‘Save Wootton’ families intensify their fight to keep their school

Rockville families are ramping up their fight to keep Thomas S. Wootton High School in their community ahead of a consequential vote next week.

The Montgomery County Public Schools board is expected to decide on the future of Wootton — and several other campus boundary lines — at its March 26 meeting.

If the board approves Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s plan, students who expected to attend Wootton will instead go to a newly constructed campus in Gaithersburg, about three miles away.

In the view of many Wootton parents, this move would needlessly uproot their children from a hub at the center of their community. At a Tuesday news conference, they threatened legal action as they questioned the district’s process, timeline and data.

“Before Montgomery County makes an irreversible decision to affect thousands of students and families, the public deserves a process that is transparent, rigorous and open to scrutiny,” MCPS parent Lauren Mahjoubi Clancy said. “Many in this community believe that standard has not been met.”

Taylor based his recommendation on Wootton’s deteriorating building. Crown Farm High School in Gaithersburg will be a brand-new campus.

Moving existing students out of Wootton’s building would allow the district to use it as a “holding school” to house other students while their own campuses undergo renovations.

Many parents are unconvinced by that argument and are asking the board to hit pause. They’re also asking for intervention from local politicians, the Office of the Inspector General and the state board of education.

Adding to their frustrations are other changes that district leaders are considering. Board members are simultaneously weighing the high school boundary study, a revamp of its specialized programs and a yearslong plan to improve its facilities. More could be coming, including a redrawing of elementary school attendance lines.

“What started out as a boundary study has turned into a broad restructuring of the schools, without meaningful engagement or analysis of the impact that this will have,” said Claire Matta, a member of the newly created Community and Education Policy Alliance, which opposes this move.

District officials disputed that the Wootton shift is a school closure and that the community didn’t have a chance to weigh in.

They’ve described the move as a relocation. The current building would remain a MCPS property, and serve as a holding school so that other big construction projects across the county could move faster.

“The building is meaningful,” Taylor told families. “It is not everything.”

To Wootton freshman Spencer Joern, the move to Crown sounds like a good thing, given the conditions he’s currently learning in. He described mold, broken toilets and ceiling tiles that tumble down.

“It’s just going to take so long to renovate this school,” he said. “Crown would be a lot safer and better for the community.”

‘We have to speak up’

The revised boundaries would roll out in stages, with full implementation coming in the 2029-30 year. Current juniors and seniors would remain at their campuses until graduation.

Among the families’ issues: Longer and potentially dangerous student commutes for some teenagers and an inequitable impact on Asian students, who constitute more than one-third of the Wootton High community.

“I told my kids, as a first-generation immigrant, when something unfair is happening, we have to speak up,” said Don Chang, who spoke on behalf of Asian American families concerned about the move.

Chang added that the district hasn’t done enough to communicate with stakeholders who speak limited English.

Wootton families aren’t the only ones upset about the boundary proposal, a process that always inflames tensions among parents who bought their homes and planned their lives around the schools their kids will attend.

Some parents from the Magruder and Woodward clusters also spoke out against the plan on Tuesday, expressing a deep concern about whether they could trust Montgomery County Public Schools leaders.

“There is some scrutiny that needs to take place,” Matta said.

Hours after the families’ news conference, Taylor spoke with Wootton families at a contentious town hall that devolved into yells and chants. Audience members wanted to know why the new Crown campus couldn’t instead serve as the holding school. They asked for stability for Wootton’s kids.

The superintendent acknowledged the difficult semester that Wootton students and staff have had, far beyond the questions about their school’s future. Last month, a student was shot and injured on campus.

Taylor also stood by his recommendation to move Wootton students to Gaithersburg.

He referenced district’s declining enrollment and need to reevaluate MCPS’ footprint. MCPS’ enrollment has dropped to a 10-year low, with Taylor pointing to the lower birth rate as a major factor.

“I would love to be wrong,” Taylor said.

In response, audience members yelled toward the stage that they think he is wrong.

At the end of the town hall, a father got on the microphone to direct disappointed parents to donate to a legal fund dedicated to stopping the Wootton move.