St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac has plans to expand enrollment from 450 to 495 and increase its staff from 106 to 116, pending approval by the Board of Appeals.
The Montgomery County Planning Board voted unanimously Thursday afternoon to approve a special-exception modification for St. Andrew’s. The proposed zoning change will move forward to a Board of Appeals hearing Nov. 8.
The school, at 8804 Postoak Road, abuts Herbert Hoover Middle School, which abuts Winston Churchill High School, forming a contiguous school property of 68 acres, all of which is zoned R-90, a single-family-house zone with a minimum lot area of 9,000 square feet per dwelling. In Montgomery County, private schools are allowed to operate in a residential area with a special exception granted by the Board of Appeals.
Under its current special exception, granted in 1994, the school is permitted an enrollment of 450 students with 89 full-time staff or its equivalent. In fact, the school is currently operating with 106 faculty and staff.
“The discrepancy between the approval of 89 and the current 106 is largely taken up with a number of part-time employees … and I think there’s probably another handful that we realized very recently are in excess of the 89, so that is in part why we asked to look to the increase to 116 and acknowledge that the current staffing is above what the board approved back in 1994,” said Robby Brewer, an attorney from Lerch, Early & Brewer, which represents the school.
The proposed special-exception modification would allow St. Andrew’s to increase its enrollment by 10 percent to 495 in five years with a corresponding increase of 10 faculty and staff to 116. No new construction is included in the proposal, and if it is approved by the Board of Appeals, St. Andrew’s would agree not to request another increase in enrollment for five years from the date of approval.
The exception would also allow the school to continue its existing accessory programs and possibly add an after-school dance program, and to extend a variable-height fence along Brumbaugh Field on Victory Lane. The fence has been effective in keeping athletic balls from flying out into the neighborhood, which was formerly a problem, said Potomac Team Leader Callum Murray of the Planning Board staff, speaking before the board.
As a condition of approval for the special-exemption application, the Board of Appeals required St. Andrew’s to form a Community Council to hear concerns related to the school. Community members met with the school’s headmaster and attorneys May 10 and Oct. 14.
“Most of the issues we generally see with private schools pertain to stacking of traffic,” Murray said. He showed slides of the St. Andrew’s traffic circles at peak morning and afternoon times and concluded that the school’s current traffic infrastructure is adequate to permit the changes. “There are three shuttle buses and a car-pool program, and as far as staff can see, circulation is efficient and well managed,” he said. “There is sufficient parking to accommodate the increase.”
Murray recommended approval of the application, with minor modifications.
“They’ve been informed, they’ve done the landscaping, the forest conservation. … They’ve consulted the citizens,” Murray said of the applicants in an interview. “It’s going to be like eight students a year for the next five years. It’s a lot of siblings. … I think the citizens really will not notice.”
“We are very pleased with the staff report. We believe it comprehensively addresses all of the issues and gives a good history of the school and its evolution at this site,” Brewer said.