State senator says MoCo's uncontrolled growth has hurt schools

A state senator who represents the area around Seven Locks Road blames Montgomery County's political leaders for the overcrowding of local schools.

"My prefererence is we obviously need to have a couple more schools built in the Potomac community," Maryland Senator Rob Garagiola (D-15) tells the Almanac.

Discussing the overcrowing at Bells Mill Elementary, just west of Seven Locks Road, the senator said, in the words of the Almanac's Ken Millstone, "that state legislators have done their part by funneling as much school funding as possible into Montgomery County but that the county has allowed unchecked growth and development to overload the schools."

"'We’re not really even playing catch-up,' Garagiola said. 'We’re just playing maintain being in the hole and not get any deeper.'"

While the senator calls for more schools and less housing density, some county leaders want it the other way around.