Five floors powered by solar panels and an amphitheater: Sounds too good to be true, right? Maybe not. Crown High School has been in the planning for over 19 years, since the land was first acquired by the city of Gaithersburg in 2006. Since then there has been years of work going into planning, constructing and funding this $180 million project.
The construction of a new high school in the Crown area is necessary due to the overcrowding at neighboring high schools; the main four being Gaithersburg, Richard Montgomery, Quince Orchard and Wootton. According to the Projected Enrollment and Space Availability from the 2024-25 school year, all of Wootton’s neighboring districts, including Richard Montgomery, Churchill, Gaithersburg and Quince Orchard, are over capacity, for example up to 314 extra students at Quince Orchard. However, Wootton is under capacity by approximately 254 students. Thus one of the main goals of superintendent Dr. Thomas W. Taylor is to ensure the equal access of quality education to all students through resource allocation.
In order to address this issue of exceeding capacity, the Montgomery County BOE has begun a boundary study to understand the demographic breakdown of the surrounding area to make zoning and redistricting decisions. Since school zoning can have significant impacts on everything from housing prices to students’ daily commute, the BOE has prioritized diversity, proximity, stability and fiscal responsibility. The boundary study will be conducted by outside organizations Bloom Planning and FLO analytics to ensure that all voices are being heard.
Looking first at diversity, the potential redistricting of students from Gaithersburg, Richard Mongtomery, Quince Orchard and Wootton would create a diverse student body. According to the Demographic Characteristics of 2024-25 published by MCPS, Wootton’s largest population is 37.4% Asian, Gaithersburg’s largest population is 62.7% Hispanic, Richard Montgomery’s largest population is 27.9% White, and Quince Orchard’s largest population is 36.7% Hispanic.
While there are factors that contribute to the drawing of school district lines, proximity hasn’t been something that seems to be taken into account in the past. The Wootton district, for example, is approximately nine miles across from Pennyfield Lock Rd. to Lawngate Ct. on either end of the Wootton zone.”The boundaries were developed many years ago. It isn’t clear what the boundaries were based on,” Wootton PTSA president Brian Rabin said.
On Jan. 21, the Montgomery County Board of Education held a virtual meeting to discuss how the boundary study will be conducted and its effect on redistricting for Wootton and our two feeder middle schools, Robert Frost and Cabin John. “High schools and middle schools are included in the boundary study so Wootton cluster elementary schools will not be impacted,” Rabin said.
Rabin assures parents that, “The boundary study is due to begin later this month so we do not know if or how it may impact Wootton cluster. We don’t know what will happen yet, but if any Wootton students get redistricted over to Crown High School, at least it will be a new modernized facility,” Rabin said.
While the methods of community involvement haven’t been clearly stated yet, the typical process after the boundary study results have been collected and analyzed by January 2026 is for the superintendent to make a recommendation. This recommendation is usually made after discussion with the analytics team and community outreach, including workshops and testimonies. Superintendent Thomas has assured the public that he intends to collect public opinion through “surveys, focus groups and online forums,” Thomas said in an introductory video on the MCPS Boundary Study webpage.
Crown is projected to welcome its first class of students in the fall of 2027. Typically, high school juniors and seniors are “grandfathered” in, which means that they get priority to stay in their current school over underclassmen. However, there has been no clarification so far as to how these decisions will be made.
