Thomas S. Wootton High School or Wootton High School (WHS) is a public high school in Rockville, Maryland. Its namesake is Thomas S. Wootton, the founder of Montgomery County. The school was founded in 1970 and is part of the Montgomery County Public Schools system. Robert Frost Middle School along with half of Cabin John Middle School feed into the school. In 2019, Newsweek ranked Wootton's STEM program #160 in a nationwide survey of US high schools. In 2022, U.S. News & World Report ranked Wootton #167 nationally amongst high school.
History
In November 2001, President George W. Bush visited Wootton and signed the congressional bill officially recognizing "Veterans Awareness Week", which takes place the week before Veteran's Day.
In 2015, school principal Michael Doran was found dead in his Bethesda, Maryland, apartment. A memorial service was held at Wootton two days later. In 2017, a bridge near the high school and its auditorium was named in Doran's honor.
Controversies
On October 9, 2020, former football coach Christopher Papadopolous was sentenced to 18 months in jail with 5 years of probation with his addition to the Maryland sex offender registry. Christopher Papadopolous pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a minor and one count of fourth-degree sex offense. These charges stemmed from his sexual assault of several 17 year old minors in his home in Gaithersburg.
On November 2, 2021, a report of a sexual assault occurring in the school's locker room was received by Montgomery County Police. Members of the school's varsity team were allegedly involved in this in incident. Several students and staff members were interviewed in an investigation with officers from the police department's Special Victims Investigation Division. However, the investigation yielded no evidence of an occurrence of a sexual assault.
Its infrastructure is aging, a cause of concern for many students and teachers alike. It was found to have lead in its water, but those issues have not been fixed as of 2018. However, Montgomery County Public School Student Member of the Board candidates of 2023 are promising to fix this.
Demographics
During the 2019–2020 school year, the school's racial composition was 41.6% white, 37.2% Asian, 8.3% Black, and 8.0% Hispanic. Multiracial students made up less than 5% of the student body, as did Native and Pacific Islander American students. The overall size of the student body was 2,116.