Sharon Cox, president of the school board, is quoted as saying that the community had plenty of input into the County Council's recent decision to junk Seven Locks Elementary School and build a mammoth regional school on Kendale Road.

The article states that the plan was announced on May 6 and voted on by the County Council on May 14.

Enough said about community input.

Bob and Lillian Moran, Potomac

Sharon Cox said that residents were involved in the decision on the Seven Locks/Kendale issue via the Seven Locks PTA participation in hearings held in early spring.

"The school community was well aware of it because they testified at hearings. Naturally, if the school community is involved, homeowners should be aware of what is happening," she said.

This is an invalid assumption. If the Kendale school is to be opened in 2007, that means half of the current PTA members' children would be out of school and have no direct interest in the Seven Locks/Kendale school matter (those third graders and up).

On the other hand, a significant portion of the 2007-09 kindergarten class parents who will be directly affected by the outcome of this matter, were not informed about this issue, were not invited to PTA meetings, and did not have a chance to voice their opinion or vote on any PTA resolution.

Thomas Chen, Bethesda

We are writing to correct a misleading statement by Sharon Cox that there was community input in the recent decision to abandon Seven Locks Elementary School and build a huge regional school on the Kendale site.

As adjacent property owners at these sites, none of us was contacted by county or school officials concerning this plan, nor did we have an opportunity to publicly comment on it before those making these decisions.

We question the abruptness and restricted nature of the decision to abandon Seven Locks and to erect a school on Kendale Road without proper notification to residents. We are stung by Ms. Cox's continued reliance on a school board hearing (where Kendale was never discussed) and on a single late-night, 13-11 vote at a Seven Locks PTA meeting -- restricted to Seven Locks parents -- as evidence of broad neighborhood input and support. In fact, in the Kendale neighborhood, 95 percent of the residents are not members of the PTA at Seven Locks.

At the decisive County Council meeting on May 14, Councilwoman Marilyn Praisner reminded Ms. Cox of the school board's legal mandate to notify the community (which we take to mean the whole community) and to obtain input on such a far-reaching decision. Ms. Cox assured her that this mandate had been met. We disagree.

Lisa Bleier and Rodney Tanner, Inder Gill, Thomas and Carrie Masden, Ralph and Wendy Miller, and Neil and Cynthia McMullen, Bethesda

The central issue of the June 9 meeting was the lack of community input into the decision to close Seven locks ES and surplus the site back to the county to build high-density housing. Although the community has discussed how best to modernize Seven Locks, the decision to close it and surplus the land was made behind closed doors and surprised everyone in the community. This is unacceptable.

The county wants to build a 740-seat school, but only open it with 550 students. For anyone who knows the Kendale site, there is no way that neighborhood's infrastructure can support a 740-seat population.

By building a 550-seat school and closing a 300-seat school, you add 250 seats. It is probable that the planned housing project will absorb a good portion of the added seats. By my estimate, you still need a whole bunch of trailers at Potomac ES, so you really haven't gained much of anything. Of course, there will still be the problem of future growth needs.

At the meeting, Janice Sartucci, the Churchill cluster coordinator, presented some numbers about the need for school capacity in the county. Seven Locks will clearly be needed in its present status, in an expanded status or as a holding school even with a new school on the Kendale site.

All anyone talks about in this county is traffic and education. The County Council would like to work on these problems by closing a perfectly good school and building high-density housing at an intersection that is already overcrowded. It takes talent to come up with an idea that stupid.

Jay M. Weinstein, Bethesda