Richard Montgomery High School (RMHS) (#201) is a secondary public school located in Rockville, Maryland.
Academics
The school houses Montgomery County's first International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB). This competitive-entry magnet programme draws students from all over Montgomery County and has an IB diploma rate of 97%, the highest of its kind in the United States. The IB programme has an approximately 12.5% acceptance rate for incoming freshmen. Entry is based on an entrance examination, middle school transcripts, and personal essays.
Incoming freshmen who have been accepted into the IB programme are first enrolled in a special two-year programme consisting of courses designed to prepare them for more rigorous IB courses they will take in their junior and senior years. This also serves as a continuation of the final two years of the Middle Years Programme (MYP). The first three years of the MYP programme are offered to all students who attend Julius West Middle School, which is the sole middle school that feeds into RM. The MYP curriculum stresses "life long learning," "critical thinking," and "responsible global citizenship." It is a five-year programme designed for students in grades 6–10, and all Richard Montgomery students participate regardless of whether they are in the IB programme or whether they participated in middle school. Upon completion, non-IB students can apply to enroll in the IB programme. Students are accepted each year through this secondary application process for the IB programme.
The average class size is 24.8, although this number has recently been increasing, and it has a student to staff ratio of 14.5:1.
In 2007, Richard Montgomery was featured in Newsweek magazine as the 27th highest-rated high school in the nation. In June 2002, it won its first award in National Scholastic Championship at George Washington University. Richard Montgomery High School won the 2003 Blue Ribbon in Education Award by the United States Department of Education. RM has been identified as the number one school in the D.C. metropolitan area in the Challenge Index for Rigor. Richard Montgomery has also had multiple Marian Greenblatt Education Fund award winner teachers.
History and campus
Richard Montgomery High School is the oldest public high school in Montgomery County. It was first established in 1892 as "Rockville High School", when the state Board of Education first allocated funds to local school to educate high school students. The first class of twelve seniors graduated 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 students was renamed Richard Montgomery High School to distinguish between the two in 1935.
The building was completed in 1942 at , after a fire destroyed the old high school in 1940. Additions to the school were made in 1952 at , 1959 at , in 1964 at , 1969 at , 1975 at , 1976 at , and 1988 at . The current campus is 26.2 acres (106,000 m²) in size.
In April 2008 stories appeared in The Washington Post, the Montgomery County Gazette, and the Montgomery Sentinel, alleging that the school principal, Moreno Carrasco, had been running a private business on school time and was using materials that appeared to be plagiarized from a seminar that he had attended at school district expense. Carrasco went on extended sick leave.
During Carrasco's absence, the student 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.
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. He left the position in May 2014 due to a cardiac medical condition, and was replaced by Damon Monteleone in July 2014.
In 2020, a petition was started to rename the school due to its namesake, Richard Montgomery, being a slave owner.