Category Archives: MCPS

MoCo Board Of Ed Update

Jonathan Shurberg February 4, 2016 No Comments

Three new candidates filed last night to run in the three Board of Education races in Montgomery County. In two of the races, prior to yesterday, only one candidate had filed. In District 2, incumbent Rebecca Smondrowski was unopposed until Brandon Rippeon, a Darnestown Republican who was last seen running unsuccessfully for Congress in CD6 in 2012, filed for the seat… Read more »

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New MoCo School Superintendent?

Jonathan Shurberg February 4, 2016 No Comments

The Post is reporting that the Board of Education will name Jack Smith as the new superintendent of schools at a meeting tonight. Montgomery County is expected to name Jack R. Smith, Maryland’s interim state superintendent of schools, as its new schools chief Thursday evening, ending a year-long search for a leader for the state’s largest school system, according to two people… Read more »

School Overcrowding

Jonathan Shurberg September 9, 2015 No Comments

A simple term, but it appears to mean different things in different parts of Montgomery County. In fact, it sure seems like the only school construction projects being approved by MCPS are in Bethesda. Folks in Bethesda are so attuned to school overcrowding that they’re asking MCPS to renovate Walter Johnson HS for the second time in less than a decade…. Read more »

MCBOE At War With Pretty Much Everyone

Jonathan Shurberg August 21, 2015 No Comments

Today’s Bethesda Magazine brings us the story of the Montgomery County Board of Education being at war with . . . well, pretty much everyone, over the construction of a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school. On the one side, you have the Board and the MCPS bureaucracy, and on the other, a list including County Councilmembers Marc Elrich and Craig Rice,… Read more »

Anyone See A Pattern Emerging Here?

Jonathan Shurberg August 18, 2015 No Comments

First we learn that Walter Johnson, one of the highly sought after “W” schools (along with Wootton, Winston Churchill and Walt Whitman), a high school that was just rebuilt in 2009, is being considered for another renovation. Now Walt Whitman, with the lowest minority population in the county, is due to be renovated, despite being barely over capacity (Downcounty Consortium Schools Northwood,… Read more »

MCPS Planning Process: A Mess

Jonathan Shurberg August 12, 2015 No Comments

In 2011, MCPS undertook a process to review its school renovation and reconstruction plan. It intended, as it has in previous reviews, to utilize the new plan for 20 years, until 2031. Last month, the Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) submitted a report to the Council regarding its review of MCPS’ 2011 review process. It wasn’t good. In fact it was… Read more »

MoCo High Schools Side By Side

Jonathan Shurberg August 7, 2015 No Comments

I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but after the Walter Johnson article in Bethesda Magazine and my spittle-inflected response thereto, I thought it was worth posting again. It shows clearly that there are a number of schools more overcrowded and much older than WJ. Yet MCPS has seen fit to pay for a proposal from an architect to… Read more »

Of Green Zones and Red Zones

Jonathan Shurberg August 6, 2015 No Comments

Today’s Bethesda Magazine piece on Bethesda’s efforts to get a renovation project for Walter Johnson High School in the County Capital Improvements Program (CIP) breaks open some serious issues for those, like me, who have watched this dance play out for too many years. Simply put, for those who pay attention to the issue in the County, there is the… Read more »