Julius West PTSA Sees Expansion Options
Three options being considered as part of effort to deal with overcrowding.
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Julius West Middle School settled on three potential options on Thursday for expanding the school building to deal with projected overcrowding.
A Facility Advisory Committee presented the expansion options to the community on Thursday, as part of a PTSA meeting.
More than 20 people attended the hour-long meeting, including Principal Nanette Poirier and PTSA President Dianne Benjamin. Other attendees included PTSA members, parents of students, stakeholders and architects working on the project.
“It was good to see how they’re trying to minimize the impact [of the construction] while the kids are here,” said Nancy Downing, the PTSA treasurer.
Gary Mosesman, senior project manager with Smolen-Emr-Ilkovitch Architects, Inc., presented three possible expansion options, which had been introduced in previous meetings. All three options would include the addition of a two-story academic wing to the main building, although the preferred option would take up the least amount of space—29,443 square feet—and would only need one classroom replacement.
“We have to make sure that everything we take away will have a replacement,” Mosesman said.
All the options include plans to add two more tennis courts and auxiliary gyms to the campus, said Mosesman. They also call for separating the student drop-off and bus loop-offs by giving them independent entrances and exits.
The meeting was the last of five work sessions meant to determine the feasibility of expanding the school.
“The architect needs to do cost estimates of the three options and put together a report that will be used as the basis for this project,” said Jim Tokar, project manager for the county school system. “And that will be submitted to the [county] Board of Education this fall for them to make a decision on. If they decide to move this project forward, then we’ll go into the design phase.”
The design phase would last 18 months, Tokar said. As with the feasibility study, the design phase also would begin with a series of community meetings.
“It’s another opportunity to take a fresh look at what can be done with the site,” he said.
After the design phase concludes, construction would take another 18 months, said Poirier, who is the FAC chairwoman.
“I think it’s encouraged participation from stakeholders and I think it has been very transparent up to this point,” Poirier said of the feasibility study.
Expansion feasibility studies are being conducted at other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster in an attempt to relieve overcrowding.
“All four of our elementary schools are over capacity,” said Cheryl Moss Herman, a Richard Montgomery cluster co-coordinator with the Montgomery County Council of PTAs.
Julius West is projected to exceed capacity by 362 students in 2016. Studies determining the feasibility of expanding Twinbrook and Beall elementary schools are still underway. A study determining the feasibility of adding a new elementary school at the former Hungerford Park Elementary School site on W. Edmonston Drive, is also being conducted.
Theresa Defino
9:34 am on Monday, April 18, 2011
This was the last of the five sessions and there are still no cost estimates? What actual options were there--only three? Or were some discarded, and if so, why?
The parents, staff and community at Wheaton HS and Edison HS of Technology are also involved in a feasibility study and we have been told estimates will be available much before the final report is completed.
In contrast to this process, we have been subject to a tortured, convoluted and disenfranchising process that involved Dr. Weast proposing a plan in Jan., four months after a Roundtable, and then at the BOE meeting where a vote was set to proceed that wasn't going his way, Dr. Weast had his staff tell the BOE they didn't have enough information to vote on ANY option.
We cannot WAIT for a new superintendent. I wish the Julius West community well, but advise you remain on your guard. Same goes for the Beall study.
Jerry
11:35 am on Monday, April 18, 2011
Hey, wake up, Montgomery County citizens! Almost half of our exorbitant property taxes go to perpetuate a gold plated public school system, where students enjoy country club campuses and can enroll in frivolous courses such as photography, all at taxpayer expense. The proposed new construction is just a small example of that gold plating. The money will go to benefit a few greedy construction firms and the County officials that are too cozy with them.
Keep in mind the glaring case of my alma mater Montgomery Blair High School. The original campus was beautifully situated on Sligo Creek, and with about five separate buildings, some less than a decade old, resembled a small college. Someone decided that campus had to be abandoned and replaced with a brand new building, costing hundreds of millions, at the corner of University Boulevard and Colesville Road, only a couple of miles away. Demographic shifts had nothing to do with it. The residents in proximity of the new campus were actively opposed to the new construction, but it happened anyway. I've been there to view it in person. It's nothing but a boondoggle to benefit the construction industry and undoubtedly a few County officials.
Theresa Defino
12:03 pm on Monday, April 18, 2011
Gold plated? Oh, you mean the "learning cottages" and kids spilling out the doors? We are awake...are you? New schools are needed for growing enrollment. PERIOD. Photography--which my daughter happens to take--is an "elective" and not frivious.
Jerry
12:53 pm on Monday, April 18, 2011
Yes, gold-plated. There were never any students spilling out of the doors at Montgomery Blair High School, but the County abandoned the campus and spent hundreds of millions on a new campus anyway. Yes, photography is a completely frivolous course that has little or nothing to do with being competent and competitive in math, science, and literacy. I happen to be an award winning photographer, with over 50 magazine covers to my credit. I did not need to take a taxpayer funded course in public school to learn those skills. I worked on the high school yearbook and found a weekend and summer job in a photography wedding and portrait studio.
Theresa Defino
1:15 pm on Monday, April 18, 2011
As I said, photography is an elective and all schools had electives, even when you attended. Kids today still work on high school year books, school newspapers AND have jobs. Your comments on Patch reveal you to be a cranky person who thinks he's being taxed too much for everything, including "free mental health care." I have a suggestion: find a cheaper county to live in.