overcrowding in some BCC cluster schools. While I was dismayed about the lack of long-term planning by MCPS, I was encouraged by its seeming willingness to work with the school communities to help solve the overcrowding problem that had since been ignored and/or unpredicted. Our PTAs took surveys of the parent communities, which overwhelmingly supported keeping the 6th grades in the elementary schools with similar academic offerings to those at Westland. If that could not be achieved, then parents grudgingly supported moving the 6th grades to middle school if it was in closer proximity to the eastern portion of the cluster. Parity is the foremost concern of these parents.

At the conclusion of these meetings, and following the Superintendent’s recommendation for the construction for a middle school in a centralized location in the BCC cluster, the process went awry.

From the start, the Site Selection process was secretive and implemented in a hasty and simplistic manner. Though I had participated in the first part of the process, I was aware of next-to-nothing of the SSAC. How the 10 sites were initially selected has not been made public, though I surmise that those that were so obviously inadequate (3 and 7 acres?!) were put on the list so that MCPS could “legitimately” claim that the meetings needed to be confidential because they were privately held lands. The other sites are parks, the owners of which were neither notified or consulted about beforehand. These selections were sloppily put together, without any creativity or forward-thinking. The make-up of the SSAC is telling, as well: with no representation from communities east of Connecticut Avenue, the SSAC chose two sites east of Connecticut Avenue.

We are in the midst of the feasibility portion of this process now, and it has become clear that the parity with Westland that so many parents clearly seek will not be possible if the new middle school is constructed on a site half the size of Westland.

If a middle school is built at Rock Creek Hills Local Park, we have been told that there is a possibility of off-site athletic amenities, and that PE spaces may not meet athletic program requirements. We also were told that the new school may not offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program that Westland has. Since the new school also feeds into BCC, an IB high school, how will this affect the students who attend the non-IB middle school?

By building an inadequate school at a well-used, local park, that supports BCC high school athletics as well as 400 permit-holders annually, the County will waste a chance to build a high-quality facility worthy of its national reputation for quality education, while at the same time taking a valuable park from the county’s residents and taxpayers.

The neighborhood itself will never be the same, as the site that originally housed a middle school 30 years ago is not the same site. It is two-thirds the size, as a third of it (and the site where the Kensington Junior High buildings were) is now a 200-person retirement community. The people that work there currently use the neighborhood streets to park, and ambulances for its citizenry visit the facility 15 times a week. If there is a school next door, there will be even more congestion and traffic issues, the harm of which we don’t have to speculate about because anyone with common sense knows it will be much greater: 20 buses, twice a day, hundreds of staff and parent vehicles.

This is not the first time the BOE has misled a community. Citizens in Cabin John, Seven Locks, Waring Station and Potomac (Brickyard) have all been victim of the BOE’s negligence. It is a long-standing problem that needs to be corrected NOW, starting with Rock Creek Hills. I hope that the County Council will move to finally make the BOE accountable to the citizens of Montgomery County.

Sincerely,

Jill Gallagher

Kensington, Md.

cc:

Nancy Floreen councilmember.floreen@montgomerycountymd.gov

Marc Elrich councilmember.elrich@montgomerycountymd.gov

George Levanthal councilmember.leventhal@montgomerycountymd.gov

Phil Andrews councilmember.andrews@montgomerycountymd.gov

Craig Rice councilmember.rice@montgomerycountymd.gov

"... I don't think you can take and compare this site to Westland's site ..."

2011-07-20T07:00:00.004-04:00

Many people have expressed concerns that Rock Creek Hills Park is inadequate to build a middle school that would provide parity with its B-CC sister school, Westland. At the third meeting of the "feasibility study" process, last Wednesday, Mr. Paul Falkenbury of Samaha Associates displayed several "options". A committee member requested* that MCPS compare those options to what exists today at Westland. Eventually, MCPS did agree to provide, at the next meeting, such quantitative comparisons. However, here is the revealing initial response from MCPS's Mr. Dennis Cross:

"... I don't think you can take and compare this site to Westland's site ..."

