Community members from several Gaithersburg and up-county clusters urged the Board of Education to adopt boundary options that make Crown High School permanent, preserve cluster stability for Fields Road Elementary, and ensure transparent planning for the reopening of Woodward High School.

Ryan Johnson and other Fields Road parents said Crown is geographically the closest high school to their neighborhood and warned that using Crown only as a temporary holding site would worsen overcrowding at other schools. Monique Anand and others asked the district to publish any additional metrics used after options A-D were expanded, saying the new options were released late and curtailed ample review time.

Tori Miller Lou and other speakers argued that aging facilities at Wooten present health risks (mold, asbestos, HVAC failures) and that a holding-school model could save hundreds of millions and speed safe construction. Taylor Steger (Northwood cluster) also highlighted a December congestion incident at Silver Spring International Middle School's Stairwell 7 and said a licensed architect identified building and fire code violations that present life-safety risks; the speaker cited the International Building Code's requirement that means of egress must function without specialized training.

Board members acknowledged the breadth of facility and boundary questions and said they would continue engagement and rely on upcoming work sessions and the facilities/CIP processes for prioritization and funding. No final boundary decisions were taken at the hearing.