The Washington Sun published an in-depth article today examining the continuing fight over Montgomery County Public Schools’ decision to relocate Thomas S. Wootton High School to the new Crown High School building beginning in the 2027-28 school year ("Montgomery County Approved New School Boundaries. Parents Won’t Let It End There.")

The article looks at the broader debate over school boundaries, closures and community identity across Montgomery County, while focusing significantly on the Wootton community’s continuing efforts to preserve a comprehensive high school on Wootton Parkway. The article t also discusses the administrative appeal filed by Wootton parents and community members challenging the Board of Education’s decision.

I spoke with reporter Jeff Barker about why I believe the current Wootton site must continue to have a long-term future as a permanent comprehensive high school. As I told The Washington Sun:

That position remains my view. The Board of Education voted 7-1 on March 26 to move Wootton to the new Crown building for the 2027-28 school year and use the existing Wootton facility as a holding school while other schools undergo construction. MCPS has characterized the decision as a relocation rather than a closure. The Wootton community’s administrative appeal challenges that characterization and argues that the decision should have been subject to Maryland’s school-closure requirements.

Whatever happens through the appeal process, I believe the long-term planning question remains larger than the next school year or the next construction cycle.

The Wootton Parkway site is an established school location in a growing part of the County, surrounded by neighborhoods that have relied on a nearby comprehensive high school for generations. It also sits within a region facing significant school-capacity and facility challenges. We should be planning for what Montgomery County will need ten, twenty and thirty years from now, not simply for the enrollment projections of one moment in time.

I have consistently supported opening Crown High School and using that new capacity to address overcrowding and future school construction needs. However, I have also strongly opposed permanently eliminating a comprehensive high school from the Wootton Parkway site. Those two positions are not inconsistent. Montgomery County can use Crown while also recognizing that the current Wootton property remains an important long-term educational asset.

The Washington Sun article also captures something that can be easy to lose in a discussion dominated by enrollment projections, boundary maps, and utilization percentages: schools are part of communities. For many families, Wootton is not simply a building or a name that can be moved from one location to another. Rather our school has become a neighborhood institution that has served generations of students and families.

The immediate debate over Wootton is far from finished, and neither is the longer-term question of what happens to the school property on Wootton Parkway. My position remains clear: the current Wootton site must serve as a permanent comprehensive high school, and I will continue advocating for the planning and investment necessary to make that happen.

Read the full Washington Sun article