Seven Locks Elementary School parents and PTA members met with a Montgomery County School planner Monday evening to discuss the rationale for three years of construction planned within a four-year time frame.

Following a meeting, the PTA drafted a resolution asking the Board of Education not to support Montgomery County Public Schools' recommended $1 billion construction budget as currently written specifically due to its concerns about the construction.

The Board of Education votes on the proposed six-year budget for 2005-2010 Thursday.

"It does not look carefully planned out," said Chris Rigaux, Seven Locks PTA president, of the current plan that calls for two years of back-to-back construction during which a 10-room addition and gymnasium will be built only to be followed in 2009 with an 18-month modernization of the school's original building.

Rigaux said Tuesday that families were contacting members of the county Board of Education about the resolution. Board of Education President Pat O'Neill said Tuesday afternoon that she had personally received two messages from Seven Locks families concerned about the renovation.

Students will remain at Seven Locks Elementary School during construction of the addition and gym. But during modernization, when they will not have access to the cafeteria, library and core building classrooms, students will be bussed to North Lake Elementary School, a holding facility on Bauer Drive in Rockville.

Seven Locks, which today has 253 students, is getting an addition so that approximately 200 to 250 children can be reassigned from Potomac Elementary School, which is overcrowded. Designed to hold 488 children, Potomac has an enrollment of 596. The excess population is housed in nine portable classrooms, but the circa-1927 core space, which includes a small cafeteria and limited bathroom facilities, is not equipped to handle so many children.

Montgomery County Public Schools administrators are following a 2001 directive from the County Council to build an addition at Seven Locks and redistrict Potomac Elementary's students before the modernization.

"They look at a global issue," said Adrienne Karamihas, who works in the school system's department of planning and capital programming, during the meeting. "Potomac Elementary School will be 176 students over capacity at the end of six years. You have to put them somewhere. You are the second smallest school in the county. It's not cost effective to run a program with 200 kids."

But Seven Locks families, stressing they do not object to receiving more students, countered that children from both schools stand to lose if the plan is implemented as written.

During and after the meeting parent Nan Kennelly expressed concern about Seven Locks' location at the busy intersection of Seven Locks Road and Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, where the only access to the school is from Seven Locks.

In 2001, this was also a concern of Montgomery County Public Schools, which discussed the issue in an addition feasibility study for Seven Locks. Because of the heavy traffic, all Seven Locks students, even those who live within one mile of the school, are eligible for bus transportation. Families at the meeting said despite their close proximity to the school, it takes some children 40 minutes to arrive home by bus.

According to the study, safety would be improved by adding access to Seven Locks school from Bradley Boulevard and that permission needed to be obtained from the state Department of Transportation. The county has not obtained permission yet, but is still planning renovations.

"It's a great concern this issue has not been fully vetted with the state before the decision was made to move ahead [with the addition]," said Kennelly on Tuesday.

There were also questions about the wisdom of moving children from Potomac Elementary to Seven Locks, where they would be subjected to onsite construction while adjusting to their new school and later moved again with their new classmates to a holding facility in Rockville.

Families at the meeting said they would prefer to have their children at Radnor Center holding school in Bethesda because it is closer. But because of schedule conflicts, that won't be possible.

"It would be nice if there was something closer," said Carl Gunther, whose daughter will be starting kindergarten at Seven Locks in 2005. "If it's 40 minutes on the bus now, it will be like an hour-and-a-half coming and going then. That's like three hours a day. "

Karamihas said Montgomery County Public Schools would address those concerns after the budget is approved.