Thursday, April 19, 2012
Approval follows months of debate over use of the Kensington park for a school site.
Following months of controversy, the Board of Education Tuesday approved Rock Creek Hills Local Park in Kensington as the site for a new middle school in the cramped Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster. Both a site selection committee and Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr recommended locating the new school at the Kensington park. The site of a former junior high school, the school system has the right to reclaim the property from the county parks department, which operates the site. The site selection committee, convened by the school system and comprised of MCPS, park and planning staff as well as a group of community stakeholders, evaluated 13 private and 25 public sites, some of them public parks. The committee …
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Former Bethesda elementary school and park would be "less damaging" to the park system than a school at Rock Creek Hills, Planning Board chairwoman says.
Montgomery County Public Schools should take a serious look at siting a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school at the former Lynnbrook Elementary School and an adjacent local park in Bethesda, the county planning board has recommended. The contentious debate over where to locate the new school in the overcrowded cluster came before the Montgomery County Planning Board for an advisory review Monday evening. The hearing followed a recommendation by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning staff that rejected the findings of a site selection advisory committee, which set Rock Creek Hills Local Park in Kensington as the best site for the new school. The committee, convened by the school system and comprised of MCPS and Park and …
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Staff recommendation comes ahead of a Monday Park and Planning advisory review for a new school site.
County planning staff has come out against a recommendation to build a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school at Rock Creek Hills Park in Kensington. The opinion rejects the findings of a site selection advisory committee, which in March set forth the park as the best publicly-owned site for the new school in the overcrowded cluster. The recommendation followed a revised site selection process, which was re-convened after an initial site selection process last year drew fire from neighbors and officials who questioned MCPS's transparency and civic engagement. Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr added his stamp of approval to the recommendation last month. But the proposal to build a school at Rock Creek …
Friday, March 16, 2012
Rock Creek Hills Local Park is a poor choice for a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school, many argue.
Although the site selection committee for the new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school only just this week released its recommendation, responses calling for a different location are already in circulation. The committee is recommending Montgomery County Public Schools build the new school at Rock Creek Hills Local Park (3701 Saul Rd., Kensington). The committee listed North Chevy Chase Local Park (4105 Jones Bridge Rd.) as the alternate site. But, as the group Save Rock Creek Hills Park has documented on its website, several public figures and groups are speaking up against the new school's recommended location. In a minority report filed by the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School NAACP Parents' Council, the council wrote that it "…
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The committee recommended the local park as the site for the new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school slated to open in 2017.
Rock Creek Hills Local Park (3701 Saul Rd., Kensington) is back in the running as the most likely location for the new Bethesda-Chevy Chase school cluster middle school, scheduled to open in 2017. The park was recommended by the school's site selection advisory committee to the Montgomery County Board of Education and Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr on March 12. The report listing Rock Creek Hills Local Park as the preferred option also listed North Chevy Chase Local Park (4105 Jones Bridge Rd.) as the alternate site. "Through a scoring process, the [site selection committee] determined Rock Creek Hills Local Park as the preferred recommended site for the new middle school (with a score of 130) and North Chevy …
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The site-selection committee for the new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school chose Rock Creek Hills Park over North Chevy Chase Park as the committee's recommended location for the new school, should the school be built on public land.
The soccer fields of Rock Creek Hills Park just might end up being the ground that gives when it comes time to build the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster’s new middle school, scheduled to open in 2017. At a site-selection committee meeting on Wednesday night, the committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of recommending that the new school be built at Rock Creek Hills Park, rather than at North Chevy Chase Park, if the school is to be built on publicly owned land. Last year, the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to move forward with a feasibility study for the school at the same park, and designs for the school were already underway when Superintendent Joshua Starr called for a re-do of the site-selection process, citing the need for …
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The meeting is the last on the schedule before the superintendent weighs in.
Montgomery County Public Schools' site-selection committee will meet again tonight to discuss where to put a new middle school for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Members of the committee will grade each site according to a list of criteria at Wednesday's meeting, inputting their scores into a spreadsheet that MCPS will use to rank the properties. The group's preferred sites will be sent to Superintendent Joshua Starr, who will submit a recommendation of his own to the Board of Education next month. At its last meeting, the committee narrowed down the list of sites to two public and three private parcels. Rock Creek Hills Park and North Chevy Chase Park …
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Two parks and three private sites remain.
Montgomery County Public Schools has narrowed the scope of its search to site a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school, cutting the list of locations to two public sites and three private ones at a meeting Wednesday. Rock Creek Hills Park and North Chevy Chase Park are the remaining public sites under consideration. MCPS has not disclosed the three private sites, in order to preserve its ability to negotiate a price should one be chosen. The current site-selection committee was convened after Superintendent Joshua Starr in November proposed re-opening a controversial site-selection process for a second middle school in the crowded B-CC cluster, responding to concerns about MCPS's transparency and civic engagement. Among the sites …
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
MCPS is looking for a place to put a new school.
Montgomery County Public Schools' site-selection committee will meet again tonight to discuss where to put a new middle school for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. At the last meeting, MCPS said it is no longer concerned about a legal issue that could have prevented the schools from reclaiming Rock Creek Hills Park, one of the 25 sites under consideration. The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, however, has long maintained that siting a school is not a worthy reason to do away with park land, and a Planning Board representative pointed out that the board would have final approval on any future site's forest conservation plan. The long …
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The two departments disagree on the use of open space.
Montgomery County Public Schools now considers Rock Creek Hills Park to be an available site for a new middle school in the cramped Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster, but the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission may need to lend its stamp of approval if the site is chosen. Officials discussed the potential school site Wednesday at a second meeting of the committee tasked with finding a site for a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school. Rock Creek Hills Park is just one of the 25 sites still under consideration by the site-selection committee. The Board of Education selected Rock Creek Hills, a Kensington park, in a site-selection process last year that lead neighbors and officials to question MCPS's transparency and …
lena
7:31 am on Friday, April 27, 2012
Parks and Planning acknowledged the reclaim right but offered their lesser used park , while asking for a serious discussion with MCPS that would recognize that parks and schools are important to MC residents. Sounds like cooperation and thoughtful decision making. That’s an ‘agenda’ that I support. Saving Lynnbrook for an elementary school is a long overused excuse. The former Rollingwood ES … more ›