MCPS exploring options for Whitman High School addition

Walt Whitman High School, via MCPS

MCPS last week revealed three early designs for an addition to overcapacity Walt Whitman High School.

All three would use the land of the existing Whittier Woods Center (once an elementary school, now a daycare facility in front of the school) for a new building that would likely include 13 regular classrooms, two science labs, two engineering labs, one art room and an auxiliary gym.

MCPS senior planner Deborah Szyfer presented the three potential designs to parents and other community members on Tuesday. Another open to the public meeting is set for Monday, Oct. 6. The 2:30 p.m. start time is geared for staff just after the regular high school day ends.

As is the case with all three school clusters in Bethesda, the Whitman cluster has seen a large increase in students — particularly at the elementary school level. MCPS planners have said turnover in single family neighborhoods, private school students transferring to public schools during the recession and an uptick in the birth rate are all contributing factors.

Whitman High School was remodeled in 1992 and has an existing capacity of 1,882 students. It’s already overcapacity, with a projected 1,910 students this school year and 1,921 students last school year.

Whitman High School and the Whittier  Woods Center (top right corner) that could be part of an addition project for  the school, via Google MapsWith that in mind, plus the coming surge of elementary and middle school-aged children in the cluster, MCPS recommended and was given money in the current capital budget for an addition feasibility study.

Szyfer said next year’s freshman class at Whitman will be “the first very large class,” and the school will is projected to be 239 students overcapacity by 2019. The school is projected to pass the 2,000 enrollment work during the 2015-2016 school year and hit 2,121 students by the 2019-2020 school year.

By then, MCPS hopes to at least have the money to fund an addition project that would provide a capacity of 2,300 and perhaps have that addition project already under construction.

One option would be a combination one-story and two-story building with a courtyard in the area where the Whittier Woods Center stands now. Another option would provide for a more compact three-story addition and a third concept would be two-stories with room for yet another addition.

Szyfer said planners are considering that option because of the Westbard Sector Plan, which could mean new residential development along Westbard Avenue and River Road. Many school-aged children in that new residential development would be in the Whitman cluster.

“It would allow more options for the future and we’re trying to plan for that future,” Szyfer said.

Architects will continue to do site planning to come up with cost estimates, Szyfer said, before submitting the project to the superintendent next year for consideration in his FY2017-2022 capital budget request.

But as is often the case with school addition and renovation projects, the Whitman addition will be competing against a number of other projects in a number of other overcapacity school clusters.

The daycare that leases out the Whittier Woods Center would be notified of when it must vacate the building once funding is in place.

The three concept plans presented last week should be put up on the MCPS website soon, Szyfer said.

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