This article originally published at 10:38 a.m. on March 22, 2024, was updated at 2:58 p.m. on March 22, 2024, to remove text beginning “On March 21 the County,” which was inadvertently left in during the editing process.
Parents and students in the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) communities that would likely feed into the new Charles C. Woodward and Crown high schools are concerned by a school board decision Tuesday to delay the construction of auditoriums at the schools until after they open.
The Montgomery County Board of Education approved changes to the project scope of the reopening of Woodward in Rockville and the construction of the new Crown High School in Gaithersburg, adding an additional phase to construct auditoriums for both projects. Officials did not say when they plan for the auditoriums to be completed.
Seth Adams, associate superintendent of the MCPS Office of Facilities Management, told the board that the projects have faced some “budgetary shortfalls.”
“As we’ve started to think about these projects, we’ve broken them into a few different pieces along the way trying to figure out what we can afford with the current budget and what we possibly can’t [afford],” Adams said.
He noted that with the Woodward and Crown developments, the district has been able to start the projects and will have three years to “ultimately figure out how to raise the funds for the auditoriums.”
In addition to budget shortfalls, the district is slated to receive less funding from the county for its FY 2025-2030 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) budget.
The board was required to trim proposed spending in order to align with County Executive Marc Elrich’s (D) recommendation for MCPS in his proposed FY 2025-2030 Capital Improvements Program budget, which is approximately $91 million less than the school board requested.
In February the County Council asked the board to develop a list of “non-recommended reductions” to make up the proposed shortfall between the board’s request and Elrich’s recommendation. The board’s two scenarios include “technical adjustments” to the projects at Woodward and Crown high schools but would not impact the proposed schedule for the projects.
According to a school board resolution on the matter, delaying the auditoriums also stems from the “effects of the COVID-19 pandemic” such as a rise in material prices, disruptions in the supply chain and staffing shortages.
Parents and students told the board the construction delay will impact students who are likely to attend the schools.
“It’s not about delaying for a year or until next school year, it’s indefinitely. That is the part that really stinks about this proposal,” Clarksburg High School junior Praneel Suvarna, who is running in this spring’s election for the student member of the board, told MoCo360.
Dorigen Hoffman, one of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations (MCCPTA) coordinators for the Walter Johnson cluster, told MoCo360 last week that the proposed delay is a “major concern” for the cluster especially with overcrowding at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda.
“It means not being able to get to your class on time or not being able to do certain activities or being in portables for forever, during windstorms and it’s unsafe. … So we just really need to move forward,” she said, noting frustration among students and parents around the multiple delays the project has faced.
Plans for Woodward, which is under construction at 11211 Old Georgetown Road in Rockville, include the construction of a building of up to four stories tall with an interior courtyard, athletic fields, a track, a stadium and an auditorium. The capacity of the school is set at 2,160 students.
Initial plans intended for Woodward to be a holding school for two years for students from Northwood High School in Silver Spring while their school is rebuilt to increase capacity. But in November, MCPS announced that students would need to stay an extra year due to the district’s low confidence that the new Northwood building would be completed in a two-year window, school officials said at the meeting. Subsequently, Woodward’s official reopening was also pushed back to August 2027.
The district moved to reopen Woodward High School due to overcrowding at high schools in the Downcounty Consortium and Walter Johnson High School. Construction of the school began in August 2021 and the school is set to reopen in August 2027. The project will cost more than $180 million.
Woodward High School first opened in 1966 and will reopen at the site where it originally stood on Old Georgetown Road. In 1985 the Board of Education voted to close Woodward High School and merge it with nearby Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda due to declining enrollment, The Washington Post reported. The building was a temporary home for Tilden Middle School students who awaited construction of their new school and was later demolished in 2021.
One point of angst among families and students about the delay of the auditorium is that many had understood that Woodward would offer an arts magnet program, according Hoffman. “How can they attract students to a performing arts magnet without a performing arts space?” she said.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, Adams debunked the idea that Woodward would be a performing arts school, saying that idea is “not correct.” He added that officials were looking at the project from the perspective of an “arts infusion” school that can support arts programming.
“I think I’ve heard that a couple of times this is going to be a performing arts high school. No, it’s a comprehensive high school, but it’s going to have a very different, unique performing arts space to see what the possibilities are around a new vision around performing arts,” Adams said.
If Woodward were to reopen in 2027 without a completed auditorium, Adams said the district will look into ways to support students such as looking at alternative areas of the school and county or private performance spaces.
The first phase construction on Woodward is expected to be complete this summer and in time for students at Northwood High School in Silver Spring to attend Woodward this fall as a holding school while their school undergoes a complete reconstruction.
Suvarna says students across the county he has spoken to are frustrated to hear about the plans to delay the auditoriums.
“To say, ‘Hey, we’re going to disrupt your student life, and bring you all the way to another school.’ And then also say, ‘We’re taking away your ability to have a functioning theater program, have assemblies within your school auditorium.’ A thing that generally displaces student life, that’s crazy,” he said.
Adams acknowledged that there will be “slight inconveniences” for Northwood students but noted that initial construction plans did not include the completion of an auditorium before the school opened as a holding school. He also said that Woodward does have performing arts spaces that will be able to accommodate Northwood students.
While Northwood students attend Woodward, the second phase of construction will be underway, according to MCPS. The second phase includes building baseball and softball fields, a track with a stadium and tennis courts. The auditorium was initially planned for Phase II but will now be completed in Phase III.
At Tuesday’s meeting, board member Lynne Harris asked that MCPS officials and board members approach the conversation about Woodward “with humility.”
Harris said that the school community initially heading to Woodward has “shouldered a lot” in recent years. Eighth-graders at Silver Spring International Middle School who are heading to Northwood for high school next year have had a middle school experience that “was basically a construction zone,” she said, noting the ongoing construction at the Wayne Avenue school and for the Purple Line light rail stop being built on the street in front of the building.
“They deserve to have a much better, more comprehensive kind of [360-degree] understanding of what they’re getting into very, very soon … because they have been shouldering a lot of burden for a long time,” Harris said.
Two of the issues MCPS will be navigating through the auditorium delay are determining how to pay for it and the construction timeline. According to Adams, the auditorium is estimated to cost about $22.5 million and will be a “high-dollar” space with new technology that can be expensive. Details on a completion date for auditorium have not yet been determined by MCPS.
The new Crown High School’s auditorium also will cost about $20 million as well, Adams said. The school is scheduled to be completed in August 2027 and will serve the upcounty school communities that have experienced overcrowding as well. The school will have a capacity of 2,219 students.
Board member Shebra Evans (D-Dist. 4) said at Tuesday’s meeting that she wanted the school communities to understand that they “don’t intend to build a school without an auditorium” but must approve delayed construction of the auditorium to avoid further delays in opening.
During the spring and summer, Adams said that there will be engagement meetings for the Northwood community about what to expect in the transition to the Woodward holding school such as bus schedules and extracurriculars.
Community construction meetings are held by MCPS and HESS Construction on the fourth Wednesday every month. The next meeting will be at 6 p.m. on March 27. A community meeting schedule can be found at the project website.