MCPS’ boundary study raises fears for Silver Spring International Middle community

Silver Spring International Middle School has been a part of Daniela Harvey’s life for over a decade.

Her mother started teaching at the school when she was in fifth grade, before she eventually attended during her own middle school years. And now, in her fourth year as a science teacher at SSIMS, Harvey and many community members are fighting to keep the school open.

As Montgomery County Public Schools gears up for the first phase of its elementary and middle school boundary study, the SSIMS community is anxiously awaiting results on the school’s future.

Superintendent Thomas Taylor announced a potential closure last October, despite it being the only public middle school located in downtown Silver Spring. While the Board of Education paused the decision, many in the community don’t truly feel as if they’re out of the woods yet.

“I’m worried that the decisions have already been made,” said Harvey.

Harvey said she doesn’t believe there is a final decision or a “list of schools with red Xs through them,” like others in the community. However, she said her worries stem from the school’s newly reduced capacity following the county’s earlier high school boundary study.

Recently, MCPS concluded its high school boundary study. The Board of Education approved three recommendations from its results earlier this year, which included the relocation of Thomas S. Wootton High School.

In addition, the study’s adopted recommendations reorganized SSIMS’ enrollment boundaries, altering which elementary schools feed the middle school. The change, which is set to take effect next school year, caused a significant decrease to SSIMS expected use capacity.

Harvey said that the main thing the community should be informed about is the criteria for how the closure decisions are being made.

The county’s boundary studies are aimed at addressing MCPS’ expected enrollment decline, the first in 40 years. The closures and consolidations are one part of a two-phase plan to put “more of what matters most where students need it,” according to an MCPS press release.

This school year, the Board of Education will review current data and hear community input regarding the county’s public schools. The superintendent will then provide a list of recommended closures and consolidations that the Board of Education will either adopt or not approve.

Like the previous boundary study, the county will work with an independent consultant in the second phase to reconfigure the districts based on the closure and consolidation decisions. The boundary study will occur during the 2027-28 school year, with all final decisions to be implemented in the 2029-30 school year.

The press release said the entire process will look at “multiple factors and a broad range of data,” not just enrollment numbers.

One of the primary reasons cited at the announcement for the prospective closure was the building’s condition.

Built in 1934 to house Montgomery Blair High School, the SSIMS building was renovated in 1999 to become the new home for both the middle school and Sligo Creek Elementary School.

“MCPS’s best attempts to upgrade the facility have been thwarted by unforeseen building conditions and structural issues that far exceeded projected costs,” Superintendent Taylor said in a letter to Sligo Creek parents and faculty. “It really has reached the end of its useful life as a permanent home for a school.”

However, the building has gone through renovations over the past two years that included a new gym and hallway area as well as renovated bathrooms and fresh coats of paint. Superintendent Taylor also discussed in the letter potentially keeping the facilities open as a holding school to house students while other schools were being renovated.

Many teachers, parents and community members have expressed their concern and began rallying around the school, creating advocacy groups like Save Our Silver Spring Schools, to stop the closure plan from moving forward. Rebecca Aicher was one of those parents.

MCPS officials have been talking about the need for holding schools, said Aicher, chair of the Future of SSIMS advocacy subcommittee for the school’s PTSA. “And they need those spaces because they can’t do all the renovations, or rebuild, while students are on site. So they need to move whole schools out.”

Aicher said that a decision of that magnitude could not – and should not – be made without the community. More than anything, Aicher said that her primary concern is the real impact of these countywide decisions on the students the system serves.

“As a parent, it is an extremely frustrating position to see MCPS continue to make decisions about the facility and not put students first,” said Aicher. “It feels like MCPS has neglected our school communities for decades and this was just an opportunity to take advantage of us.”

The Montgomery County Board of Education declined to comment for this story.

An MCPS spokesperson said that school officials recognize community concern, but there is not a focus on any specific schools at this time. The county has also scheduled multiple virtual and in-person community engagement sessions regarding the boundary study from October to December.

“We know that the possibility of a school closing or consolidating with another school raises important questions for families,” wrote an MCPS spokesperson in an email to The Wash. “No decisions have been made, and this is not a process in which a list of schools has already been determined.”

For Harvey and many other teachers at SSIMS, the next step is still unclear.

Harvey said that while some teachers believe “we fought, we won and we could win it again,” others are afraid that it may have only postponed the inevitable.

Regardless, Harvey said that the focus and primary concern has always remained the same: the students.

“Our little humans, our little students, are everything and they deserve the world,” said Harvey. “They deserve everything we can give them.”