_________

*A transcript, from the July 13th meeting (a three-minute video beginning with this exchange is available):

Q: "This may be an easy question... I'm having a difficult time visualizing how all this lays out on this piece of property, but a lot of us are familiar with Westland, because we've either had students go there, or will. When you do these [design options], would you compare the size of the drop-off lanes or the parking lot or the cafeteria or whatever to what we currently have at Westland? I think it's important to help us visualize how much of a footprint this is going to take up. Also it would help us to compare this school to the sister school, Westland, because that may be important to parents in any part of the cluster, considering I don't think anybody knows where their students are going to go to school. For example, ... compare the size of the parking lots from this one to Westland. The drop off area for the buses, the number of buses, those kind of things, even the athetic fields I think, would be important to us to have a comparison of what exists now to what this school will have... I'm having a difficult time visualizing this thing plastered right there. In the three-dimensional diagrams, it looks like it's kind of small, like it really fits in there quite nicely. But when you look at the aerial view, it's taking up every inch of property. And I'm not sure how that compares to what the students currently have."

A: "I hear what you're saying and I can see some benefit to Westland, but I don't think you can take and compare this site to Westland's site, there's just..." [waves hands]

"It doesn't look like any of the options meet all the preferred requirements."

2011-07-19T06:00:00.003-04:00

In case you missed the third "feasibility study" meeting for B-CC middle school 2, last Wednesday, here's a brief summary:

Question (from a committee member): "It doesn't look like any of the options meet all the preferred requirements."

Answer (from MCPS's Mr. Dennis Cross): "That's correct."

"Dear Council President Ervin, County Council Education and PHED Committees,"

2011-07-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

July 14, 2011

Councilmember Valerie Ervin

100 Maryland Ave.

Rockville, MD 20850-2322

Dear Council President Ervin, County Council Education and PHED Committees,

The Rock Creek Hills Park is inadequate for the middle school that the Montgomery County BCC school cluster needs. This is been highlighted more strikingly at each successive feasibility study meeting held between the neighbors and the school system staff. No realistic solutions have been found that allow for a school building of the desired capacity and all its amenities, while preserving the safety and quality of life of students and their families, neighbors, retirement community residents, the environment and property. Enormous compromises would need to be made, and these will affect the students.

The process used by the Montgomery County school system to select the Rock Creek Hills Park has been a shambles from start to finish. There was no input from the affected communities at all, including the Maryland - National Capital Parks and Planning Commission, and apparently little attention was paid to the properties of the physical site to determine whether it is even adequate. The stated reason for selecting this site—the clawback clause in the property deed for the purpose of school building—is in ignorance of the last 30 years of history and of the existence and welfare of the Kensington Park retirement community that occupies a large fraction of the buildable land. The whole idea of seizing a well-used, beloved green park in a crowded urbanized area for a building of any kind is disrespectful of the elements that support a healthy, happy and productive life for its citizens. Soon, the only green space in our area will be Rock Creek Park (lovely, but dominated by a busy road) and the many private golf courses which are off-limits to all but their highly privileged members.

Planning appears to have been left to the last minute given school capacity requirements and the deadlines associated with county budget processes and other development projects around the county. Even given the enormous challenges currently faced by the Montgomery County school system, this does not speak well for its staff. This haste will simply result in a much larger waste of time, money and effort when the looming mistakes made in cramming a huge school onto a small, steeply-sloped, stream-side site in a small, restricted-access, sidewalk-poor residential neighborhood have to be fixed in the future.

Communication from the Montgomery County Board of Education to the various affected county and state agencies has been late, inadequate, and from every appearance, often inappropriate.

In summary, the entire planning process has been poor. The school site is inadequate. Money and time are being wasted. We respectfully request that the Board of Education be encouraged to work with the Maryland - National Capital Parks and Planning Commission to find a better site for B-CC middle school #2, and to put in place a process for choosing and developing future school sites that respects all the people of Montgomery County, and especially the needs, abilities, and aspirations of our children.

Sincerely,

Maren R. Laughlin

Kingston Road

Kensington, MD

Don't Pave Paradise.

2011-07-16T01:45:00.002-04:00

"Dear President Ervin:"

2011-07-13T09:00:00.013-04:00

July 12, 2011

County Council President Valerie Ervin

100 Maryland Ave

Rockville, MD

Dear President Ervin:

I am writing you today to thank you for holding the joint meeting between the Education and Planning, Housing & Economic Development committees on July 25, 2011. The situation with MCPS process for site selection and for conducting feasibility studies is completely broken. The actions taken by the Board of Education are unacceptable in terms of maintaining public trust and valuing park lands.

