Lakelands Park Middle School is a public middle school located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. Managed by Montgomery County Public Schools, the school educates in grades 6-8. The school was named after Lakelands Park, which is adjacent to the school. With its premises used regularly for community events, the school has a high local profile.Deborah R. Higdon became the school's principal, in August 2009, taking over from the original principal Joseph Sacco.The schoolLakelands Park Middle School was built in 2005 to resolve overcrowding in other schools in the county, as a result of a unique collaborative effort between the Montgomery County Board of Education and superintendent Dr. Jerry Weast, at a cost of $21 million. The building is 153588sqft, and includes three floors, a full-size gym, auxiliary gyms, three computer labs, and rooms for art, music and technology. The media center has a collection of more than 18,000 print and non-print materials, including books, magazines, videos, DVDs and CD ROMs. The Research Learning Hub includes 32 networked computers.The school set ambitious academic targets, including 100% of the students reading at or above grade level by the time that they leave the school. However, the school was soon placed on the state watch list due to poor results.Following the decision of the Montgomery County school board to allow cell phones in schools other than high schools, in August 2007 Lakelands was one of four selected to trial this arrangement.
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