Northwood High School (Maryland)

In order to relieve overcrowding in local schools adjacent to major federal installations or defense projects, President Eisenhower signed Title 45 Public Law 81-874 "ASSISTANCE FOR SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION" with $1,500,000 contributed to Montgomery County.^[3][4] It was decided to build a new high school along 30 acres on Old Bladensburg Road (later known as University Boulevard) in Silver Spring with planned opening in fall 1956. The two-story brick, tile, and glass rambler cost $1,955,143, with a student capacity of 1425. At its dedication Arthur S. Adams, president of the American Council on Education, described the school as a "Magnificent Building" to a crowd of 1000 visitors.^[5] The Northwood area grew prior to construction. The new school became a combination junior/senior high school named Northwood Junior Senior High School with new principal Edward (Ted) A. Bartlett. Principal Bartlett was Harvard educated, a World War II veteran, and the former basketball coach from Winchester High School in Winchester, Massachusetts.^[6]

At the start of school in September 1956, there was no working bell system, no mirrors in the bathrooms, no lockers, and no cafeteria. They used whistles to mark the start and end of class periods.^[7]

On February 1, 1960, Harold R. Packard replaced Bartlett. Eugene R. Smoley became Principal in 1972. In 1977 Principal Bobby J. Mullis replaced Smoley, and retired at the 1985 closing.^[8][9]

The closing of Northwood High School was discussed and voted on 3 times by the Montgomery County School Board starting in 1981 and finally ordered closed in a contested decision that aimed to alleviate the concentration of minorities enrolling at Montgomery Blair High School.^[10][11] A nonprofit group, Northwood Community Solidarity Inc, was established to fight the closure.^[12] After the closing, school trophies were given to students, and alumni. The varsity uniforms were sold to students for $1. The Northwood Indian headdress was donated to Wheaton Library for display.^[13]

From 1987 to 2004, Northwood was used to hold students from other high schools during renovations. The school was re-opened in 2004 due to increasing population. During its original run, the school's mascot was the Indians. A September 2001 vote by the Board of Education banned ethnic and race-based team mascots at county schools. Students in the first class and Alumni from the 1958 first graduating class chose the Gladiators as the new mascot.^[14]

Prior to the reopening the funds saved by the Northwood Community Solidarity for 20 years, $8,500, was donated to Northwood in memory of the late Bobby Mullis.^[9]

2008 was the first year since the school reopened in which there were all four classes. The school had approximately 1,400 students. This size has moved it from a division 2A school in Maryland High School athletics, to a division 3A school for the 2009–10 school year.^[15]

As of the 2024–25 school year, Northwood High School boasts over 1700 students from diverse backgrounds.

As of 2018, Northwood students participate in 45 teams across 18 sports for the fall, winter, and spring seasons. Students play on both varsity and junior varsity levels and hosted girls', boys', and co-ed teams. Sports include baseball, basketball, bocce, cross country, field hockey, football, golf, lacrosse, pom pom, racquetball, side cheer, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball, and wrestling. In 2023, the Northwood Bocce Ball team won the Maryland State Championship, marking the school's first championship win of a team sport in over 40 years.

Prior to closing in 1985, Northwood had a number of division, county, regional, and state championships in a variety of sports. Don Greenberg was an all county member of the football and baseball teams during the 1973 and 1974 seasons which are often referred to as the "glory years" of Northwood athletics. In 1975 Coach Brady Straub led the baseball Team to the Maryland State Championship.^{[citation needed]}

Northwood High School has a special program in collaboration with Montgomery College called MC^2. It allows students of the program to earn college credit while still in high school by taking Advanced Placement courses or classes taught by real college professors from Montgomery College. Students even have the opportunity to earn an Associate's degree in high school.

In 9th grade, students can choose to take AP US History but the courses they take are the same as a non-MC^2 student. Then in 10th grade, students take Montgomery College classes for 1 class period of the day. They also must choose to take AP US Government or AP Psychology for additional credit. In 11th grade, they spend 2 class periods taking Montgomery College classes, and AP English. They can choose to take AP World History, AP Biology, or AP Chemistry. Finally, in 12th grade, rather than taking courses at Northwood, students are at Montgomery College for the whole school day.

The school is located at the northeast corner of University Boulevard West and Arcola Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. The school's architect, William N. Denton Jr., designed a classic H-shaped structure.^[16] The original school opened with 55 classrooms, 11 administrative offices, a large gym, and 108 seat library and cafeteria seating 456.^[5] Before the end of the first year, plans were made to add an additional 14 new classrooms.^[5] Northwood has a recently remodeled multipurpose stadium where their football, soccer, track and lacrosse teams play, named after former Northwood Technology Education, (mostly Electronics) teacher David Kaplan who became an activist lobbying to keep the school open in 1985.^[17] The athletic area of Northwood also includes two baseball fields, a track, and a concessions area to the left of the main stands of Kaplan Stadium. The school has a Media Center that mainly serves as a library. There is also a band room, alternate music room, a full wellness center, and a film room that is the location of Northwood's television and radio station, WNHS.

To address crowding in the Downcounty Consortium, an addition and facility upgrades are planned for the high school. This expansion includes additional classrooms, reconfiguration of existing spaces and upgrades to building systems. It will bring the total student capacity to 2,700 students, an increase of 1,200 seats. During the upgrade, the school will operate out of the campus of Charles W. Woodward High School. This upgrade was supposed to be completed by 2025, but due to supply chain issues and COVID-19, it got delayed until summer 2027.^[18]

On April 24th 2024 at 2 PM the Northwood High School Community planned a walkout to protest the delayed construction, incomplete school, and early start time for Northwood at Charles Woodward High School. MCPS did change the start time from 7:20 to 7:40 AM, added more school bus routes, and changed existing ones to arrive later. But the staff and students still saw many issues with their temporary holding school such as no auditorium or sports fields.

MCPS hired Samaha Accosiates, PC to be the architect for the new Northwood High School and Whiting-Turner Contracting Company to demolish old Northwood and build new Northwood.

The asbestos removal for Northwood High School started in June 2024 and was expected to be completed on August 16th 2024. But the asbestos removal took longer than expected and got completed in October 2024. The demolition of the school followed after the asbestos removal and it started in October 2024 and the school is expected to be fully rebuilt in 2027 but it might be delayed to 2028 further due to issues.

During the early 1970s, WNHS was a low-power AM radio station, used for broadcasting home football games. WNHS became the television and radio station at Northwood high school.^[19] Unique throughout the county to Northwood High School, WNHS performs a live news show broadcast to students and faculty for the first twenty minutes of every school day. The program also covers sporting and school-wide events, such as graduation and prom. Shortly after reopening, the program entered and won awards in video competitions.

• Jonathan Banks, television and film actor^[20]
• Alex Bazzie, football player^[21]
• Jerry Ceppos, journalist and academic^[22]
• George Daly, music executive^{[citation needed]}
• Matt Drudge, creator and editor of the Drudge Report^[23]
• Jan Rose Kasmir, cultural icon, subject of historic picture at 1967 March on the Pentagon^[24]
• Annie Leibovitz, photographer^[25]
• George Pelecanos, author (detective and noir fiction), television producer and a television writer (The Wire)^[26]
• Evelyn Rosenberg, international artist and developer of the technique of detonographics^[27]

• Official website