The Fallsmead Homes Corporation has been closely following the proposal to permanently close Thomas S. Wootton High School on Wootton Parkway. Given the potentially devastating effects that this decision could have on Fallsmead and surrounding communities, as well as the implications for the overall health of the county, our Board voted unanimously to make this public statement: 

Fallsmead Homes Corporation unequivocally opposes the MCPS Superintendent’s formal recommendation to permanently close Wootton High School.

Fallsmead is a community of 291 homes immediately adjacent to the Wootton campus. Our families walk to Wootton every day. Our children grow up alongside it, attending Frost Middle School next door, collaborating across campuses, and eventually walking the same paths to high school. This is not an abstract policy question for us. It is about the future of our neighborhood.

Despite the Wootton cluster being the most directly impacted by this proposal, no one from MCPS or the Superintendent's office engaged with our community. As the City of Rockville noted in its February 13 letter, there was no meeting with the Wootton cluster between the introduction of Option H and the final recommendation — even as other clusters received such engagement around other boundary options. This is not just an oversight; it is inconsistent with Board Policy ABA (Community Engagement), which requires that engagement efforts prioritize those most impacted by a decision, that the Board "make every effort to ascertain and respect the preferences of students, families, and staff" of affected school communities, and that the Superintendent provide support to ensure robust local engagement. We echo the City's call for equitable treatment and ask the Board to hold this process to the standard its own policy demands.

Wootton High School is not just a school - it is the center of the Fallsmead, Fallsbend, Scott Drive, Rockshire, Lakewood, and Hurley neighborhoods. As The City of Rockville Mayor and Council have documented, the campus serves as a gathering place for Scout troops, community organizations, stream cleanups, religious events, and elections. There is no nearby community center to replace it. Closing this campus would remove the main pillar of support  at the heart of this community, fracturing and weakening the overall health of Montgomery County.

The Superintendent's Recommendation would bus our entire community out of our neighborhood school and bus another community in, directly contradicting state and county policies that prioritize housing where children can walk to school. To quote the school district's own stated policy: "MCPS strives to create neighborhood schools, where students live as close as possible to school. The district also strives to maximize the number of students who walk to school. Student proximity to schools is an important planning consideration for MCPS, as laid out in Policy FAA,  which names geography as a key factor in educational facilities planning." Fallsmead residents chose to live here in large part because their children can safely walk to Wootton. That walkability is not a convenience; it is foundational to our community's identity and our families' daily lives.

New housing is being built directly across from Wootton. The City of Rockville has identified 1,055 residential units in nine approved developments nearby, with the state requiring 2,330 additional units by 2030. The Maryland Building Industry Association has warned that removing permanent high school capacity from a designated growth corridor is inconsistent with sound planning and undermines the county's own housing and affordability goals. This is not the time to close Wootton, it is the time to invest in its future.

We support the Modified Recommendation endorsed by the City of Rockville: utilizing Crown as a temporary holding school during the renovation of Magruder and Wootton, rather than permanently closing Wootton. This approach would serve multiple school clusters across the county, reduce transportation burdens, and allow Crown to ultimately fulfill its original purpose as a comprehensive high school serving the Gaithersburg community. It also preserves long-term stability for families already facing the prospect of an elementary boundary study.

It is important to note that Superintendent Taylor stated that the capital cost of bringing the Wootton’s building systems (HVAC, plumbing, etc) up to a level that would be acceptable for use as a temporary holding school would be up to $100M. He subsequently estimated the cost of a permanent, full renovation of the building (if Wootton were to remain operational as a comprehensive high school) to be around $200M (with the difference in cost due to “aesthetic treatments, moving walls, and resizing classrooms”). We therefore assert that the superintendent’s current proposal does not withstand financial scrutiny from an asset management perspective, as the capital will be spent to upgrade the building systems in either scenario

Wootton High School has never received a major renovation since it was built in 1970. For nearly twenty years the community has advocated for improvements, only to see funding added and then removed from the CIP (Capital Improvements Program) repeatedly. The solution to years of deferred investment is not to abandon the campus altogether. It is to finally make the investment our students, teachers and staff have long deserved.

The Fallsmead Homes Corporation stands with the City of Rockville, our neighboring HOAs, and the broader Wootton community in calling for a transparent, data-driven, equitable process that keeps Wootton High School open on Wootton Parkway.

Sincerely,

Bryan Gibb
President, Fallsmead Homes Corporation