Northwood News ♦ February 2003

Redistricting May Send Local Students to Unrenovated NHS

Northwood High School to Reopen as Part of Downcounty Consortium

By David West

Hello from a neighbor to the South!  I live in South Four Corners, have a First Grader at Forest Knolls ES, and teach at Blair High School.  I am inviting you to join a movement to build citizen power in the “Downcounty” area.  Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has included Northwood in a new five high school megacluster Downcounty Consortium (DCC) that includes approximately 20,000 students.  Thus, we in Four Corners are now, officially, bedfellows with dozens of other neighborhoods in Kensington, Silver Spring, Takoma Park, and Wheaton.  What MCPS does to or for any of us will affect all of us.

Who cares?  Because you own your home or might buy one in our area, you should!

Currently, prospective homebuyers can find out which high school serves any address.  As of this year, however, those designations will change!  Your home address, for example, feeds Blair HS.  It is possible that, beginning in August 2004, students from your home will not be allowed to attend Blair.  If they must attend another equally strong high school, no one may care.  But what if the high school they must attend is inferior?  We need to work together to make sure MCPS makes all DCC high schools strong.

Traditionally, anyone could look on an MCPS map and see the boundaries that surround any school.  Within the boundaries of a high school are the boundaries of feeder middle schools; within the boundaries of a middle school lie the elementary schools.  MCPS will erase boundaries on the map that separate the districts of Blair, Einstein, Kennedy, and Wheaton high schools.  Instead, attendance will depend largely on the elementary school boundaries.  Each elementary school area will be part of a “base area” for one of five high schools (the four above, plus Northwood High School).  Students will attend their base high school unless there is space available at a DCC high school they prefer.

MCPS has not decided which school will be our base school, but it seems likely it will assign us to Northwood.  As many of you know personally, Northwood served our community from the 1950s to the 1980s.  It is near us on University Boulevard at Arcola Avenue.  By taking our kids out of Blair, MCPS can reduce overcrowding.  Northwood has housed many schools being renovated, but MCPS has not renovated it.  Nor does it intend to.  However, it has committed to improve parts of the building beginning after Rockville HS leaves in June 2004 and continuing as students attend starting in August 2004.

It seems like it could be a change for the worse.

We might make it a change for the better.

We need to take this as a wake up call.  Neighbors did not passively accept a spruce-up-on-the-cheap for B-CC HS.  Instead, they successfully fought for a beautiful $50 million total renovation.  A cynic might say, “Come on, everyone knows that Montgomery County always helps rich neighborhoods like Bethesda at the expense of Silver Spring.” It is true that MCPS intends to spend around $11.5 million for Northwood.

Let the facts dispel any cynicism:  Who stopped the stupid plans to build a Megamall in downtown Silver Spring and a KFC in Four Corners?  People like you and I raised a stink!  Citizens for a Better Blair fought and won a $40 million program-driven new Blair HS!

Who will fight for an equally good Northwood?  I expect one of the people to be you!

Despite the shock of this change, I remain optimistic that we can work together to help Northwood and all DCC schools by being visible, audible advocates.  The DCC is a huge area with a high population.  The DCC is a massive sleeping giant of political power.  You know that for every voter in the DCC area there is another person who is eligible to vote but does not.  Campaigning for a better Northwood is just a start.  Imagine more people becoming responsible and realizing that their small effort is making a difference.  Imagine how much stronger and more livable our downcounty neighborhoods will become!

You should make a small (or large!) but valuable contribution to a large collective effort:

• get more information and and communicate with other fire-up people at groups.yahoo.com/group/Downcounty_Consortium_Neighbor_Network.
• help spread the word to as many DCC “stakeholders” as possible.  Use existing networks:  neighbors, friends, PTAs, citizen associations, religious organizations, book clubs, babysitting co-ops, scout troops, sports teams, clubs, and workplaces.  Communicate via email, newsletters, bulletin boards, telephone, letters to the editor, and face to face.
• help reach out to an “under-represented” person and encourage her/him to register to vote.  (The form is on our website.  See link below).
• communicate directly to the Montgomery County Board of Education:  Carver Educational Services Center, 850 Hungerford Drive, Room 123, Rockville, MD 20850, or email boe@fc.mcps.k12.md.us.
• you can also visit the Forest Knolls PTA site: fkespta.org.

We who are already participating welcome your participation and ideas!  Contact me at [contact details redacted] for more information.

[Note:  This article was truncated in the printed newsletter.  It appears in its entirety here.  The FKES PTA website URL also was updated.]   ■