Plans for the new Garrett Park Elementary School have undergone "significant" changes since a series of input meetings with parents last fall, prompting school officials to announce another meeting later this month.

Montgomery County Public Schools officials will again meet with community members to explain their reasoning for altering the plan parents had picked for the redesign of the elementary school. The meeting will be held from 7-8:30 p.m., March, at Garrett Park Elementary School, 4810 Oxford Street, Kensington.

In an e-mail to Garrett Park Mayor Chris Keller, Ray Marhamati, project manager for the MCPS Division of Construction, explained that after further review, it was determined the draft plan would not have fulfilled handicapped-access requirements.

The changes came after MCPS consulted with the Department of Transportation and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Changes will also be made to the proposed traffic pattern for buses and cars because the original plan was deemed "problematic" by Park and Planning, Marhamati wrote. The topic poses a challenge on the Garrett Park Elementary School site because it only has one entrance off of Oxford Street, and is on 4.3 acres, about a third of the 12 acres MCPS considers ideal for an elementary school.

Circulation of buses and cars was preeminent in meetings with the Facility Advisory Committee, made up of parents, staff and community members. Concerns surrounding the single entrance and the conflict between walkers and vehicular traffic were paramount, and the FAC reached a consensus that they wanted the buses and parent drop-offs separate.

Marhamati said the two circulation systems still will be separate, but in a different location so "the buses come and go almost without interfering with the parent drop-off loop."

Garrett Park Elementary School is slated to be torn down and completely rebuilt by the end of December 2011, with only an addition to the school that was built in 2003 left intact. The modernization more than doubles the size of the school from 41,000 to 83,000 square feet.

Principal Elaine Chang-Baxter said she is not surprised about the design changes.

"I guess I don't get that surprised because when you're building a new school things come up and there's a lot of people involved," Chang-Baxter said. "Everybody is working in the best interest of the school and also working in the parameters of building car lots and bus loops."

But some parents are worried their input over the course of the FAC process may not end up meaning much.

Doug Mader, a Garrett Park Elementary School parent, said he's "not upset" but does hope the next meeting provides an opportunity for meaningful input.

"I'd like to see their current plans and I'd like to see it in a facility where community input matters," Mader said. "They had the meetings and now they're still designing after the meetings and that's not the spirit of what the community process was."

Chang-Baxter said the meeting is intended to be a give and take and not solely a presentation of a new plan.