Some students at East Silver Spring Elementary School will be reassigned to Sligo Creek Elementary School next year to manage class sizes at Sligo Creek, but East Silver Spring parents fear the move will fracture a growing community just beginning to unite.

The Montgomery County Board of Education voted to reassign about 25 East Silver Spring Elementary students to Sligo Creek Elementary School, a kindergarten through fifth-grade school in Silver Spring, beginning next school year. The BOE also voted to reassign students living in the City of Takoma Park but attending Sligo Creek to Takoma Park and Piney Branch elementary schools in Takoma Park to alleviate overcrowding at Sligo Creek.

Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast had recommended that only the Takoma Park students be moved and that the East Silver Spring boundaries remain unchanged. But parents at Sligo Creek successfully lobbied the BOE to move some East Silver Spring students to their school because losing the Takoma Park students could leave some grade levels underenrolled.

In order to have at least two classes per grade level, Sligo Creek would need about 33 to 35 students per grade. But under Weast's recommendations, Sligo Creek parents determined there would be only 25 fourth-graders next year, requiring just one class, because many of the students moving to Takoma Park elementary are currently third-graders.

So although the original boundary study was implemented to alleviate overcrowding at Sligo Creek, the school's parents asked the BOE to add 25 more students, increasing the likelihood of having two smaller classes per grade rather than one big one. In a unanimous vote, the board granted the request.

"We had done everything possible to let the board know about the underenrollment at the school and it sounds like they heard all of our concerns and they valued them," said Chris Lage, a Silver Spring resident who has a first- and third-grader at Sligo Creek.

Sligo Creek is 126 students over its capacity of 526 students this year, according to preliminary statistics from MCPS. With the new boundaries, enrollment will drop to 576 next year and 526 the following year, according to MCPS statistics.

But moving the East Silver Spring students — who currently live east of the Washington, D.C., border, west of Fenton Street, south of Colesville Road and north of Blair Mill Road and Burlington Avenue — would fracture south Silver Spring, an increasingly close-knit community that is rapidly growing as new high-rise apartment buildings are constructed, parents say.

Many of the reassigned students are living in rental properties like the Blairs and the Bennington apartments or new condominiums like the Silverton, said Brian Savoie, an East Silver Spring parent.

"My son is in kindergarten and he's made friends with kids that are living less than a block away at the Blairs," said Savoie, whose family lives in Eastern Village Co-housing on Eastern Avenue and will not be affected by the new boundaries. "Now they are going to be in a different school."

Moving students living in rental properties and attending East Silver Spring was an "easy target" for the BOE, Savoie said, because those families aren't as permanent or as vocal as the families in the Sligo Creek Elementary district.

And the school boundaries aren't all that's changing at East Silver Spring.

A large addition to the school should be completed by the beginning of next school year and the school will expand to kindergarten through 5th grade in 2011-2012. Enrollment for that year is projected at 423 students, well below its projected capacity of 594. Currently East Silver Spring serves kindergarten through third-grade students who then attend Piney Branch Elementary for fourth and fifth grade.

East Silver Spring Principal Adrienne Morrow did not return calls seeking comment.

At Thursday's vote, BOE members favored managing the numbers at Sligo Creek, instead of the emotions at East Silver Spring.

"I totally understand where south Silver Spring is coming from in terms of concerns that the community is not divided," said school board member Christopher S. Barclay (Dist. 4) of Takoma Park. "But I think all students at East Silver Spring will be going to very good elementary schools."

Besides, said board member Phil Kauffman (at large) of Olney, "Kids adjust better than the parents adjust to these splits when they occur."

The following boundary changes at Takoma Park and Silver Spring schools will go into effect, as voted on by the Board of Education.

-Kindergarten and first-grade students living in Takoma Park and attending Sligo Creek Elementary will be reassigned from Sligo Creek to Takoma Park Elementary beginning in August 2010. Students in the reassigned areas who will be in second grade in the 2010–2011 school year at Sligo Creek will remain at Sligo Creek and then attend Piney Branch Elementary for third grade in the 2011–2012 school year.

-Third- and fourth-graders in the reassigned areas will attend Piney Branch instead of Sligo Creek, beginning in August 2010. Students from the reassigned areas who will be in fifth grade at Sligo Creek in the 2010–2011 school year will remain and then attend Silver Spring International Middle School.

-Kindergarten through third-grade students in the reassigned East Silver Spring Elementary area will attend Sligo Creek Elementary beginning in August 2010. Those students will attend Silver Spring International Middle School beginning in 2012.

-Students from the reassigned areas attending Silver Spring International this year, next year or 2011-2012 will not be moved. All students who finish fifth grade at Piney Branch will still attend Takoma Park Middle.