Keep Bradley Hills Elementary School Community Together

We urge the Montgomery County Board of Education to preserve single articulation and stability for the Bradley Hills Elementary School community in the final boundary decision.

Options 1 and 4 of the boundary study keeps our students together and at their closest high school, maintaining strong peer connections and minimizing disruption during a critical time for social and emotional development and recovery from pandemic impacts. In contrast, Option 2 would split Bradley Hills ES, sending small part of our community to a different middle and high school — a move that would fracture peer groups, divide neighborhoods, and destabilize the school community. 

Bradley Hills Elementary School is a small school community. Under option 2, just 35 students would be split off from our recent 5th grade graduating class to attend a different high school from their peers in 9th grade. This option splits off just 35-40 students per year from their peers. Walt Whitman High School does not have a utilization issue, so reassigning a small number of students is unnecessary. 

Option 2 also presents critical safety concerns related to Greentree road, a hazardous roadway where there have been 139 accidents in the past 10 years, concentrated at the 3 intersections where students would cross. This road was intentionally established as a boundary for this reason.

We are deeply concerned about Option 3, which involves reassigning students across the county to schools significantly farther from their homes and includes non-contiguous boundaries that disconnect school assignments from geography. This option creates disjointed boundary lines, increases logistical burdens, traffic, and environmental impact, and disrupts the fabric of established school communities county-wide. 

In summary, we respectfully urge the Board to support boundary decisions anchored around stability and geography (Options 1 and 4). These options align with the feedback from >90% of survey respondents who strongly prefer stability and proximity.  Option 1, in particular, addresses the key utilization and capacity issues at hand, with broad support across clusters. It ensures that school boundary decisions are grounded in supporting stability, single articulation, and the long-term vitality not only for Bradley Hills ES, but for communities across the study area.

Please sign this petition and help us show the Board of Education how many families and neighbors support keeping our community together.