Public Testimony by Chris Kelly: Richard Montgomery Cluster On Growth

This testimony was given at the Mayor and Council Public Hearing on the Municipal Growth Element on September 13, 2010 by Chris Kelly.

My name is Chris Kelly, a West End resident, Richard Montgomery parent and RMPTSA officer. I also serve as a Richard Montgomery Cluster Coordinator for the Montgomery County Council of PTAs and am commenting today on behalf of that cluster, which includes Julius West Middle School, Beall, College Gardens, Ritchie Park and Twinbrook Elementary Schools, in addition to RMHS.

The RM cluster is the only cluster in the County with all six schools within Rockville City Limits, offering a tri-level IB program that attracts families to our cluster and to our City for opportunity. While we welcome these students, we also know that they are contributing to an expanding student population that must be accommodated within our schools and our community.

On June 9, 2010, our Cluster provided testimony to the Rockville Planning Commission on its April 2010 draft of the “Municipal Growth Element” or “MGE”. At that time, we noted that according to the Montgomery County Public Schools FY 2011-2016 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Cluster planning statement, “Student enrollment at elementary schools in the RM cluster has increased dramatically over the past two school years and will cause the cluster to be placed in a housing moratorium in FY 2011 according to the MCGP. Most of the RM cluster is within the City of Rockville. The city’s adequate public facilities school test also will result in all of the RM cluster elementary schools within the city being placed in a residential moratorium in FY 11.”

Our June testimony noted that school growth projections in the April 2010 draft of the MGE did not reflect the reality at our schools and were not adequately taking into account the following:

1) Older citizens turning over their property to young families;
2) Extended families and multiple families crowding into single-family houses; and,
3) The number of children living in apartments and condominiums.

We suggested that the City re-examine how to better determine neighborhood turnover rates and the number of multiple families living in single family dwellings. We noted that housing moratoriums do not impact these sources of additional students.

In addition, we stated that Rockville needs better predictions for numbers of students living in apartments and condominiums that feed to its schools. In the past, we’ve been told that apartments and condominiums don’t usually house that many students, but that was before the housing downturn and mortgage crisis. We believe that the assumptions behind enrollment of students from these housing types need to be revisited.

Our June testimony highlighted the significant growth at all four elementary schools within our Cluster, all of which are in an overcapacity situation and are projected to remain that way until permanent classroom capacity can be added. We are also concerned about the status of Julius West.

We are pleased to see that the Planning Commission draft of the MGE includes a more thorough discussion of the current school enrollment situation and the expected growth in our cluster than the earlier draft.

We commend the City Planning staff and the Planning Commission for revising significantly the public schools discussion in the draft MGE to reflect the serious overcapacity situation at our schools and for suggesting that planning and investment reflect both current and future needs.

Moreover, we agree with the statement in the draft MGE that “MCPS must make addressing capacity issues in Rockville a very high priority.”

We concluded, and we are glad to see that August draft now reflects, that the Montgomery County Capital Improvements Program (CIP) for schools is not keeping up with the County’s or the City’s needs.

We support the request in the Planning Commission draft MGE that MCPS develop a methodology that will more accurately predict future MCPS enrollment, so that schools will not continue to be over their program capacities. We agree that not doing so will result in situations like that which has occurred at College Gardens ES, where newly modernized schools are soon over capacity.

As we testified before the Planning Commission in June, we ask you – the Mayor and Council — to use this MGE effort as a catalyst to begin a formal dialogue with the County, other governing bodies within the County, and its citizens on long-range growth and the impact on schools.

We urge the Mayor and Council to maintain school enrollment issues as a priority and take proactive steps, including communication in the near-term with the Board of Education and the County Council, to ensure that needed school construction within the Richard Montgomery Cluster will be undertaken as soon as possible.

For the longer-term, we note that staff has suggested that the Mayor and Council engage with the School Board to discuss how their capital programs and planning can be better coordinated with the “the City’s policies, future population projections and desired growth patterns.” We ask for RM PTA cluster representatives to be included in those discussions.

We must take action now to ensure our City and our schools retain the high standards of excellence they currently enjoy. The proposed MGE concludes, “Rockville children should not be forced to continually attend schools whose enrollment exceeds capacity.” We agree.

Chris Kelly

We invite anyone who testifies during a Public Hearing to send us your remarks, which we will consider for publication at Rockville Central, as a public service. Like all opinion pieces, our publishing an article does not mean we endorse the author’s opinion.

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