Montgomery County Is Growing. Why Is Its School System Shrinking?

Carol Hughes Senior Education Contributor 📅 September 23, 2026

Before MCPS closes neighborhood schools, it owes families an answer to a question bigger than building capacity.

Montgomery County Public Schools is considering closing or consolidating elementary and middle schools. The explanation is declining enrollment. Some buildings have more empty seats than they once did, and keeping them open costs money.[1]

Fair enough. But the school board cannot brush aside another set of numbers.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Montgomery County’s population grew from about 1.06 million in 2020 to 1.07 million in 2025.[2] Meanwhile, the county’s approved fiscal year 2027 budget projects MCPS enrollment falling from 155,543 students in 2025–26 to 154,891 in 2026–27.[3] The county is growing, yet its public schools expect fewer students.

And this is happening with an extraordinary amount of money. MCPS has an approved $3.72 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2027, compared with $3.11 billion for county government operations.[3][4] Those are separate parts of the county’s broader budget, not competing totals for the whole county. Still, the comparison is striking. Families deserve to know how a school system with that level of funding arrived at the point of discussing school closures.

The first question is where the children went.

Population growth alone does not prove that parents are abandoning MCPS. More residents might mean more adults without school-age children. Smaller incoming classes can also reduce enrollment even while the county grows. The county’s own budget projections anticipate population growth alongside a further decline in MCPS enrollment.[5]

Those possibilities should begin the inquiry, not end it.  How many families have moved their children to private schools?  How many are homeschooling?  How many left the county, and how many simply chose a different way to educate a child while staying here?  MCPS should put those figures, and their limits, before the public.

I would also like to hear directly from parents. If some are leaving because of classroom concerns, school safety, academic programs, or a loss of confidence in district leadership, a facilities study will not tell us that. Ask them. Listen to their answers. Parents who have stayed should be heard just as carefully, including those who fear losing a school they love.  It isn’t easy living in Montgomery County for families; you have taxes, fees, transportation struggles, and the woke ideology trends.

Then ask a tougher question: Would more families choose a public charter school if they had an available option that met their children’s needs?  We cannot claim to know the answer without asking them.  However, parental choice deserves a place in this discussion. A family’s willingness to consider another school tells district leaders what they want MCPS to provide.  MCPS and the County Council have fought against charter schools.  The only recent charter school, the M.E.C.C.A. Business Learning Institute in Germantown, opened in fall 2025. The Board of Education voted to revoke its charter effective June 30, 2026.  What about Charter Schools does MCPS fear?  They moved quickly to revoke a charter for its only on charter school that basically operated for roughly 9 months.

Instead, the first concrete possibility many parents are hearing about is losing a neighborhood school.  This will force kids who normally would walk to school onto a bus to get to schools miles away from their home. That will carry a cost beyond the building.  A longer bus ride means an earlier morning for a child and a more complicated day for parents.  Moving students has the potential to disrupt friendships, programs, and the routines that help young children feel secure. If the receiving school needs more space or services, those costs belong in the calculation too.

The savings are not guaranteed. A Stanford study of California school districts found that closures reduced spending but, on average, also coincided with lost enrollment and revenue. The districts’ overall financial position did not measurably improve.[6] That does not tell MCPS what to do with a particular building. It tells the board to show its work before promising taxpayers a financial benefit.

MCPS says it will review enrollment, building use, transportation and programs, with public meetings this fall. It has announced no final list of schools, and implementation would begin no earlier than the 2029–30 school year.[1] There is time to do this properly.

Publish the projected savings for every school under consideration. Include added transportation and transition costs. Show enrollment trends by age and neighborhood. Tell families what the district knows, and does not know, about private school, homeschooling and demand for charter options.

Montgomery County may eventually have a sound case for consolidating a school. But with a growing population, a $3.72 billion school budget and parents facing the loss of familiar classrooms, “enrollment is down” is only the start of an explanation. The school board owes families the rest.

Endnotes

1. Montgomery County Public Schools, “Planning for the Future: Two Phases, Plenty of Opportunities to Participate,” September 17, 2026.
2. U.S. Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Montgomery County, Maryland.”
3. Montgomery County Office of Management and Budget, “FY27 Approved Operating Budget: Montgomery County Public Schools.”
4. Montgomery County Office of Management and Budget, “FY27 Approved Operating Budget: County Government.”
5. Montgomery County Office of Management and Budget, “FY27 Operating Budget: Revenue Estimates and Demographic Assumptions.”
6. Stanford Report, “School Closures May Fail to Fix District Finances,” September 2026.

Carol Hughes writes on education, government accountability, and state policy for Direct Line News.

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Carol Hughes

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