History and Campus
Rockville High School was established in 1892, when the state Board of Education first allocated funds to local school to educate high school students. The first class graduated from Rockville High School in 1897.
A new high school was constructed and opened for use in September 1905 on East Montgomery Avenue and Monroe Street. An addition was built in 1917, expanding the school to 19 classrooms. Rockville Colored High School was opened in 1927. The school for white children was renamed Richard Montgomery High School to distinguish between the two in 1935.
The building was completed in 1942 at 49,167 sq ft (4,567.8 m2), after a fire destroyed the old high school in 1940. Additions to the school were made in 1952 at 39,895 sq ft (3,706.4 m2), 1959 at 37,425 sq ft (3,476.9 m2), in 1964 at 56,703 sq ft (5,267.9 m2), 1969 at 4,000 sq ft (370 m2), 1975 at 35,890 sq ft (3,334 m2), 1976 at 8,300 sq ft (770 m2), and 1988 at 1,938 sq ft (180.0 m2). A new 311,500 sq ft (28,940 m2) building, completed in December 2007, was built on the athletic fields. The old 233,318 sq ft (21,676.0 m2) building was demolished over the summer of 2008, and new athletic fields were created on the site of the old building. Until a few months into the 2008-2009 school year, all athletic practices and games were held at other sites. The current campus is 26.2 acres (106,000 m²) in size.
In April 2008, the DC Examiner newspaper ran a series of four articles revealing that the school principal, Mr. Moreno Carrasco, had allegedly been running a private business on school time. The third article reported that Carrasco was using materials that appeared to be plagiarized from a seminar that he had attended at school district expense. Similar articles appeared in the Washington Post, the Montgomery County Gazette, and the Montgomery Sentinel. Shortly after the third Examiner article was published, Carrasco went on extended sick leave.
During Carrasco's absence, the RMHS newspaper, The Tide, requested that administrators approve publication of an article about the investigation into Carrasco's alleged ethics violations and business endeavors. Assistant Principal Veronica McCall denied permission for publication of the article, but was overridden by Community Superintendent Dr. Sherry Liebes after The Tide editors announced that they would go public with news of the denial. The article was finally published online on April 24, 2008.
The Carrasco scandal triggered publication of an article by Wayne Goldstein, president of the Montgomery County Civic Federation. In the article, which was published in the April 22, 2008 issue of the Montgomery Sentinel and on the MCCF web site, Goldstein asserts that Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jerry Weast "has little concern about the ethical behavior of himself or others."
On June 10, 2008, Montgomery County Public Schools announced that Carrasco had been named the new director of secondary leadership training. The announcement also stated that the allegations about Carrasco's involvement in private consulting were "thoroughly investigated" and "not substantiated".
On June 23, 2008, Nelson McLeod II was named the new principal of Richard Montgomery High School.
Read more about this topic: Richard Montgomery High School
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