The Montgomery County Council has indicated which schools should get to the front of the line in the county’s Capital Improvements Program.
At a work session Monday, the council moved to shuffle some of the projects that are in a two-tiered plan as part of the capital improvements budget.
The council is directing staff to keep construction of the new Crown High School in Gaithersburg on schedule, instead of delaying it for a year.
The plans to upgrade Woodward High School and Northwood High School would also remain on schedule, rather than being delayed. The plan for Northwood High School, in Silver Spring, stated students and staff would relocate to a temporary site starting with the 2023 school year. They would return to the new Northwood High two years later.
The Northwood students would be temporarily housed at Woodward while their school is being re-built. For that reason, the Woodward project needs to go ahead.
Once the Northwood students move back to their original site in the new facility, Woodward, in Rockville, will welcome its own batch of high school students. Woodward currently is being used by students from Tilden Middle School. The Tilden school is supposed to welcome students back for the 2020-2021 school year.
Other school projects that would remain on schedule according to a plan originally proposed by the county’s Board of Education: the addition to Bethesda Elementary School and the new early childhood center for Watkins Mill High School, in Gaithersburg.
Montgomery County is facing a loss of $600 million in revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic. The council is scheduled to make a final decision on the $5.9 billion budget proposed by County Executive Marc Elrich on May 21.
