Praisner: Public confidence is at stake

Public confidence in the school system depends on a quick and transparent resolution of the Seven Locks/Kendale issue, County Council member Marilyn Praisner says.

A task force of County Council and MCPS officials is to study eight options for building a large school in the Potomac/Seven Locks area to relieve Potomac's overcrowding, and the panel is due to report its recommendations within four weeks.

Community groups and local PTA members expressed concern that MCPS cronyism on the task force would result in punitive solutions against the Seven Locks community.

But Praisner warns that the compromise task force or MCPS won't have the last word. "Nothing precludes the council from saying, 'No, we don't like any of your options. Go back and find something else and start over," Praisner says in the Washington Examiner.

The task force's findings, she adds, should be made public as soon as they are sent to county lawmakers and the school board, in order to "maintain the confidence of the community."