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Wheaton parents and educators urged the county Board of Education last week to act fast to rebuild the area's aging, threadbare schools, which are some of the oldest in the county.

Plans to modernize Wheaton High School and several elementary schools in the Wheaton Cluster, a group of six elementary schools and two middle schools that feed into Wheaton High, have already been pushed back. But the half-century-old buildings can't afford any more delays, Wheaton High PTA president Mary Anne Gadbois testified at the Nov. 11 public hearing at the education board's headquarters in Rockville.

The move to help Wheaton schools join the new millennium so it can compete with other, newer schools in the downcounty area comes "better late than never,'' Gadbois said.

Wheaton schools are part of the Downcounty Consortium, which lets students choose one of five area high schools they want to attend. The number of students who choose to go to Wheaton is threatening to crumble along with the school's infrastructure, Gadbois warned the board.

"Our building is dragging us down," she said.

Several schools in the cluster, including Wheaton High, are slated for full-scale, $100 million modernizations in the next decade. Gadbois urged the board to keep those projects on track.

If all goes according to plan for Weller Road Elementary, built in 1953, construction crews should be breaking ground for a new school by the 2013 school year. The school's aging facilities pose more than aesthetic concerns, wrote Principal Michaele Simmons in testimony to the board. The school, much of which is topped with a wooden roof, doesn't have an indoor sprinkler system, she wrote. There's also a persistent smell of gas in the gym, which Simmons attributed to old pipes. And despite a 1973 partial modernization, many hallways and the health room still have asbestos insulation, she said.

Wheaton Woods Elementary in Aspen Hill, built in 1952, received a partial renovation in 1976 and is slated to have a new school by 2016.

And students, staff and parents at Wheaton High, a 55-year-old school with crumbling concrete stairs, eroded tile, roof leaks, poor plumbing and broken heaters, are crossing their fingers that they will have a brand-new school by the time this year's freshman class is ready to graduate. Against all odds, Gadbois asked the board to move up the modernization plan from the slated 2016 completion date to the original 2014 goal.

But million-dollar budget shortfalls in the county's public-school system are pushing facility updates backward, not forward on the calendar. And there's no guarantee promises can ever be fulfilled: officials must weigh whether it's more cost-effective to rebuild portions of a school or to replace the whole thing, said MCPS spokeswoman Kate Harrison.

Last week, the board fielded requests from nearly all of the county's schools, each one asking for some level of renovation. The board plans to make final decisions Thursday about the 2011-16 Capital Improvements Program budget, which will determine the fate of any projects slated during those years.

In addition to full-scale modernizations, many schools in the Wheaton Cluster are requesting large additions and renovations. Harmony Hills Elementary School in Aspen Hill expects plans for adding 16 new classrooms to replace the school's portables to be shovel-ready by New Year's.

Brookhaven Elementary in Aspen Hill expects a set of new classrooms by August 2011. Plans for the addition were delayed for one year to expand the scope of the project.

Viers Mill Elementary, topping out at 13 portable classrooms, needs a classroom project similar to that of Harmony Hills. Parents testified they would like that to be completed by the 2013 school year.

Both Brookhaven and Viers Mill also need bathroom renovations.

A. Mario Loiederman Middle School requested new security cameras outside the building to quell after-hour graffiti. The school has also asked for a new dance studio in place of a full-scale auditorium to support its fine-arts academy.

"The Wheaton Cluster is excited at the prospect of having relief so close at hand," Gadbois told the board. Without it, "the prospect for the future looks grim."