In January 1982, the Maryland Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights conducted a forum in order to hear from community representatives, members of the Montgomery County School Board, and other local officials about the impact of school board decisions to close selected schools in the countywide school district. On the basis of the information gathered in preparation for, at, and following the meeting, the committee came to the following conclusions. First, while the committee recognized the need for school closings due to dwindling enrollments, it found that the decisionmaking process utilized by the school board did not adequately consider either the racial makeup of the county's schools or the special needs of the county's various minority communities. Second, the school board's insensitivity to minority community concerns added racial tension to the controversy and polarized it in a manner that could damage community relations for a long time to come. And finally, in choosing schools to be closed, the school board deviated from its own racial balance policies; its actions would result in increased minority concentrations in schools in certain areas of the county. In the light of these findings, the committee urges the United States Commission on Civil Rights to conduct a national assessment of school closures necessitated by declining enrollments. Following the narrative, appendices present two responses to the committee's findings by the school board president and a school board member. (RDN)