Report: Rock Creek Hills Residents File Open Meetings Complaint With School Board

The Gazette is reporting that neighbors of a Kensington park that’s the proposed site for a new B-CC middle school have filed an open meetings complaint with the Montgomery County Board of Education.

The neighbors have said they were not included in a site selection committee that recommended the Rock Creek Hills local park to be studied for a new school in the overcrowded cluster, voicing their opposition to the selection process at a recent and May 24.

The Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association filed the complaint Thursday, The Gazette reported. The complaint alleges the Board of Education used exceptions to the Maryland Open Meetings Law to "deliberately and systematically avoid its responsibility to conduct its business in an open and public manner," according to The Gazette.

Schools officials have said the site selection process is typically closed to the public to protect negotiations with private landowners. But in a departure from the usual process, the site selection committee’s report was made public before the committee’s official recommendation to the board.

Though the sites under consideration were posted publicly on the board’s website, many Kensington residents said they weren’t aware their neighborhood park was under consideration as a future school site until a few hours before the with a feasibility study there in late April. The site was initially proposed as an alternate to the Rosemary Hills/Lyttonsville park in Silver Spring, but that selection met with stiff opposition from the surrounding community and the Montgomery County Planning Board. Both railed against using parks sites for schools.

Montgomery County Planning Board chair Francoise Carrier also urged a more transparent process when public lands are on the table. Six of the ten sites looked at were public parks.

The Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association has also filed an appeal of the board’s decision to study the site with the Maryland State Board of Education, the Gazette reported.

Despite the community opposition, a feasibility study for the site is moving forward. The first meeting is slated for 7p.m. Wednesday in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School choral room.