I am committed to creating a positive environment for making the new middle school in the BCC cluster, the best new middle school in Montgomery County. However, if we allow the BOE and MCPS to continue operating in their status quo process, we will never have that opportunity. We need to not make this their last mistake, but make this their first example of a new innovated and thoughtful process. This can be a win-win, if we allow ourselves to think outside the box, or in this case each process has its own stove-piped box.

The site known as Rock Creek Hills Park, at 13.38 acres, is not the site known formerly as the Kensington Junior High school site at 21.6 acres. In the Deed to transfer property to MNCPPC, dated May 10, 1990, Montgomery County deeded 13.38 acres to MNCPPC. The remaining parcel of land at 8.22 acres was leased to the Housing Opportunity Commission for 92 years and now is the home to 200 senior residents who live at the Kensington Park Retirement community. Thus, when MCPS and the BOE state in the site selection report and during the feasibility study that RCHP is the site of the former KJH that is not accurate, it is deficient 8.22 acres. The retirement community is primarily located where the old junior high school buildings were located. Thus, when we discuss putting a middle school at Rock Creek Hills Park we need to understand we are now talking about 13.38 acres, without an adjacent park, instead of 21.6 acres when KJH was a junior high school. If a new middle school were to be built at this location, it would effectively establish the smallest site for a middle school in Montgomery County without an adjacent park. The proposed school would be inadequate from the first day it opens in comparison to Westland’s educational and athletic curricula.

The park at Rock Creek Hills is not vacant land, as coined by the BOE. It is the home of two regulation size adult soccer fields, where annually over 400 permits issued. It is heavily used every weekend by many citizens in the county and is welcoming to the residents, with a track, tennis courts, basket ball courts, roller hockey rink and a tree lined playground.

On the environmental front, Rock Creek Hills has numerous specimen trees, which would have to be destroyed if a school were placed on the hills of the park. One of our residents has conducted an “Analysis of the Status of hardwood trees located in Rock Creek Hills Park (RCHP) destined for removal based Montgomery County Board of Education (MCBOE) feasibility study options for CCC Middle School #2.” In summary, there are 22 trees destined for destruction on the sloped portion of RCHP that will qualify for Significant or Specimen Tree Status in accordance with the Maryland Forest Conservation Act. Nearly all of the trees qualify as Specimen Trees (> 30” in diameter; ranging from 33.9” – 42.4” in diameter). Their removal will greatly impact the current wildlife that occupies the site. Specimen Trees would be removed due to placement of proposed middle school on the sloped portions of the site.

With the goal in mind of creating an excellent middle school in the BCC cluster, I wrote to Mr. Barclay on July 9, requesting that he instruct Mr. Song to have the Feasibility Study committee expand its site options for determining feasibility to include other public properties (e.g., MCPS inventory of closed or leased schools and any possible WSSC properties) as well as engage in dialogue with the President of the Chevy Chase Lake Development project, Mr. David Smith, to discuss space for a school.

If MCPS continues to focus only on precious park land as possible new schools, our county offices will continued to be stove piped and not collaborative. This will be a lost opportunity to improve our business processes and to be more accountable with precious recourses, including taxpayer dollars.

I applaud your efforts with that endeavor.

Sincerely,

Shannon Reid Hamm

East Bexhill Drive

Kensington, MD 20895

Cc: Nancy Floreen

Marc Elrich

George Levanthal

Phil Andrews

Craig Rice

The myth of the former school site, yet again.

2011-07-12T05:30:00.000-04:00

Mr. Bruce Crispell, MCPS's Director of Long Range Planning, discussed Rock Creek Hills Park at last night's Town of Kensington meeting:

"That was a former school site. It was the former home of Kensington Junior High School, which was closed in 1979 because of declining enrollment, ultimately passed into the M-NCPPC, and into a park."

In fact, the "former home of Kensington Junior High School" included what is today the location of the Kensington Park retirement community, which provides independent living, assisted living, and Alzheimer's care to 200 seniors.

The KJH site was broken up. Roughly the northern third was deeded to the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission, which financed with tax-exempt bonds the construction of what is now the Kensington Park retirement community. This took about a third of the KJH site; took the road access to the North; and severed what had been a through North-South road – all rendering the remainder, Rock Creek Hills Park, stunningly deficient as a potential middle school site.

