How We Got Here

On December 1, 2025, MCPS announced a significant shift impacting where your child will go to high school. While MCPS’s prior options following boundary studies rezoned Washingtonian Woods and neighbors from Quince Orchard HS to Crown HS, the newest options include moving our kids, and those in other neighborhoods that feed into Fields Road Elem School (FRES), to Gaithersburg HS instead. 

Earlier this year, after rounds of public boundary studies, our neighborhood was part of proposals that would keep us at Ridgeview Middle School (MS) but shift us from QO HS to Crown HS when it opens in 2027. Then on October, 4 things happened:

1. MCPS substituted Lakelands Park MS for Ridgeview MS as our MS option.

2. The Superintendent announced an idea to make Crown HS a “holding school” for the students at high schools under renovation. 

3. Following this announcement, the Downtown Crown community organized to protest any decision that would deprive the families living in Downtown Crown of using Crown HS as their neighborhood school. 

4. On 10/30, the Board of Education asked MCPS to include use of Crown HS as a holding school, or as the new Wootton HS, in any rezoning options and to extend the boundary study yet again. 

Since then, the Wootton HS community has pushed for Crown HS to be a holding school and for MCPS to approve funding for renovations. MCPS has already approved renovations for Damascus HS and Magruder HS, and it seems those students would use the Crown HS school first if the BOE approves the use of Crown HS as a holding school. 

The Downtown Crown community engaged the BOE and local politicians in discussions about compromises that would allow Crown HS to be both a neighborhood school for Crown and a holding school. 

The Superintendent will make recommendations to Montgomery County Council in February 2026, with final action by the BOE on March 26, 2025

The Boundary Study Team only knows what their software and data analysis tells them, so it’s up to the local residents to give the feedback on what does or does not make sense. More voices from the same area means more attention to the particular areas of concern. Sadly, the “squeaky wheel” gets the attention of MCPS leadership.