Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1956-03-01

included IN this proposed
to the Damascus High School.
This is important news to the
residents of the Damascus school
district and this reporter thought
you would be interested to know
the present situation in Damas
Gus and why such an addition is
vitality needed if our children are
to receive adequate high school
instruction.
Ellis Cline, principal of Dam
ascus High School has made avail
able to us figures on the present
school and its estimated growth
which are vitality important for
you to know and understand
Fifty years ago there were $50
people living in the town of Dam
aScuS and a two-room school
house served their needs. Today
there is an estimated population
of 1900 in the town plus an add.
tional 1000 in the surrounding
area served by the school.
Started i'm 1913
Ground for the present Damas
Gus High School was broken in
1913 and the school was dedicated
on March 25, 1850. The present
plant consists of eight class
rooms. a gymnasium, an indus.
trial arts shop, a vocational agri.
culture shop, a home arts sewing
room and kitchen, a library and
a cafeteria.
This was designed to take care
of an enrolment of 800 students
There are at present 377 students,
which means that the building is
already overcrowded. The situa
ton at Damascus is further com.
plicated because it is small
school.
This means that in the Junior
high school where most students
take the same subjects large
classes can exist and there are
at present Is classes with more
than 40 students although this
cannot be considered education.
ally desirable.
In the senior high school where
the school is trying to provide
training in academic, commercial
general and vocational fields and
where in each course certain sub
jects such as tipping, bookkeeping
a foreign language, chemistry
physics, etc. must be offered to
meet state requirement classes in
such special subjects must OF
necessity be smaller as the stu
dent enrolment is divided among
all these different fields.
Meet On Stage
At the present time, in addition
to the regular classrooms in use
four classes day are meeting on
the stage in the cafeteria, and a
small 16 by 16 foot storage room
has been converted into a class
room.
The only remaining spots which
could be used are the home arts
kitchen when cooking classes are
not meeting, the library and the
gymnasium during the one period
a day when it is not in use.
None of these would be deSir
able and using the library as a
classroom would mean that il
could never be used during the
school day for needed reference
work by other classes, Mr.. Grim
es says.
The proposed addition would in
clude music room, an art room
and room with adequate lab
oratory facilities for physics and
chemistry, none of which are in
the present plant, and would take
care of approximately 220 add
tional students. The estimated
enrolment for the school year
1889 which would be the year
when the addition would be com
pleted if it remains in the pro.
posed budget would be approx
mately 500.
Based on Enrolment
Maxwell Burdette, Board OF
Education director of research
explained that this figure is bas
ed on present enrolment in the
elementary school plus growth
figure based on the growth OF
Damascus in the past three year
period.
The new addition then, plus
the present plant, would take
care of $40 students so that the
new addition would just about
meet the anticipated enrolment
with very little to spare if Dam
ascus should take a sudden squirt
in growth and certainly the pres
ent building could not accommo
date them without such undesir
able measures as half day SEES
sions and the elimination of some
of the present course offerings.
With the new addition further
growth in the next few succeed
ing years can be absorbed by in
creasing the size of many Of the
special subject classes which are