Why does MCPS continue to ignore the existence of the 200 elderly residents of Kensington Park?

Quick question:

2011-07-09T00:01:00.018-04:00

"MCPS demonstrates commitment to continuous improvement by reviewing, evaluating, and improving our work..."

– A "Core Value" from "Our Call to Action: Pursuit of Excellence. The Strategic Plan for the Montgomery County Public Schools."

Quick question: When you find out that you've done something that is apparently illegal*, does that suggest that you should quicken the pace of your efforts to review, evaluate, and improve your work?

Quick followup: Would you also slow the pace of your efforts to follow through on the decision that appears to have been illegal?

________

*The Montgomery County Board of Education did not consult with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission before their arbitrary and unreasonable April 28th proclamation that they would take the site of Rock Creek Hills Park to build a middle school, in apparent violation of §4-116 of the Maryland Education Act, which states:

(a) (1) If there is a commission or agency with legal responsibility for county planning for land use, the county board [of Education] shall:
(i) Consult with the commission or agency; and
(ii) Ask its advice in choosing land for a school site.

"... I am charged with the care and safety of over 200 frail and elderly residents." [A letter from Kensington Park]

2011-07-07T00:02:00.006-04:00

A letter from the Executive Director of the Kensington Park retirement community, which is adjacent to Rock Creek Hills Park, and was built on much of the former site of Kensington Junior High School:

"... the site and neighborhood are inadequate to host a middle school with full parity to Westland."

2011-07-07T00:01:00.002-04:00

Haverhill Drive

Kensington, MD 20895

Mr. Christopher Barclay

President, Board of Education

Montgomery County Public Schools

850 Hungerford Drive, Room 123

Rockville, MD 20850

July 6, 2011

Dear Mr. Barclay,

In a recent meeting with Maryland Parks and Planning, it came to my attention that you and the School Board have portrayed the Rock Creek Hills community as "NIMBYs". Though it is convenient for you to attempt to marginalize this community, I urge you to actually read the letters and testimony you have received. None of it is "not in my back yard" lingo or sentiment. It primarily revolves around a belief that the site and neighborhood are inadequate to host a middle school with full parity to Westland. This was the sentiment voiced in the vote of 240 to 10 at the Rock Creek Hills Civic Association meeting. These numbers indicate a much more serious issue than a "NIMBY" issue and at this juncture, if anyone's credibility is at stake, it would be the School Board for a squirrely site selection process that left too many people out of the loop and failed to look further than parks as possible school sites.

We have also pointed out that though the School Board has a reclaim right to the park, you leased 1/3 or more of the previous school site to a seniors' community for 99 years. The School Board does not have access to the full land and facilities that were once a junior high school, creating one of many challenges for the site.

Please note that over 30 pieces of media exposure in over 10 different outlets have viewed the School Board unfavorably in how the site selection process has been handled. The community does not write these articles, reporters do. Please do not attempt to make it the community's fault for the School Board's short sightedness when in comes to planning ahead and making too many decisions behind closed doors.

My second request is to install a professional facilitator in the feasibility study meetings. Mr. Cross may be knowledgeable about school resources and procedures, but he is not an unbiased facilitator who can help all of the attendees accomplish the goals of the meetings. Additionally, the minutes of the meetings have fallen short of accuracy and have required our diligent attention in order to make sure the records accurately reflect the discussions, requests and responses.

Sincerely,

Cathy Fink

"... we ... are not accustomed to finding out, indirectly, that another agency is planning to take a park ..."

2011-07-03T09:01:00.001-04:00

"... What we have learned ... about your site selection process – some of it came from a Parks employee who was on your site selection committee. And he reported that he did not have the opportunity to talk about the concerns of the Planning Board as the property owner during the site selection. And a vote was taken, and there was no recording that he didn't support it, so that ... sounded like that his participation was minimized... He did not feel that he could ... fully express to the committee that this would not be a willing sell...

It's something illuminating to me, ... that you have never done this before, that you are not accustomed to reaching out and taking another agency's land. So I can understand that perhaps you didn't think through all those ramifications. But we also are not accustomed to finding out, indirectly, that another agency is planning to take a park and turn it into something else. So you can imagine that that was alarming. ...

