The state’s highest court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from opponents of a second middle school in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase School Cluster, likely clearing the way for the new school in a Kensington park.
Members of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens’ Association are against the school system’s plan to to build the yet-to-be-named middle school at the Rock Creek Hills Park (3701 Saul Rd.).
MCPS says it needs the school to accommodate overcrowding at Westland Middle School and the planned reassignment of Grade 6 students from Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase Elementary Schools.
Neighbors sued to block the school and maintain the 13.4-acre park. At issue was the manner in which the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) acquired the site from the Board of Education in 1990. At that time, the school system didn’t need the land.
A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge threw out the suit in April 2013, saying the school system had the right to get the land back to build a new school. The Planning Board reluctantly transferred the land back to the Board of Education in July 2013.
The Rock Creek Hills group appealed the Circuit Court decision. In April 2014, the state’s Court of Special Appeals likewise threw out the suit. A few weeks later, RCHCA President Jim Pekar and member John Robinson said they considered the Court of Special Appeals’ findings to be “erroneous,” and they filed another appeal to the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court.
On Monday, the Court of Appeals declined the group’s petition for certiorari, which means the Court of Special Appeals finding will be upheld.
“Your RCHCA Board of Directors will consult with legal counsel regarding what steps may be available to us at this point,” Pekar wrote.
He also asked for donations to the group’s litigation fund, which has an outstanding balance.
Construction for the unnamed middle school is slated to start in July 2015.
