Closing Seven Locks ES still an option

Kendale site remains on table as a series of hearings on Potomac school’s future begins next week

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Closing Seven Locks Elementary School is the only one of the eight options that is less expensive than building a new Seven Locks Elementary on Kendale Road, according to a draft report released last week by a task force of school planners and County Council staffers.

The school board is not ruling out either option for the Potomac school, despite opposition from the County Council and the community to the Kendale Road site. A hearing is set for 7 p.m. Monday to hear from the community about the two options.

It would cost $17.4 million to build a school on Kendale Road for up to 640 students and $18.1 million to build a school there for up to 740 students, according to cost estimates presented in the report.

At Thursday’s school board meeting in Rockville, Superintendent Jerry D. Weast recommended that the school system build a school for 640 students at Kendale Road. The previous plan approved by the school board and the state agency on school construction called for a school with 740 students on the site.

‘‘The report confirms my original recommendation that a Kendale replacement school is the best option,” Weast said.

The task force also found that closing Seven Locks and creating four elementary schools in the Churchill cluster that could serve up to 740 students each would cost $12.4 million, making it ‘‘significantly cheaper than all other options,” Weast said.

Under that option, Bells Mill, Beverly Farms and Potomac elementaries would absorb Seven Locks students. Wayside Elementary is the fourth school that would remain open in the cluster.

The school board voted 5-2 to hold a public hearing on Monday on that option, as well as Weast’s recommended option of building on Kendale Road.

Board members Valerie Ervin (Dist. 4) and Nancy Navarro (Dist. 5), both of Silver Spring, and student member Sebastian Johnson voted in opposition, although the student member’s vote does not count on budget matters.

Navarro said she supported holding the hearing, but said it should consider all eight options. Ervin said holding a hearing is ‘‘a ridiculous setup” if the board has already decided to build on Kendale Road.

‘‘So if that’s what we want, let’s just say this is the option we want and move forward,” Ervin said.

In a statement following Thursday’s vote, Council President George L. Leventhal (D-At large) of Takoma Park reiterated a position the council has held since hearing unanimous opposition to the Kendale Road project from 60 speakers at two public hearings in March.

‘‘Given the total lack of community support for Kendale and the full range of problems with the Kendale site, the Council will not support a Kendale solution,” Leventhal said. ‘‘I believe there also are not sufficient votes on the Council to approve the closure of Seven Locks Elementary School and the dispersal of all its students to other schools.”

Leventhal said Monday that he thought the task force, which includes three council staff members — aides to Leventhal and Councilman Howard A. Denis and Keith Levchenko, a council staffer who works on school construction matters — and three school planners would bring the council and board to a resolution.

‘‘I hoped to have a road map that would take us away from conflict between the two bodies,” Leventhal said. ‘‘It doesn’t appear right now that the school board is following that road map. So we’re in uncharted territory.”

He said he was ‘‘surprised that the board chose to limit public input on this to just those two options. I assume the public will want to speak to more than just those two options. Whether the board will rule those people out of order is up to them.”

On May 4, the County Council’s Education Committee will discuss whether to spend $3.3 million on cost increases to build at the Kendale Road site, a measure Leventhal said the council is likely to vote down.

The committee also will discuss Denis’s plan to demolish the existing Seven Locks building and rebuild the school at the same site on Seven Locks Road, the option supported by the school’s PTA and a coalition of Potomac community associations.

‘‘It’s common sense to build a new school where you already have a school ... ,” said Denis (Dist. 1) of Chevy Chase. ‘‘The community sentiment on this could not be more clear.”

The school board will decide on its recommendation to the council on May 9.

Two days later, the council is expected to vote on a plan as part of its final approval of the school system’s construction and operating budgets.

Weast, perhaps sensing that the board could be headed for a showdown with the council, observed Thursday that the two options the school board is considering would be unpopular:

‘‘Again, I would want to make the record clear that the two options we’ve put forward, that the County Council has expressed their intent, at least in the last meeting I was with them, that neither of those are favorable from their eyes, and so did the community.”

Sandy Vogelgesang, who heads the Seven Locks Coalition, which comprises eight neighborhood associations calling for Seven Locks to remain on its current site, said she found the board’s recommendations to include the Kendale plan in Monday’s hearing ‘‘extraordinary, when not one person at two County Council hearings spoke in favor of that.”

‘‘Even Dr. Weast got it that they ended up with two options that the community has consistently said are off the table,” she said.