... Our ... duty as the planning and parks commission is really to safeguard park property. We spent the County's money on land for parks, we spent money developing parks, and it has always been the intent that they would always be parks. So, it is a very different concept for us, to imagine that there would be a government agency that felt that they could say we're going to turn your park into something else."

- from comments by Ms. Françoise Carrier, Planning Board Chair, at the June 30th joint meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

"I moved into my house ... because it's down the street from a park."

2011-07-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

"I moved into my house – it's rather small, not much room – because it's down the street from a park."

- from comments by Mr. Christopher Barclay, President, Montgomery County Board of Education, at the June 30th joint meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

"Nothing has changed..."

2011-07-02T20:00:00.001-04:00

"Those of us in the Seven Locks community can only read [a recent] Gazette and respond, 'Been there, done that.'

In a new record for Montgomery County Public Schools, there are not one, not two, but three allegations of malfeasance by the school system in conjunction with the school board. One comes from County Council President Valerie Ervin, who has shown herself to be extremely responsible in the recent budget debate, one from the Rock Creek [Hills] community, and one from parents alleging a violation of the open meetings law regarding the new superintendent search.

We of the Save Seven Locks group spent two-and-a-half intense years fighting MCPS for exactly what they are trying to do to Rock Creek [Hills]. Nothing has changed since then...

We learned in the Save Seven Locks fight years ago that once the council approves the budget for MCPS, they have virtually no say in how it gets spent. This leads to major conflict as we saw then and see now. It's a silly way for government to work..."

- from a recent letter in the Gazette by Jay M. Weinstein of Bethesda.

"There is no parity here." [Testimony at last night's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-06-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

My name is Teddy Springer. I am a resident of Chevy Chase View, and I live near Rock Creek Hills Park. Over the years, I have spent much time working in my children’s schools. My daughter is currently at Westland, and despite the complaint of many that Westland is so far away, I go every week to volunteer. So I know it is a terrific school, providing my daughter with all the facilities, opportunities, and support she needs to get a top-notch education.

I also know the park up the street from my house. I have already talked to you previously about the process that has brought us to this point. It was flawed, it was wrong, and it is putting our cluster at risk of building a new, expensive middle school that does not serve us properly. I have already asked you to reopen the site selection process. I am respectfully asking you again.

This park is too small to sustain a middle school complex that would achieve parity in the B-CC cluster. I understand that you can engineer just about anything, but does that make it right? Do you want to force an expensive, inadequate complex onto the site and say you have met the needs of your community just because you have produced a school?

Because you won’t have produced a school that provides a quality education on par with Westland. Students attending a school built at this site will not have the same amenities. I have attended the feasibility study meetings. I saw last week that the architect has produced three different site plans – before the completion of the environmental and traffic studies, before the determination that the site is actually feasible. In two plans, he has the buses entering the school property directly over the basketball courts because he has no other way of producing the required physical education and athletic components needed at a middle school. He wants our children to play basketball on courts that have the wear and tear of 30 buses traveling twice a day in and out of the school. Is that where you would want your children to play basketball?

He has included two softball fields overlaid on two soccer fields. But he doesn’t know if they are regulation size. If they are not, will our children have had the training to be able to make the very competitive teams at B-CC? Will they ever be able to host home games or will parents constantly be driving their children to away games? Will parents have to drive their children to other locations even for practices just because there is inadequate field space?

There is no parity here. You are not solving our current problem by rushing to judgment; you are not solving our current problem by producing an expensive, inferior school and creating a divide in our cluster. This process to date has been flawed, the way this has played out is wrong. So please stop now, reopen the site selection process and take the opportunity to fix this while you can. Do the right thing for our students and give them a school that achieves parity.

"Our county cannot afford this mistake." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-06-27T20:20:00.000-04:00

My name is Jill Gallagher and I live in Rock Creek Hills. I am concerned about the construction of a new middle school on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park, and the apparent lowering of Montgomery County School standards in order to fit the school on this site.

Last year, I took part in the Roundtable Discussion Group to find solutions to the overcrowding in some BCC cluster schools, including the consideration of moving 6th grade out of North Chevy Chase and Chevy Chase elementaries. In PTA surveys at these schools and Rosemary Hills, the overwhelming majority of parents supported keeping the 6th grade at the elementary schools with similar academic offerings to those at Westland. More than 200 parents wrote comments in the Rosemary Hills survey alone, with many saying they felt threatened into making the decision to move 6th grade to achieve academic equality.

