MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — The Superintendent of Montgomery County, Maryland schools will present a plan to school board members Tuesday night that will significantly alter the boundaries of school assignments in the northwestern part of the county.
The proposal impacts students who currently attend Clarksburg, Northwest and Seneca Valley high schools in addition to Rocky Hill, Neelsville, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Roberto W. Clemente and Kingsview middle schools.
A number of parents upset with the proposal plan to attend the meeting on Tuesday night.
"We will have kids traveling over an hour to get to middle and high school when we have neighborhood schools that we will pass to get to our new schools," Clarksburg mother Melissa van Herksen said. "I will have three kids in school in three different zip codes."
The Superintendent chose the current boundary map from a total of fourteen options. The vote will come almost a year to the day that the boundary study was launched by the Board of Education.
The realignment of school boundaries is meant to address overcrowding concerns at Clarksburg and Northwest high schools while a major expansion is underway at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown. The work at Seneca Valley is expected to be completed in 2020, and the school will have a capacity of 2,581 students.
Van Herksen, who lives in the Cabin Branch community near the Clarksburg Outlets, said one of her concerns is with the reported conditions of Neelsville Middle School. She says lockers are not utilized by students due to the small size of the hallways, and that teachers purchase bottled water for students because drinking water is not available.
She also claims Neelsville has been described by others as "the prison on the hill" due to its state of disrepair.
READ: The Office of the Superintendent's proposal and the map of proposed boundaries
