Board of Education Drops Proposed Silver Spring Park; Favors Kensington Site For New B-CC Middle School

In the face of strong opposition from the Rosemary Hills community and from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, the Montgomery County Board of Education voted Thursday against considering the Rosemary Hills-Lyttonsville Local Park as a site for a It instead voted to move forward with a feasibility study for the new school at Rock Creek Hills Local Park in Kensington – a site set forth as an alternate by the same site selection committee that recommended the Rosemary Hills site – in a move that marked a victory for some, and a shock for others.

The decision also highlighted a tension between Montgomery County Public Schools and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission as space to build new schools becomes scarce in the highly developed downcounty, and the school system eyes parkland as potential school sites to accommodate rising enrollment projections. At the hearing, some dubbed the conflict “Parks vs. Schools.”

Neighbors of the Rosemary Hills-Lyttonsville Local Park to build a new middle school on their park and hailed the board member’s decision Thursday to take the site off the table. But controversy will likely continue to swirl as the board moves forward with the feasibility study at the Rock Creek Hills parks site. Some Rock Creek Hills residents said that Thursday’s board meeting marked the first time the alternate site had been highlighted in the public site selection discussion.

“We feel very blindsided,” said Rock Creek Hills resident Kristin O’Keefe.

Both communities said they didn’t have a seat at the table during the site selection process.

“For all who live in and love the [Rosemary Hills-Lyttonsville] community, we consider it a victory tonight – we’re glad the board listened to our concerns that we were excluded from the process,” said former Rosemary Hills resident Teresa Murray.

The site selection committee – comprised of county officials, MCPS staff, PTA members, local officials and others – considered 10 potential school sites, six of which were public parks.

“Particularly in well-developed parts of the county like Bethesda and Chevy Chase, there aren’t that many options to find vacant land to house schools – most of the land that exists in these communities are going to be parks,” said MCPS chief operating officer Larry Bowers at the hearing.

But April 27, Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Francoise Carrier wrote the board condemning the use of park sites for schools. 

“M-NCPPC has a fiduciary duty to the public to protect and preserve parkland,” Carrier wrote. “We recognize there may be, on rare occasions, a higher public interest to which we must defer. However, we are not inclined to accept a routine school site selection as such an exception.”

The Montgomery County Planning Board recently voted to object to converting the Rosemary Hills park site into a school, Carrier wrote.

Carrier also took issue with the notion that parkland is vacant space.

“In fact, the very opposite is true – most have highly popular public amenities built upon them and serve as community gathering places, valuable open spaces, or carbon-offsetting open fields and wooded areas.”

Some former school sites that are now park sites may be recalled by the school system for the development of new schools, according to board members and Carrier’s letter. MCPS does have “recall rights” on the Rock Creek Hills site.

“Even with the recall right provision, however, there are still legal and financial considerations that must be addressed before any transfer could take place,” Carrier wrote.

Carrier raised concerns about the site selection process – saying that an M-NCPPC staff member on the site selection committee who raised concerns about conversion of parkland was “ignored” and that the selection requires more transparency when public lands are on the table. The site selection process is typically confidential to protect negotiations between private landowners and the school system, but in a departure from the usual process, the report by the site selection committee was made public by MCPS before the board took action on the committee’s recommendation.

Board members said the site selection process needed to be more inclusive of residents in neighborhoods where schools are proposed, repeatedly questioning MCPS director of facilities James Song about how the Rock Creek Hills and Rosemary Hills communities were or weren’t engaged in the site selection process and subsequent community meetings. They also stressed the need to start discussions with Park and Planning.

“The need for land is real, the need to support students is real, the need to support parks is real, so there needs to be a different kind of conversation if looking forward there aren’t going to be that many options,” said board Vice President Shirley Brandman (At large).

Since the school system does have “recall rights” on the Rock Creek Hills site as the former location of the Kensington Junior High School, the board opted to move forward with the feasibility study there rather than to pursue the Rosemary Hills site. With strong opposition from Park and Planning, the County Council would have ultimately needed to weigh in to determine whether that site could have been converted, Song said.

“The letter from Francoise Carrier makes it pretty clear they have no intention of giving us this,” said board member Laura Berthiaume (Dist. 2). “I think doing a feasibility study [at Rosemary Hills] would be a waste of time and money and we are under pressure to get a school built.”

In her letter, however, Carrier predicted community opposition to converting the Rock Creek Hills Local Park to a school. "It is ... a highly popular and well-used community park, and will no doubt experience a similar public reaction if taken back for a school," Carrier wrote.

Susan Buchanan, an advocate and neighbor of the Rosemary Hills-Lyttonsville Local Park, was among those who showed up to the hearing in green T-shirts to show their support for their community park.

"We are ready to wash our shirts and hand them over to the Rock Creek Hills community," Buchanan said. "We don't believe that parks should be used for schools."