Wootton Celebrates Victory in Battle for Crown
GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Rockville leaders and members of the Wootton High School community took a ceremonial victory lap around a snow-covered construction site at the soon-to-be-complete Crown facility in Gaitherburg last night. They circled the exact site where the Wootton Patriots will kick off their 2027 season, officially taking over the state-of-the-art, $220 million campus.
The spontaneous celebration followed MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s recommendation yesterday to the Board of Education, an administrative formality before approval, to hand the campus over to Wootton.
Superintendent Taylor said his decision was driven largely by community feedback.
“I saw a room packed with hundreds of Wootton signs, Wootton hoodies, Wootton families. And yet, not a single Crown student showed up. That spoke volumes,” Taylor said.
Wootton’s advocacy to permanently take over the Crown location began last year, when deteriorating conditions at their 56-year-old building in Rockville made the facility virtually uninhabitable. Rockville Councilmember Adam Van Grack described the takeover as a triumph of community organizing.
“We surveyed the landscape, and Crown was an obvious, logical solution for all of Wootton’s problems,” Van Grack said. “We needed it most, so a coalition of parents, community members, and government officials banded together and implemented a strategy to make Crown ours. Today is a shining example of how neighbors fighting together can amplify their voices to score a huge win.”
Wootton advocates further argued in town hall forums and BOE meetings that Gaithersburg is already served by three high schools—Gaithersburg, Quince Orchard, and Watkins Mill—claiming there is plenty of capacity between them to serve existing boundaries for years to come.
“This is not about taking something from Gaithersburg,” Van Grack added. “It is about using a public facility to benefit the residents who deserve it most. Moving Wootton to Crown is a sound financial and operational decision.”
Gaithersburg leaders expressed shock and disappointment after Taylor’s announcement, noting that the area experiences steady enrollment growth and that residents tolerated years of overcrowding on the promise that Crown would serve their community.
“Crown was planned, sited, and justified as a Gaithersburg school,” said Gaithersburg Councilmember Yamil Hernández. “Just because you show up at public hearings with 500 people doesn't mean you're entitled to get your way.”
Hernández firmly rejected the framing that Wootton’s infrastructure issues necessitated the seizure of the new campus.
“If Wootton needs major investment, then Wootton should receive major investment,” Hernández said. “You cannot tell a community for a decade that a school is theirs and then change course because another community has leaky pipes. Fix the damn pipes.”
