Parents, teachers and PTA leaders press council to restore Magruder and fund school repairs

Dozens of parents, teachers and PTA leaders urged the Montgomery County Council on Feb. 9 to restore Magruder High School to the capital improvements program and to fund urgent repairs at Meadow Hall Elementary and other aging schools.

At the hearing, Leandra Campbell, PTA president at Meadowhall Elementary, described a December pipe burst that flooded classrooms and the gym, displaced students and destroyed specialized instructional materials. "No child should have to learn in a classroom that smells like mold," Campbell said.

Meadow Hall teachers testified to repeated plumbing failures, brown or discolored water, intermittent loss of gym access and damaged instructional supplies. "Students are frightened to use the facilities because of the aggressive loud noises the pipes make," kindergarten teacher Rachel Hellman said, recounting how a locked hallway bathroom recently led to a five‑year‑old having an accident when no other restroom was available.

Speakers pressed the council to rely on MCPS facility data. Dan Silva, a Magruder cluster coordinator, cited MCPS’s Facility Condition Index as evidence that Magruder is among the county’s most depleted high schools and said its near‑term exclusion from MCPS recommendations would be inequitable: "Rubber stamping this recommendation dooms Magruder to another decade of suffering," he said.

Community members and school staff cited concrete indicators of structural decline: a collapsing auditorium ceiling during a spring musical, long‑standing HVAC and plumbing failures, mold and asbestos concerns, and falling student engagement and attendance tied to facility conditions. Carla, an MCPS math content coach, summarized state report‑card and FCI figures showing declining school quality scores and rising chronic absenteeism at Magruder.

Speakers also asked the council to fund longer‑term capital solutions rather than repeated emergency repairs. Several PTA leaders urged that MCPS prioritize projects using objective facility data and coordinate scheduling among nearby high‑school projects (Damascus, Magruder, Wootton) so that communities are not left waiting years for renovations.

The hearing produced no formal vote; it was a public testimony session on the executive’s FY27 capital budget and the FY27–32 CIP. Council staff closed the hearing and said committee work sessions on the FY27 capital budget and FY27–32 CIP will be scheduled through the end of April and that the public hearing will continue the following morning at 9:15 a.m.

What happens next: Council members will weigh the public testimony along with MCPS recommendations during upcoming committee work sessions and budget deliberations. Testimony submitted in writing will be part of the public record for those discussions.