WASHINGTON — Montgomery County, Maryland, school officials say down-county schools — specifically schools that feed into the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster — could be 161 percent above capacity by 2020.
The Montgomery County Council is currently weighing a plan to transfer $1.8 million so that the newest middle school — referred to as “Bethesda Chevy Chase middle school #2” in county documents — can begin construction and open in 2017.
But residents near Rock Creek Hills Park, the site selected for the new school, are continuing to fight the plan. In public hearings, Montgomery County Public Schools representatives have likened placing the school for 922 students there to putting 10 pounds of sugar in a five-pound bag.
The initial capacity would be 922 students, but a county document, the school would have an eventual capacity of 1,200 students.
In written testimony submitted to the council, Jim Pekar, president of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association, called expanding the project to include the added capacity “unneeded, unwise and unsafe.”
At a briefing on Monday, Montgomery County Council President George Leventhal said there is not a lot of room in the down-county area for expansion.
“Any location in the densely built-up down-county would encounter pushback. We don’t have a lot of available land, but we do have a growing population.”
A construction contract for the school was approved by the Board of Education in August, with a potential opening date in August 2017, county documents indicate.
WTOP’s Kate Ryan contributed to this report.
