Like many of you, I was very surprised to learn that MCPS Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr recommended convening a new site selection process for the new middle school in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Cluster.  Given that his FY13-18 CIP recommendations, submitted to the Board of Education the Friday before, made no reference to a new process, this was a particularly unexpected change of course.

Nevertheless, the Superintendent believes a new site selection process can be undertaken without causing delays to the project's expected 2017 completion.  I have reiterated to the Superintendent and to my colleagues on the Board of Education that it is absolutely critical this project remains on schedule.  

It is also true that the process used by the school system was flawed:  notwithstanding that all of the sites under consideration were public sites, the process was not open to the public generally.  Instead, selected representatives of the cluster met in the early part of 2011 and worked hard to come up with two top recommendations.  

The first choice was nixed when our Planning Board made it clear that they would not allow the use of park land, on which the school system does not retain recall rights, for a new school.  The second choice -- Rock Creek Hills Park -- remains viable, but has also been met with resistance, particularly by the immediate neighbors. Unless some unprecedented public/private partnership arises, and can be closed in time, I personally will be surprised (not for the first time obviously) if the new look arrives at a different conclusion.  

Nonetheless, I recognize it is the school system's prerogative to make these sorts of calls -- and I know both the Superintendent and the Board of Education share my commitment to providing adequate facilities that give our students the best educational environment to thrive.

Ultimately, my concerns -- that the new middle school provide enough capacity to provide relief to the cluster's severe overcrowding and that the project is completed as soon as possible -- remain the same.  It is with these objectives in mind that I hope the new Site Selection Advisory Committee completes its work thoroughly and switfly.

The Council considers our Capital Improvements Program (CIP) biannually.  And while this is a CIP "off-year", no news is good news, as they say, for District 1 schools. All of our District 1 school CIP projects remain funded and on schedule.  To take a look at where your school's project stands, click here.   

I am pleased that these projects remain on schedule - these are the classroom additions, renovations, and modernizations that so many of our schools so desperately need to help ensure our students have the learning environment they deserve.  In the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Cluster, a "solutions project" at the middle school level was approved to be added so that the cluster is not subject to a building moratorium under the public school adequacy test.  A more specific PDF (project description form) for this project is expected to be completed for the FY13-18 CIP once MCPS concludes its feasibility study for the new middle school.  

The future North Bethesda Recreation Center is also in the "good news" category.  The County Executive, as an off-year CIP amendment, had proposed completely closing out the project.  I found this to be unacceptable for a community that has already waited too long for a project called for in their 1992 Master Plan.  For that reason, I wrote to my colleagues on the PHED Committee and asked that they reject the County Executive's proposal, and instead ask him to include funding in future years so that the project essentially remains alive.  I am pleased that the Council approved an amended PDF for the project that does just that - and I remain confident that, even though it has been a long wait, the residents of North Bethesda will eventually have an alternative to driving to Potomac or Chevy Chase.