May Meeting Minutes | April Meeting Minutes | March Meeting Minutes | February Meeting Minutes | January Meeting Minutes
January Construction Subcommittee | December Meeting Minutes | October Meeting Minutes
Grosvenor Tour Report | BACK TO FAQs

The following is a report by Amy Polk on a Grosvenor visit on January 22 of 2008 by about a dozen current and prospective TPES families who toured the school.

This morning, about a dozen current and prospective TPES families toured the MCPS holding school on Grosvenor Lane in Bethesda that will be TPES' home during the 2009-2010 school year.  Here is a quick report:

• For more photos of the Gosvenor visit, click here.

  The school is currently occupied by Bells Mill Elementary School from Potomac.  Principal Jerri Oglesby gave us a short introduction and then sent us on a self-guided tour.  Bells Mill moved into the building over Winter Break and will be there until the end of the 2008-2009 school year.  (They have been in the building only a few weeks!)  From September to December 2007, the building was undergoing some upgrades.  Prior to that, half of the building housed MCPS' Records Office and half was rented out to a private school.  Bells Mill school building is being replaced entirely.
• TPES will be the beneficiaries of several recent improvements to the building.  Bells Mill brought with it 8 portable classrooms, which are only 2 years old.  These portable classrooms will be left at the Grosvenor site for TPES and subsequent tenants to use.  In addition, the Bells Mill PTA bought new playground equipment (see photos), which will also be left on site.  (Thank you, Bells Mill PTA!)
• Bells Mill successfully petitioned the county to push the start time of the school day back to 9:15am to accommodate the added travel time.  (The Grosvenor site is closer to Bells Mill's original site [about 4 miles] than it is to TPES [about 8 miles.])  Bells Mill has a dedicated bus fleet of 9 buses.  Principal Oglesby said that MCPS' Bethesda Bus Depot worked with Bells Mill faculty, staff and parents to address the many transportation issues.  (I'm sure TPES is in the jurisdiction of a different depot, but that's a good sign nevertheless.)
• The number of the students at both Bells Mill and TPES is almost identical at 400 students.  (The big difference between Bells Mill and TPES is that TPES only has grades K-2 whereas Bells Mill has grades K-5.)  Therefore, it looks inevitable that when TPES uses the Grosvenor site, some of the students will still be in portable classrooms.
• Overall, the building looked like your average 1950s-era public school architecture.  (I personally was transported back to memories of my own elementary school experience because the classrooms were laid out exactly the same as those in my childhood.)  All indoor classrooms had sinks.  Some indoor classrooms (those that Bells Mill was using as kindergarten classrooms) had bathrooms, too.  The classrooms (portable and permanent) were spacious with lots of natural light.
• The Grosvenor library appeared to be much smaller than TPES'.  The Bells Mill librarian said that the Grosvenor library was 50% smaller than the one at Bells Mill's original building.  While our group toured the building, the custodial staff was in the process of installing temporary plastic shelving (I'm not sure where) to store books that could not fit in the smaller library.
• The All Purpose Room has a stage, which is nice.  However, their APR appears to be much smaller than TPES'.  The room simply does not appear large enough to fit the entire student population for an assembly.
• A big disadvantage of the Grosvenor site is that it does not have a gym separate from the All Purpose Room.  The APR serves as the gym, too.
• The play field in the back of the school is huge... so huge, in fact, that Bells Mill has asked MCPS to build a fence to cordon off the playground area from the ball field area.  That fence should be in place when TPES moves in in 2009.
• Bells Mill got to keep its original phone number.  All calls to the phone number of the old school building are forwarded to the Grosvenor site.
• I took many photos along the tour, which can be viewed at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TPES/files.
• If you missed this tour and still want to see the Grosvenor site, don't despair.  I plan to organize additional tours on future MCPS teacher work days.
•   Thanks to all who went on the tour (parents and kids) and thanks to the Bells Mill faculty and staff for hosting us.