I am concerned that the parity with Westland that so many parents clearly seek will not be possible if the new middle school is constructed on a site half the size of Westland.

Many of the site’s shortcomings are coming to light in the feasibility meetings. It was announced during the first meeting that the Ed Specs for county middle schools are merely recommendations, that the exterior spaces are negotiable, that there is a possibility of off- site athletic amenities, and that PE spaces may not meet athletic program requirements.

We were told that the new school may not offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program that Westland has. Since the new school also feeds into BCC, an IB high school, how will this affect the students who attend the non-IB middle school?

In addition, we learned that the school might have a smaller capacity because of the site size. All of these scenarios will cause the curriculum to be different, which is in direct opposition to one of the primary reasons given for building the new middle school: providing the 6th graders at the Chases with the same education as the students at Westland.

The county is going to spend at the very least $40 million to build an inequitable school. Our county cannot afford this mistake, which is completely unnecessary because larger sites are available.

The site selection process that recommended this site was admittedly flawed, and actions are underway to investigate and presumably improve the process. MCPS has said it will look at ways to “improve community outreach prior to decision-making.” In July, the County Council will hold a joint meeting to discuss school site selections. The Chair of the Planning Board wants to meet with the BOE to discuss park-school co-locations that serve “multiple public needs, provided the available acreage is sufficient.”

All of this advocacy and calls for change are welcome, but also overdue. Rock Creek Hills should not be the poster child for change. The change needs to start here, right now. Please pause the process now and find a better site. Thank you.

"Put the goal of a great middle school education out in front ..." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-06-27T20:19:00.003-04:00

Good evening:

I am David Kaplan, I live in Kensington. I am in support of public education. I believe that you are seeking an increase our educational infrastructure for two reasons. First and foremost, we need to ensure that facilities throughout the County provide for an equitable educational experience that will prepare our children for the future; Westland is overcrowded and predictions are that our population will increase. Secondly, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, our economy and County development IS dependent having adequate classroom space available to meet the anticipated growth in Montgomery County. As citizens, we rely on the Montgomery County Board of Education (MCBOE) and its new Superintendent, Parks and Planning, the Council, the Executive to ensure that you are making good policy and administrative decisions to sustain academic excellence AND the quality of life we enjoy in Montgomery County.

I attended the MCBOE meeting when a budget was approved for the feasibility study based on a poorly conceived and improperly executed site selection process. A flawed feasibility process should be of concern to you as it is not seeking to address the root-question upon which the vote was based; will the study answer your question: “Can the Rock Creek Hills Park (RCHP) provide a feasible opportunity for a school that will meet the needs of our students at a reasonable cost?” Through my testimony, I recommend that the MCBOE provide additional oversight.

I would like to make a few suggestions for your consideration. Our shared reality is that both the educational system and county developers/planners are pressing for a CIP proposal for a middle school in. The stakes are high for the developers; however, educational needs can be met in a number of ways that have not surfaced, to the best of my knowledge. I have to ask myself; why do we have the fox watching the hen house in our feasibility study and why are we putting all of our eggs in one basket in moving forward with a narrowly focused CIP proposal?

I guess the answer is Tradition! The traditional MCBOE policy for school construction has been to identify a single site via a site selection report and thereafter to develop a feasibility study that is site- specific. Times have changed. I would like to suggest that the BOE revise its policy to consider additional options. Am I missing something here, is the outcome of the feasibility study predetermined?

Wouldn’t it make sense while conducting the feasibility study to consider focusing more on the requirements and costs for the BCC middle school-#2 and for alternatives.

The decision to select RCHP as the site for the new school was unduly pressured and the process was flawed; thus far we are seeing options presented in the feasibility study that will not provide for a school with parity at a reasonable cost. I would like to suggest that the MCBOE work with other branches of MC government and with the private sector to identify public/private partnerships where developers become part of the equation in the process; they have a fiduciary opportunity and responsibility that has not been realized. I also understand that the BOE will meet with the NCPP. I am hopeful that additional possible approaches will emerge.

