For the kids: Nearly 3 times as many crammed on 80 percent of the space

Here's another reason why the Seven Locks PTA was so dead-set against the Kendale project - and why the community supports building a new school on the current Seven Locks site.

Seven Locks is located on a 10.0 acre parcel and holds about 260 kids.

Kendale - called "Seven Locks Elementary School Replacement" on the above chart - is located on a 10.2 acre parcel, of which only 8 acres are usable, and would have held up to 740 kids.

The MCPS-approved architectural plan for Kendale shows that the school board has been fighting the PTA so it could cram almost three times as many children onto a serviceable school lot just four-fifths the size of Seven Locks.

All with the following ameneties for the kids: a tiny athletic field, a parking lot that can't accommodate cars and buses at the same time and is too small for after-school events, no road-side parking, no sidewalk, and five portable classrooms squeezed between the mulched and hard play areas.