Four of five Board of Education candidates said the Wootton High School relocation should be halted while a legal challenge plays out in court.

The candidates staked out their positions at a nonpartisan forum Sunday, Oct. 4, at Lakewood Elementary School in Rockville, as first reported by Bethesda Magazine. At-large candidates Brenda Diaz and Omar Lazo, District 3 candidates Sally McCarthy and Cassandra Sung, and District 5 candidate Elma-Lorraine Diggs fielded questions about the plan to move Thomas S. Wootton High School students to the new Crown High School in Gaithersburg.

Sung, Diggs, Diaz and Lazo each said the move should be paused pending evidentiary hearings scheduled for Dec. 8–10 at the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). McCarthy, a 15-year volunteer with the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA) who has chaired its capital budget committee, stopped short of calling for a pause. She instead called for a backup plan, particularly if updated enrollment numbers undercut the assumptions behind the relocation.

"I don't think this was a relocation. I think this was a closure," Diaz said. She argued the move should be paused immediately rather than waiting for the December hearing and called for parents to be involved "before, during and after" major decisions.

Sung, a former litigation paralegal, said it would make little sense to keep implementing a plan the court could ultimately block. Lazo, a small business owner, said he would respect the legal process and has already begun speaking with elected officials and current board members about potential solutions.

Community engagement dominated the discussion. Lazo said MCPS "dictates to us what community engagement is instead of going to the community and seeing what they want that to look like." Diggs said the district should not move forward on major decisions without meaningful community input. McCarthy called the decision-making process rushed and said the county should explore creative uses for school properties, including partnerships with municipalities.

Lakewood PTA President Chai Wang moderated.

The OAH hearings are part of a case filed by the Community and Education Policy Alliance (CEPA), which is challenging the Montgomery County Board of Education's 7-1 vote on March 26 to create new attendance zones and shift to a regional high school model. Board member Julie Yang cast the sole dissenting vote. Under the plan, Wootton students and staff would move to Crown High for the 2027-2028 school year, and the Wootton building would become a holding school for campuses under renovation.

CEPA has argued the board's decision was "arbitrary, unreasonable and illegal," based on faulty enrollment data, and should have triggered Maryland's school-closure protections, according to Bethesda Magazine's September reporting. MCPS has maintained the action is a relocation, not a closure, and that its data is accurate.

District 1 incumbent Grace Rivera-Oven, who is running unopposed, did not attend the forum.

The November election will fill seats in the at-large, District 1, District 3 and District 5 races. Separately, MCPS is holding community forums on possible elementary and middle school closures tied to declining enrollment, the district's first in more than 40 years. The next in-person forum is Tuesday, Dec. 1, 6:30–8:30 p.m. at Herbert Hoover Middle School, according to Patch.