The Superintendent’s recommendation creates new problems instead of solving overcrowding.
The Superintendent’s recommendation opens Woodward near capacity, keeps WJ underutilized, and ignores near-term growth—putting our students and schools at risk of immediate overcrowding and long-term instability.
The Board of Education should reject this recommendation and require a revised plan that better balances utilization, stability, geography, and long-term planning under MCPS Policy FAA.
The Superintendent’s Articulation Recommendation
- It does not reflect community feedback and survey data. In fact, the Superintendent created a new plan without community engagement. His recommendation is totally different from “Option B”
- It creates two schools less than a mile apart, each with extremely different utilization rates and little room for enrollment growth. Woodward is projected to open near capacity, while WJ remains significantly underutilized despite many ongoing and planned development projects
- This plan is less effective than the previously presented options. It fails to balance the factors that the Board of Education is required to consider as key priorities: facility utilization, geography, student assignment stability, and demographic characteristics
- It unnecessarily splits up established communities & creates split articulation. Peer groups will be separated. There are more complex transitions from multiple feeder middle schools and a greater risk of students falling through the cracks during transitions
See the Original Boundary Study Options and the Superintendant’s Recommendation: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/boundary-study/
