A smattering of “Save Wootton” and “It’s Not Over!” yard signs dot neighborhoods surrounding the Rockville, Maryland, high school whose name and student body are due to be transferred in 2027-28 to a new building several miles away.
With the Montgomery County Board of Education having approved the shift last spring, the red, white and blue signs — matching the colors of Thomas S. Wootton High School — remain as a defiant statement by residents, some of whom are pursuing a legal challenge to plans they say would illegally close the highly rated, half-century-old school in the Washington suburbs.
“It’s such a necessity,” said Rockville Council member Adam Van Grack, whose son attends Wootton. “It’s not a question of if it’s going to be a permanent school again, the only question is when.”
A dozen miles away, similar yard signs remain in the neighborhood around the sprawling Silver Spring International Middle School, which area residents fear isn’t in the county’s future plans.
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“The school gives us an opportunity to greet one another. It gives us a sense of community,” said Angie Kronenberg, an attorney who, during the campaign’s busiest periods, devoted as many as 30 to 40 hours a week organizing efforts to preserve the school, which is adjacent to Silver Spring’s downtown and home to sought-after Spanish and French immersion programs.
Montgomery County, home to Maryland’s largest public school system, completed sweeping boundary studies in March that upended the futures of Wootton and Silver Spring International, and redrew boundaries for other schools to account for enrollment shifts, school building conditions and other factors.
But the school assignment debates never quite seem over, and in the case of Wootton, parents and community members have lodged complaints over everything from deteriorating building conditions to property values.
Boundary shifts stir powerful protective instincts, said Sarah Asson, a senior researcher at the nonprofit research group Education Northwest, often turning parents into activists fighting for what they view as their children’s best interests.
“These rezonings touch two of the most important things for parents -– their kids’ education and their communities,” Asson said.
While parents typically frame their objections around their children’s education and their communities, issues regarding image and status are often at play as well, said Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, a professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education.
“There is a lot of anxiety — status anxiety — about securing their kids’ futures through education,” Siegel-Hawley said.
Real estate values can also be an important, if less openly acknowledged, subtext. Homes assigned to highly regarded schools often command a premium, and some residents worry boundary changes will diminish their property values.
Wootton, which has about 1,900 students, is one of the county’s prestigious, so-called “W” schools along with high-achieving Walt Whitman, Walter Johnson and Winston Churchill. It is not uncommon for families in the more diverse eastern portion of the county, including Silver Spring and Wheaton, to move to the western part so their kids can attend a “W” or the highly rated Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School.
“For 20-some years if I had a property in the Wootton school district, I hardly had to say anything about the house. I just said ‘Wootton,’ and it had this magnetic attraction for buyers,” said Kevin Grolig, a real estate agent in the county.
If plans to move Wootton remain intact, Grolig estimates that values of homes within walking distance of the school’s current location could drop 15% or more.
Wootton remains open for now. An oversized “Wootton Strong” banner hangs from the back of the football field bleachers.
But the school, whose former students include actor Thomas Jane, NFL player Trevon Diggs and several members of the rock band O.A.R., was built in 1970 and has issues with leaking ceilings, heating and cooling units and mice.
On March 26, the county Board of Education voted 7-1 to approve moving Wootton to a new school in Gaithersburg for the 2027-28 school year. Thomas Taylor, the superintendent of Montgomery County Public schools, said a single school could efficiently handle current enrollment and that the old Wootton would be employed as a “holding school” for when other schools are undergoing construction.
At the meeting, parents held signs reading “Don’t Close Wootton” and “Vote No,” and some parents chanted “shame” when the vote was complete.
“This is not a closure of Thomas S. Wootton High School — this is a move of the school to a new building,” said a Montgomery County Public Schools announcement in February explaining the plan.
It said Wootton students “will transition to a state-of-the-art facility” and that the system was responding “to updated enrollment data showing needs can be met more efficiently with the current number of schools.”
But critics said importing the school’s name, colors and “Patriots” mascot to a new building won’t make it the real Wootton, but rather a weird facsimile.
In April, a nonprofit group composed of Wootton parents, alumni and others filed an administrative appeal with the Maryland State Board of Education challenging the March decision.
“At the heart of the appeal is a straightforward question: Can a school board avoid Maryland’s statutory school closure requirements by characterizing a school closure as a ‘relocation?’” the group said in a prepared statement.
The case is pending. Montgomery County Public Schools said it could not comment on any litigation.
The school system declined to make Taylor available for an interview or answer NOTUS’ questions about possible scenarios for the futures of Wootton and Silver Spring International.
Rather, Montgomery County Public Schools emailed a statement about the new two-year, elementary and middle school boundary study. The statement said the study will address “system-wide facility capacity, optimize building utilization and evaluate potential school closures or consolidations” with community input.
Last year, the county Board of Education declined to pursue Taylor’s recommendation to convert Silver Spring International, whose buildings are in deteriorating condition, into a holding school. While the school wasn’t targeted for closure in the March vote, many parents say the board’s decision to reduce its number of feeder elementary schools has placed the school on an uncertain path because its enrollment will decline.
Proponents of maintaining Silver Spring International and Wootton often raise concerns that are difficult to quantify. Some speak nostalgically of the quiet ritual of children being close enough to walk to their neighborhood schools.
“That was the number one thing parents were saying to me: ‘Our kids can still walk to school, right?’” said Kronenberg, who helps lead a Silver Spring group called “Save Our Schools.”
“We believe our school is still at risk,” Kronenberg said. “We have to keep at it.”