Montgomery County Public Schools will likely have a new tenant in a former elementary school whose site could end up as part of an addition project for overcapacity Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.
The Board of Education Thursday is expected to approve a new lease for the Alef Bet Montessori School at the Whittier Woods Center adjacent to Whitman High School.
Alef Bet, a Jewish Montessori school with toddler, preschool and elementary programs, is now at the school system’s Grosvenor Holding Center on Grosvenor Lane.
Alef Bet Director Ellie Lichtash said MCPS informed her in June that it would need the Grosvenor building to use as a holding school for Potomac’s Wayside Elementary, which is set to undergo a revitalization and expansion project.
With the lease expiring for the childcare center that was occupying the Whittier Woods Center, MCPS worked out a new deal with Alef Bet that would allow it to move to Whittier Woods over Thanksgiving break and operate there until Aug. 1, 2017.
It’s at that point the school system anticipates needing Whittier Woods, formerly an elementary school, to accommodate an addition project at the high school.
Last September, MCPS revealed three early designs for the addition. All three would use the land now occupied by Whittier Woods for a new building that could include 13 classrooms, two science labs, two engineering labs, one art room and an auxiliary gym.
Whitman High School, which was last expanded in 1992, has a capacity of 1,882 students. Last school year, it held 1,910 students.
The Alef Bet Montessori opened in 2005 with eight students and has grown to 90 with 16 staff members. It bills itself as the only Hebrew speaking school in the U.S. to hold an accreditation from the Association Montessori Internationale.
Lichtash said the two years at Whittier Woods will provide the school with time to search for a permanent location.