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PTA wants school addition

Parents and staff say Sherwood Elementary School is already nearly 100 students over capacity

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006

Saying the Sherwood Elementary School Sharks have ‘‘outgrown their tank,” the school’s PTA is campaigning hard for an addition to their overcrowded building.

The school, located at 1401 Olney-Sandy Spring Road in Sandy Spring, was built in 1976 and has never been renovated.

Its capacity is 377 students, but 473 students are enrolled. The school draws students from the still-growing communities of Ashton, Brinklow, Brookeville, Olney, Sandy Spring and north Silver Spring.

The school has seven portable classroom trailers positioned behind the school building, providing instructional space for the entire fourth grade, one third-grade class and one second-grade class.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) enrollment projections estimate the school will be at 40 percent above capacity by 2010, PTA President Karen Nelson said.

‘‘County estimates do not include imminently planned housing projects sprouting up all across the school district,” she said. ‘‘Without an addition, the number of trailers for classrooms could grow to 13 by the end of the decade.”

Sherwood Elementary Principal Jerry Perlet agreed, stating school officials have identified another 260 homes scheduled to be built in the area over the next few years.

‘‘That’s conservative, and most all houses produce kids,” he said.

Perlet said the school has had portable classrooms since he arrived as its principal nine years ago.

‘‘Some years we’ve had less and some years we have had more, but it’s something we’ve been dealing with from year to year,” he said. ‘‘We make it work for us, and it doesn’t affect our academic program. But at the same time, I think we need to get all of the kids into the building.”

Perlet said staff members now teach instrumental music classes on the stage, and several resource teachers use closets to work with students.

‘‘It would be great to have the additional space,” he said.

In June, MCPS completed a classroom addition feasibility study, which recommended building the proposed addition, Nelson said.

The proposed addition includes a pre-kindergarten classroom, two kindergarten classrooms, five regular classrooms, a therapy⁄support room, a speech⁄language room, a testing⁄conference room, an instrumental music room, an art room, a staff development office, a recycling room and a health service suite.

‘‘The proposed addition would accommodate a full student capacity of 603 students, far greater than the 473 students enrolled this year,” Nelson said.

She explained that the feasibility study is the second of four stages in the addition process.

The next stage is to produce detailed architectural blueprints for the proposed addition, and the final stage is the actual construction of the addition.

She estimates that completion of the two remaining elements of the project range from two to four years, once funding is available.

Facilities and related building construction, modification or renovation objectives of MCPS schools are considered in the school system’s six-year Capital Improvements Program (CIP). Actual funding is scheduled in an annual capital budget.

The MCPS Superintendent Jerry D. Weast is preparing recommended amendments to the current fiscal years 2007-2012 CIP for publication at the end of this month.

Public hearings are scheduled for Nov. 15 and 16 at the Carver Educational Services Center, located at 850 Hungerford Drive in Rockville.

‘‘We need the whole community to attend the Board of Education hearings Nov. 15 and 16 and let the county know we won’t rest until the current and future students at Sherwood Elementary School have a school building that will accommodate our whole student population,” Nelson said.

The Montgomery County Board of Education will review the superintendent’s amendments on Nov. 20. The board’s decision will then be forwarded to the county executive early next year. In May, the County Council will approve any amendments to the fiscal years 2007-2012 CIP and the capital budget for fiscal year 2008.

In the meantime, Nelson and other PTA representatives attended last week’s meeting of the Greater Olney Civic Association (GOCA) to enlist the organization’s support.

GOCA members unanimously voted to send a letter to the Board of Education supporting the proposed Sherwood Elementary School addition.

Nelson said that both the Sherwood Cluster and the Northeast Consortium also fully support the addition.

The PTA will hold an informational meeting at 7 p.m. Nov. 8 at Sherwood Elementary School.