Chevy Chase's Rollingwood Elementary: What Becomes Of A Closed School?

CHEVY CHASE, MD — The Rollingwood Elementary School site in Chevy Chase is vacant again after a French international school moved out last fall after 32 years at the location, leaving neighbors wondering what is going to happen to the school building and its grounds.

The Rochambeau French International School left the Rollingwood campus and moved to Bethesda in November. Neighbors were caught off guard in early February when the Montgomery County Police Department used the vacant school grounds for SWAT training. One resident who was out for a jog saw a police officer point an assault rifle at her during the training session.

Other residents have seen teenagers climbing in and out of broken windows at the old Rollingwood Elementary School, which is owned by Montgomery County Public Schools. Neighbors are worried teens are using the vacant building at 3200 Woodbine Street —adjacent to scenic Beach Drive and parks along Rock Creek — as a gathering place to take drugs and engage in other dangerous activities.

“It is fine for the county to allow folks to do trainings at their facility,” a resident said in an email to her neighbors in the Rollingwood neighborhood of Chevy Chase about the SWAT training, “but something like this should have been shared with the community ahead of time.”

Another Rollingwood resident, who asked not to be identified, told Patch that "it’s fair to say I am less-than-impressed with MCPS's efforts in communicating with the residents of the nearby blocks about the school overall — security, planned events, future plans, or otherwise."

Another neighbor who contacted the police department about why the community did not get an alert about the armed training exercise at the school was told by police there was no notification because the training did not involve anyone outside the SWAT group.

The Montgomery County Police Department was looking into the training exercise and complaints by neighbors for Patch at the time this article was published.

A neighbor who was at the playground behind the school with his young children a couple of weeks ago told Patch he alerted his neighbors on the Rollingwood listserv that teenagers had "co-opted the old school building as a gathering place for activities that simply cannot be good."

"When walking around the building, it was obvious that all doors are open and unlocked, many windows are now broken, and the inside of the building is trashed," he told his neighbors. "Some windows are even intentionally blacked out with trash bags, suggesting they want to conceal their activities further."

As for the future of the school, a maintenance team from Montgomery County Public Schools has been working on inspections of the Rollingwood Elementary School building. "It won’t be until after the building is fully assessed that we can begin a discussion around potential future uses," MCPS spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said in an email Monday to Patch.

Montgomery County Public Schools also plans to increase its monitoring of the site due to the recent cases of vandalism, Baxter said.

MCPS is encouraging the Rollingwood community and neighbors of the school to be on a "casual watch" of the property and building and contact the police if they see any suspicious activity.

Rollingwood Elementary Closes As A Public School

Rollingwood Elementary School stopped operating as a public school in 1982 when the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to close the school and move its students to Chevy Chase Elementary School.

The elementary school opened in 1951 when the Montgomery County Board of Education hired architect Anthony Ferrara, a Potomac resident and a founder of a Bethesda-based firm now called McLeod, Ferrara & Ensign, to design the school.

"By the 1950s, Ferrara had established himself as a forward-thinking school designer, and his buildings were conspicuous throughout Montgomery County," MoCo360 reported.

The Rochambeau French International School then moved into the school in 1990, leasing it from Montgomery County Public Schools, and invested in the maintenance and upkeep of the property. After 32 years at the site — longer than the school had served as a public school — the French International School opted not to renew its lease in 2022 when it consolidated its preschool and elementary school grades at a new facility in Bethesda.

While there is no consensus among residents of the Rollingwood neighborhood, some would like to see the school return as a public school for young children. The Rollingwood neighborhood extends from East-West Highway to Western Avenue and Beach Drive to Brookville Road and includes over 800 households.

One resident told Patch that using the school as a public elementary school, perhaps for pre-kindergarten through second grade, might make sense.

"Right now, kids from Rollingwood are zoned for Rosemary Hills through second grade, which is fine," the resident said. "But having a general infrastructure already in place there, it seems like they could lessen some of the burden on Rosemary Hills. It would be amazing to have a smaller school for neighborhood kids before going to Chevy Chase Elementary."

The resident added that he realizes "the bureaucratic, logistical, and political nightmare this would create" and is not holding out hope that the old Rollingwood Elementary School will return as a public school.

Some would like to see Montgomery County Public Schools or the county turn it into a community center or allow neighbors — even if only on weekends — to use the gym for birthday parties and other events, since there are few county facilities in the corner of Montgomery County where the school is located.

Turning the facility into a community center would be ideal because it is adjacent to Candy Cane City and Meadowbrook Park, which would make it ideal for such purposes, a neighbor told Patch.

"Plus, it already has a gym and great outdoor basketball courts and playground bones. Given the popularity of that corridor for exercise and leisure with adults, families, and kids alike, I really can’t imagine a better set up," the neighbor said.

The expectation from many neighbors, though, is that the old Rollingwood Elementary School will be rented to a different private school. While most may not be opposed to another private school moving into the space, residents strongly believe Montgomery County Public Schools needs to keep them informed during the process and listen to their concerns.

Whatever the school system decides, a resident said, it should not simply be presented as an outcome.