Northwood High School students and parents shared their frustration and anger Wednesday night about Montgomery County Public Schools’ proposed plans regarding the school’s expected move to the new Charles W. Woodward High School in Rockville for the upcoming school year.
“I’m scared for the future of my education,” Northwood freshman Zoe Giannakos told MCPS officials at the district’s community meeting at Northwood High School on University Boulevard West in Silver Spring.
Northwood students are expected to move to Woodward, under construction at 11211 Old Georgetown Road, for about three years while their school undergoes a $124 million rebuilding project to increase its capacity.
Several dozen community members attended the Wednesday night session, which ran almost two hours longer than planned, as parents peppered MCPS administrators with questions–with some wondering whether the move to Woodward was worth the trouble and whether it could be delayed.
Brigid Howe, the Northwood cluster coordinator at the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA), noted that for Northwood families “a lot of promises have been broken, a lot plans that people came into these conversations in good faith with are not happening.”
Howe also said the district has not provided enough opportunities for the school community to engage with MCPS officials on the moving plans and needs to find ways to involve the community.
“I think what MCPS is going to need to consider is sacrificing a little on your end,” she said. “And if that means doing things that you don’t usually do, you might need to think doing about them in order to make it up to this community.
“My son is going to start at Northwood in two years… . I don’t know what it is, what the extra is, but you all should probably start thinking about that–what are the things that you’re going to be able to provide that are special that are going to incentivize,” Howe said.
Giannakos was one of several students who shared their frustration with the district’s plans to start school at 7:25 a.m. at Woodward as well as with new schedules proposed for transportation, athletics and after-school activities. County high schools currently start the school day at 7:45 a.m.
“What will the county and MCPS do to prioritize Northwood students’ best interests?” Giannakos asked the district officials, noting that an earlier start time may discourage students from wanting to attend school.
Giannakos, who participates in Northwood’s drama program and is a member of the school band, said she also was worried about the lack of an auditorium at Woodward and plans to shuttle students to various performance spaces for rehearsals, practices or performances. According to MCPS officials, Woodward will have a black box theater available as well as various areas to serve as performance spaces when Northwood students arrive.
In March, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved project changes that would postpone construction of auditoriums at Woodward and the new Crown High School under construction in Gaithersburg. Officials have not said when they plan for the auditoriums to be completed, noting that “budgetary shortfalls” were the reason for the delay.
When completed, the new Woodward will consist of a building of up to four stories tall with an interior courtyard, athletic fields, a track, a stadium and eventually an auditorium. The project aims to alleviate overcrowding at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda as well as other schools. Capacity of the school is set at 2,160 students.
Initial MCPS plans intended for Woodward to be a holding school for two years for the Northwood students. But in November, MCPS announced that the 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. Subsequently, Woodward’s official reopening was pushed back to August 2027.
Plans to rebuild Northwood aim to alleviate crowding in nearby high schools and provide an upgrade to a school that was originally built in 1956, with additions completed in 1958, 1964 and 1974, according to the MCPS project website.
The project entails demolishing the existing school and rebuilding it on the same site. The new four-story school will be situated around a courtyard and will include about 400,000 square feet of new space. The school will have a new athletic stadium, baseball and softball fields and tennis courts as well as a performing arts center, TV studio, labs and dozens of classrooms.
The move to Woodward, about 8 miles away, means Northwood students will face a longer commute and those who walk to their current school will have to ride a school bus.
During Wednesday’s meeting, MCPS transportation officials explained that classes need to start 20 minutes earlier at Woodward to accommodate the district’s tiered transportation system – in which buses first drop off high school students before later delivering students to middle schools and then to elementary schools. The earlier start time was the only way to reduce the impact on the later bus riders, officials said.
Northwood High School Principal Jonathan Garrick shared a list of tentative bus routes for students, proposed schedules for the 2024-2025 bell schedule, and a document where community members can provide suggestions and comments on the schedule.
Bryan Walker, operations coordinator for MCPS athletics department, said the athletics schedule for Northwood’s fall sports season has been set and the department is working on schedules for the winter and spring seasons.
Northwood’s volleyball team would hold practices and games in Woodward’s gymnasium and other teams including those for football, field hockey, soccer and cross-country would be shuttled to nearby parks for practices, according to Walker. All games for those sports would be played at opposing schools.
Parents at the meeting echoed Giannakos’ concerns with the proposed early start time and lack of amenities for Northwood students. Amy Kenny, a Northwood parent of a senior and a sophomore, said the earlier start time meant a school bus would pick up her younger child at 6:10 a.m. Kenny said she worried about students losing sleep.
“Who is looking out for the thrivability of students?” she asked. “MCPS is failing to adequately engage this community and I don’t feel this is equitable.”
Multiple other parents chimed in to share their concerns with the earlier start time and how it could impact absenteeism, academics and student morale.
“It’s established in the scientific literature that adolescents’ natural sleep cycles … will push them into wanting to naturally sleep in,” one parent said.
Peter Moran, the MCPS acting chief of schools, acknowledged that the school community and MCPS “decision makers” needed to have a follow-up conversation with parents about their concerns soon as well as a series of meetings in multiple languages leading up to the move.
Howe asked MCPS officials to “please include families earlier” when planning transportation schedules.
“We know the area and the traffic patterns. We have good ideas and we can help you,” she said.