Thomas S. Wootton High School opened in Rockville on Tuesday, Aug. 25, for what is expected to be the last first day of school at the campus before students and staff relocate to the new Crown High School in Gaithersburg for the 2027-28 school year.

The milestone, first reported by Montgomery Community Media, comes as a parent group's legal challenge to the move advances through the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings. An administrative law judge will independently review the Montgomery County Board of Education's 7-1 vote on March 26 to redraw high school boundaries and shift Wootton's population to Crown. Board member Julie Yang cast the lone dissent.

Rockville City Councilmember Adam Van Grack, a Wootton parent and vocal opponent of the relocation, attended the school's annual "First Day Clap-In" on Tuesday morning. Van Grack has testified multiple times before the school board about the move's potential impact on the surrounding community, including a Bethesda-based developer's decision to indefinitely suspend a 60-home project near the school. EYA LLC has disputed that characterization, saying its decision was unrelated to the Wootton move and consistent with its core business focus.

The Community Education and Policy Alliance, Inc. (CEPA), represented by the law firm Silverman Thompson, filed its appeal in April with the Maryland State Board of Education. The group argues the relocation effectively constitutes a school closure under state law and that MCPS cannot avoid closure requirements by calling it something else.

CEPA also contends the board used an improper vote structure, combining boundary studies and programming changes into a single vote, and that moving Wootton to Crown requires state approval because the new building received state construction funding for a specific intended use.

The State Board declined CEPA's March 31 emergency request to halt implementation but referred the case to OAH for a full independent review. In a July 20 statement, CEPA Vice President Elisa Sukhobok said the stakes extend beyond Wootton: "If school systems can sidestep Maryland's school closure laws simply by renaming a closure a 'relocation,' then every Maryland family has a stake in this case."

MCPS disagrees. The district has called the move a strategic relocation that "addresses both immediate safety and infrastructure concerns, and long-term fiscal health," according to statements reported by Montgomery Community Media. MCPS describes Crown as "a state-of-the-art facility."

Infrastructure troubles at the Rockville campus

The aging Wootton building has documented heating, cooling and plumbing problems. During the 2025-26 school year alone, the campus experienced a gas leak on Nov. 24, 2025, a shooting on Feb. 9, 2026, and a water main break on April 10, 2026, that forced an early dismissal. Superintendent Thomas Taylor has cited a $3 billion maintenance backlog across the district's 238 school buildings.

What's next

After the relocation, the Wootton building is slated to become a holding school for campuses undergoing renovation. No OAH hearing date has been publicly announced; the case remains in its discovery phase.

MCPS is also launching a new boundary study in August to evaluate potential elementary and middle school closures for the 2029-30 school year. Taylor's recommendation is expected in February or March 2027, with a board vote after public hearings in May 2027.