About 15% of Montgomery Students Are in Private School or Homeschool, About the Same Since 2010

This story is part of Moderately MOCO’s investigation into MCPS enrollment. Part 1 found that every MCPS enrollment forecast since 2020 has come in too high.

Since Montgomery County Public Schools reported a preliminary count of 4,083 fewer students this fall, one of the most common questions from readers has been whether families are leaving for private school or homeschooling. MCPS has pointed mainly to falling births, with fewer international students a smaller factor, Bethesda Magazine reported.

The data that would show where this fall’s students went is not out yet. MCPS’s drop happened between September 2025 and September 2026, and the newest counts of private school and homeschool students predate it. What the existing data shows is a share that has held steady for 15 years, homeschooling back near pre-pandemic levels and a modest rise in private school enrollment, smaller than the state’s published totals suggest.

About 15%, for 15 years

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey asks whether children attend public school or “private school, private college, or home school,” which is one answer. The survey reaches a sample of households each year, so its figures are estimates, not counts. The Census Bureau counts every resident only once every 10 years, most recently in 2020. Among Montgomery County residents in kindergarten through 12th grade, the share in private school or homeschool has ranged from 13.4% to 16.8% in every annual estimate since 2010, averaging about 15%, with no clear trend. The most recent estimate, for 2024, is 15.6%, with a margin of error of 1.8 percentage points. The Census Bureau releases its 2025 estimates on October 29.

The state’s own count gives a similar share. It counted 26,646 K-12 students at nonpublic schools in Montgomery County in the fall of 2025, 14.9% of all K-12 students in public and nonpublic schools combined, before the adjustments described below.

Homeschooling is back near where it was before the pandemic

Montgomery County had 3,014 homeschooled students as of April 30, 2026, according to the Maryland State Department of Education. That compares with 2,914 in 2019-20 and a peak of 4,505 in 2020-21, the first pandemic school year. The count fell from 3,293 in the 2024-25 school year.

In the 2025-26 counts, Montgomery had the lowest homeschooling rate of Maryland’s 24 school systems. Homeschooled students were 1.66% of the county’s K-12 students in public, private and home school, against 4.11% statewide, by our calculation from the state’s homeschool, nonpublic school and public school enrollment reports.

Private school enrollment has grown, but less than the state’s totals show

The state’s annual nonpublic school report shows Montgomery County’s K-12 nonpublic enrollment rising from 24,345 in the fall of 2019 to 26,646 in the fall of 2025, an increase of 9.5%.

Moderately MOCO went through the school-by-school list in each year’s report and found three things that inflate the county’s total:

• Repeated listings. In the fall 2025 report, Avalon, Butler Montessori, Primary Day, Siena and Village Montessori each appear twice with identical or nearly identical grade-by-grade counts. Rochambeau, the French International School, is listed once with all grades and again with kindergarten through fifth grade counts that match the first listing. Together the repeats add about 1,200 students. Earlier reports have the same pattern, adding about 1,340 students in fall 2022. The report does not show whether the repeated listings came from the schools or from the state’s compilation.
• An online school. Griggs International Academy, an online and parent-guided school that serves “K-12 learners around the globe,” is listed under Montgomery County with 660 K-12 students in fall 2025 and as many as 2,355 in fall 2020. Its website lists an address in Berrien Springs, Michigan, and says it is recognized as a nonpublic school by the Maryland State Board of Education. The report does not say where its students live.
• Sidwell Friends’ Washington, D.C., grades. Sidwell’s Bethesda campus is its lower school, prekindergarten through fourth grade, and its middle and upper schools are in Washington, D.C., according to the school. In most years the report lists Sidwell with kindergarten through fourth grade. In fall 2025 and in three earlier years, it also includes the Washington, D.C., grades, adding about 850 students.

The state warns that its nonpublic data “is self-reported and is not subject to a thorough verification and audit process.”

With the repeated listings, Griggs and Sidwell’s Washington, D.C., grades removed, Montgomery’s K-12 nonpublic enrollment went from about 22,300 in the fall of 2019 to about 23,900 in the fall of 2025, an increase of about 7%. Nonpublic kindergarten enrollment grew faster, about 19%, from about 1,780 to about 2,120. Removing all of Griggs’s students assumes none of them live in Montgomery County.

Even the adjusted figures are approximate. Not every school responds to the state’s survey: the number of Montgomery private K-12 schools that did not report has ranged from 15 to 57 since 2014. Fewer have gone unreported in recent years, which can make enrollment look like it grew.

What this does and does not explain

Montgomery has a large private school sector. Even using the adjusted count, about 13% of the county’s K-12 students attended a nonpublic school in the fall of 2025, fourth-highest among Maryland’s 24 school systems, by our calculation from the state’s nonpublic school report. That comparison uses other counties’ published figures, which were not checked for similar issues, and the state counts students by where the school is, not where the student resides.

The counts that would show whether this fall’s drop went to private school or homeschooling are still to come. The state’s homeschool count for this school year is taken next spring and published by summer, and its private school count for this fall is due around April 2027.

Moderately MOCO compared the school-by-school tables in every edition of the state’s nonpublic enrollment report from fall 2009 through fall 2025, retrieved from the state and from archived copies. Adjustments remove only listings that repeat identical or nearly identical counts, Griggs International Academy and Sidwell Friends’ grades five through 12. Census figures are estimates from the American Community Survey, which samples households each year; the Census Bureau’s full count happens only every 10 years. The survey counts homeschooled students in the same answer as private school.

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