Please consider taking a different approach; get a proposal into the CIP as a place holder if it is warranted. This is a significant investment of our taxpayer dollars and in our future. You can realize the outcome you desire by exercising some flexibility and creativity; modify your policy; restore public confidence in the MCBOE. Put the goal of a great middle school education out in front rather than allowing for the public misrepresentation of outcomes of a flawed feasibility process. RCHP cannot support the needs of our middle school students.

Thank you for your consideration.

"It’s time to do it right, not fast." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-06-27T20:14:00.003-04:00

Good evening. My name is Ruth Silverstein. My youngest of three children just completed Westland Middle School and I live approximately three blocks from Rock Creek Hills Park. I have lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years and always wished that Kensington Junior High School had been renovated for the benefit of the current generation, using all of the original land, including the third of the property on which Kensington Park Retirement Community now sits. Sending three children to Westland has cost my family well over 1000 hours in commuting time alone. How great would it have been for them to have walked to middle school? No one disputes that vision.

What we do dispute is the process. We dispute the secrecy in which the site was selected. We dispute the definition of “feasibility study,” which by any dictionary calls for an assessment of options before making a selection. We are disappointed in the lack of creative thinking about how a middle school could be configured in our cluster. We are baffled by the closed process by which the architect was selected, and at this point, we are most distressed that the size of the property, predictably, cannot support the requirements that MCPS states are necessary for a middle school.

Why build a school that starts out sub-standard? We’ve seen the plans at the Feasibility Advisory Committee meetings and we’ve seen that parking lots may share space with basketball courts. We’ve heard that sports teams may have to practice off-site. Building the school is already displacing B-CC’s off-site practice fields, so where are the middle school kids going to go? We understand that there are other smaller than optimal middle schools in the county but each and every one of them, without exception, is adjacent to a local park, which provides the space necessary for outside sports teams and physical education programs.

The B-CC cluster prides itself on its academic achievements, and the IB program is one of the pinnacles of our success. At the last Feasibility Advisory Committee meeting, we could not be assured that the MYP curriculum would be offered at the new middle school Since it is currently offered to all 6th to 8th graders in our cluster, including those at NCC and Chevy Chase Elementary schools, why would there even be a question about offering it at the new middle school? It just seems to be another piece in a very haphazard process that will cost millions of dollars and fall short of the guidelines you’ve set?

Please, I urge you, take a step back, and conduct a true feasibility study. We know that there are other options to consider, even though they may delay your schedule. It’s time to do it right, not fast.

"... make sure you are building the best school for our cluster ..." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

2011-06-27T20:13:00.002-04:00

Good evening, my name is Maria Marzullo, and I would like to discuss the feasibility study process regarding the new middle school for the BCC cluster.

I have participated in both open meetings for the feasibility studies for the school proposed at Rock Creek Hills. While this process is called a feasibility study, it is clear that there is no option for a decision of “not feasible”. There is no contingency plan, process or time allowed for the option to ever come about, even though we have repeatedly been told that this is an option. Given the BOE’s time line for a middle school and urgency to include this school in the next CIP budget, a “not feasible” option seems improbable.

However, a “not feasible” decision may be the best decision in this case. There are several factors that were not considered between the site selection process and what is called the “feasibility study.” The site topography and location to a watershed stream make it challenging to build on. Site access that was in place with Kensington Junior High, as well as a third of the acreage, is no longer there. The school building would need to be constructed on heavily wooded areas. Site access, road widths and utilities are major factors that would greatly increase costs of building at Rock Creek Hills.

Shouldn’t these factors be analyzed before the start of a process that is, in effect, a fait accompli? Why not take some time to analyze the top three sites from the site selection committee to determine some of these factors and compare costs? This could be accomplished in a shorter time line and with less cost of the current feasibility process.

Taking the time and perhaps small increase in upfront costs would result in major benefits in the long run. You can ensure that the site will meet not only the minimum requirements for a middle school, but also all the preferred requirements. Selecting the right site could save the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in construction and infrastructure costs.

You may feel it is too late to do this now for this middle school. But, in fact, now is the time to do it before significant dollars are spent and a less than optimal school is constructed. Take a step back and make sure you are building the best school for our cluster, one that meets all the requirements and is at parity to Westland, and ensure that you are doing it in the most fiscally responsible way.