A legal challenge to the Montgomery County Board of Education's plan to move Wootton High School from Rockville to Gaithersburg cleared a key hurdle Sept. 1.

An administrative law judge dismissed MCPS's Motion to Dismiss without prejudice after a prehearing conference that day, according to a press release from the Community and Education Policy Alliance (CEPA), the Montgomery County organization that filed the appeal. The case will now move into discovery, with evidentiary hearings set for Dec. 8, 9 and 10.

CEPA plans to call MCPS officials, Montgomery County personnel and other witnesses to testify at those hearings.

The appeal stems from the board's 7-1 vote on March 26 to create new high school attendance zones and adopt a regional programming model. Board member Julie Yang cast the lone dissenting vote. Under the plan, Wootton's staff and students would relocate to the new Crown High School building in Gaithersburg for the 2027-2028 school year.

The Wootton building would likely become a holding school, according to MCPS officials.

CEPA argues the board's action amounts to a closure, not a relocation, and should trigger Maryland's school-closing protections. The group's appeal calls the decision "arbitrary, unreasonable and illegal," as Bethesda Magazine reported Sept. 3. The appeal also contends the board relied on faulty enrollment data and combined multiple distinct decisions into a single vote. It further argues the board lacked proper state approval to change the intended use of Crown High, which was built with state funding.

MCPS has maintained that moving Wootton does not constitute a closure and that its enrollment data is accurate. MCPS has not publicly commented on the judge's decision to deny its motion.

The dispute has moved through several stages since March. CEPA filed an emergency request on March 31 asking the Maryland Department of Education to halt the board's plan. The state denied that request. In July, the State Board referred the case to the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings rather than ending it at a preliminary stage.

CEPA spokesperson Sukhobok said in a July 21 statement reported by Bethesda Magazine that the group welcomed discovery. "The question is whether the evidence drove the decision—or whether the decision came first and the explanations followed," Sukhobok said at the time.

According to the group, Wootton had been in the budget for major capital improvements for years, but those upgrades were repeatedly postponed. Montgomery County recently shifted $36 million from the fiscal year 2027-2032 Capital Improvements Program to support the MCPS operating budget.

No ruling on the merits has been made. The December hearings will be the next major milestone in the case.