MCPS Will Redraw Boundaries – Hopefully Along the Great Seneca Science Corridor (Opinion)

January 19, 2026 – Submitted by Debra D’Agostino (MCPS Parent)

Editors Note: See the official MCPS boundary study pages here

Change is hard, but MCPS has made it clear that it’s coming. The recent Board of Education (BOE) meetings underscore how emotional boundary changes can be. A parent from the Wootton cluster ended his testimony with “over my dead body,” after threatening to bury MCPS in litigation if Wootton were moved to Downtown Crown under Option H. Given that just months ago MCPS took Mahmoud v. Taylor all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, it seems the district won’t back down from a fight it believes is worth having, never mind from vexatious litigation. Still, his message was clear: he does not want the Wootton cluster’s lines redrawn.

That resistance comes amid difficult financial realities. In the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for 2027–2032, the BOE canceled Wootton’s previously approved renovation, leaving only a new roof and ADA compliance. At a meeting at Wootton, PTSA materials stated that given this, Option H represented the only “safe learning environment.” The reaction was swift and hostile. By the next day, the PTSA reversed course, opposing Option H and proposing instead “Option W,” which would keep Wootton in place with a full renovation—possibly using Crown HS as a holding school during construction – with no explanation for where the many millions of dollars required by this option would come from – nor any justification for keeping Gaithersburg high schools overcrowded for years to come while our neighbors from the south use Crown HS for themselves. 

Adam Van Grack, Rockville City Council, alleges that Option H is not a budget savings because MCPS will still invest millions to renovate Wootton into a holding school. But Option H doesn’t call for the Wootton building to become a holding school, nor allocates funds for this purpose. [Editors note: option H explicitly calls to use Wootton as a holding school though no funding has been allocated for it] This is speculation. MCPS has only funded large scale renovations at Damascus HS (and if a holding school really saves millions, it seems those families would rather an MCPS property like the school in Germantown that the MECCA Business Learning Institute is likely leaving over trudging into Downtown Crown for the next several years).

But let’s be real about the broader fiscal picture. In December, the Montgomery County Council announced that county revenues are projected to drop by $854 million over the next six years. The year 2025 was not kind to Maryland, which lost 25,000 federal jobs, more than any other state, with Montgomery County agencies like the FDA and NIH among the hardest hit. County Executive Marc Elrich, nearing the end of his third and final term, has— in my opinion—done the most to do the least for economic development. Housing remains unaffordable for most young adults, many of whom are leaving the state (Maryland ranks 45th on the U-Haul Growth Index), and rush-hour traffic tells us that many residents commute to Virginia and D.C. for work.

Yet there is a bright spot. Along the I-270 Corridor between Gaithersburg and Rockville, a growing concentration of life sciences and technology businesses has made Montgomery County the third-largest biohealth hub in the nation. The County Council approved the Great Seneca Plan: Connecting Life and Science, and according to the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, 2025 brought tangible progress:

• AstraZeneca, headquartered in Gaithersburg, opened a $300 million cell therapy manufacturing facility and announced plans for another in Gaithersburg.
• X-energy consolidated its two Rockville offices into a new 125,000-square-foot headquarters in Gaithersburg, creating more than 525 high-skilled jobs.
• Samsung Biologics, which acquired the former Human Genome Sciences facility in Rockville, announced expansion plans for its first U.S.-based manufacturing site.
• Powersolv relocated its headquarters from Reston, Virginia, to Rockville, citing access to top talent and the County’s growing tech corridor.
• Liatris expanded its Rockville manufacturing facility, generating an expected $20 million in economic impact over the next three years.

I live in a neighborhood right in the middle of this corridor, now zoned to Quince Orchard (QO) HS, but immediately adjacent to neighborhoods zoned for Wootton. A “Welcome to Gaithersburg” sign greets you as you enter, and a “Welcome to Rockville” sign greets you as you leave. Under Options A–H, our kids would attend either Crown HS, 2.7 miles from my house, or Gaithersburg HS, 4.8 miles away but on the other side of I-270. Our children are not thrilled about leaving QO (or the Friday Night Lights football glory that comes with it), but we long suspected that MCPS would send us to Crown HS, given overcrowding at QO and our proximity to Crown, and we have had time to accept that change is coming.

As Option H is currently drawn, however, our neighborhood and others feeding into Fields Road Elementary School (FRES), a school every bit as diverse as Gaithersburg, will become a geographic island. The map shows us separated from others feeding into Gaithersburg HS, which would already be at 100% capacity if we were there, despite big plans for new housing in the Lakeforest Mall area. Several of us testified before the BOE asking that Option H be modified to include the FRES community at Crown HS. We have also met with our Gaithersburg officials, who submitted testimony to the BOE in support of this modification to Option H.

If the BOE were to adopt this modified Option H, the resulting boundary lines would naturally track the Great Seneca Science Corridor itself. Maryland Legislative District 17 follows this same path along Great Seneca Highway, from southwest Gaithersburg down Wootton Parkway, as does Montgomery County Council District 3. It seems that both our state and county governments have already acknowledged that those of us living along this corridor have common interests and should be united. 

There is a concept known as “desire paths”—informal trails created when people repeatedly walk off sidewalks, wearing down new routes through grass or dirt. These paths reveal where people believe the line should have been drawn, rather than where it actually was. The proposed modification to Option H follows one of those desire paths, aligning school boundaries with lived geography, civic districts, and the county’s most significant economic engine.

Perhaps if over the next decade, our biohealth businesses keep growing, creating even more jobs and need for housing along the corridor, we end up with an entirely new Great Seneca Science Corridor Consortium of high schools. Already in the near future, MCPS plans to build the Great Seneca Science Corridor Elementary School near Great Seneca Hwy and Key West Ave. The lines we draw now should anticipate that future—not fight it.

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