On Wednesday, March 17, over 100 people, including several from Greenbelt, rallied to object to the unexpected decision by the Prince George’s County Board of Education to transfer the Robert Goddard Montessori School from its current location in Seabrook to the vacant Meadowbrook School in Bowie. The move was intended to provide space at Robert Goddard for the temporary relocation of students from Hyattsville Middle School, whose facility is due to be rebuilt next year, catching the Montessori School’s parents unaware.
The protesting parents included Lei Zong of Greenbelt who said, “This came as a complete surprise and all the parents feel blindsided. To make things worse, we learned this from an online flyer from another school that would be moving into our space in the fall. There is a complete lack of process to get community input.”
Protest
Robert Goddard Montessori School parents gathered at the Sasscer Administration Building in Upper Marlboro with placards protesting the move. School Board Member Joshua Thomas also wrote to County Schools CEO Monica Goldson explaining that Meadowbrook was insufficient for the students’ needs – lacking numerous facilities like a gym, locker rooms, science labs and orchestra space as well as the updated air-conditioning systems the school enjoys at their current facility. Thomas also objected to the lack of consultation with parents prior to the decision.
Town Meeting
Later that Wednesday, the school board held a virtual town meeting to discuss the rationale for their decision with the interested parties. The key to the school board’s rationale was that by moving the Montessori program to Meadowbrook, all the Hyattsville students could be relocated to a single school.
On March 18, however, the day after the protest, Goldson issued a letter thanking parents for their participation in the Town Hall meeting and announced that after reviewing the situation, the school board would use Robert Goddard as an identified swing space site, keeping the Montessori program in place in the facility which would be shared with Hyattsville Middle School sixth graders and the Hyattsville Creative and Performing Arts students in seventh and eighth grades. The remaining seventh and eighth grade Hyattsville students will go to the Meadowbrook facility.
It is not known how Hyattsville parents feel about the decision.