MCPS Projects Three Middle Schools About Half Full After the March Boundary Vote

No decision has been made to close any school. MCPS has not published a list of schools it is considering for closure, and the Board of Education is not scheduled to vote on closures until April 15, 2027. This story analyzes MCPS’s own projections from the high school boundary changes the Board approved in March 2026.

How the closure and boundary study works · Community session schedule, starting October 19 · MCPS’s study website

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. Part 2 found that about 15% of Montgomery students are in private school or homeschool, about the same share since 2010.

When the Montgomery County Board of Education approved new high school boundaries in March, it also changed which middle schools many elementary schools feed into. MCPS’s own projections show three middle schools ending up about half full as a result.

By the 2031-32 school year, Ridgeview Middle School is projected to be 44% full, Lakelands Park Middle School 55% and Silver Spring International Middle School 56%, according to MCPS’s effects tables for the Wootton and Damascus and Woodward and Northwood boundaries the Board approved. Without the changes, MCPS projected the three schools at 71%, 85% and 77%.

MCPS’s newest projections, in the capital plan the superintendent released in October, are close: 49% at Ridgeview, 58% at Lakelands Park and 53% at Silver Spring International. That plan does not show what the schools would have looked like without the boundary changes.

Ridgeview and Lakelands Park

Ridgeview, on Raven Rock Drive, and Lakelands Park, on Main Street, are both in Gaithersburg. In the March effects tables, MCPS projected 416 students at Ridgeview in 2031-32, in a building with 955 seats, and 613 at Lakelands Park, which has 1,122 seats.

Both schools lost students to other middle schools in the Wootton decision:

• Ridgeview: Fields Road Elementary School was reassigned to Robert Frost Middle School, and two small areas, parts of the Jones Lane and Thurgood Marshall elementary zones, were reassigned to Lakelands Park.
• Lakelands Park: Brown Station Elementary School was reassigned to Roberto W. Clemente Middle School, and Darnestown Elementary School to Kingsview Middle School. Part of Diamond Elementary School was moved from Lakelands Park to Ridgeview.

Before the vote, a Darnestown parent made the point in an opinion piece we published in March, arguing that Lakelands Park and Ridgeview would be “far under capacity.”

Silver Spring International

At Silver Spring International, under the Woodward decision, Forest Knolls Elementary was reassigned to Sligo Middle School, Rolling Terrace Elementary to Takoma Park Middle School, and some Montgomery Knolls and Pine Crest students to Eastern Middle School. Part of Woodlin Elementary was reassigned to Silver Spring International. Bethesda Magazine reported in March that the superintendent’s Woodward recommendation would take the school from about 81% to nearly 56% of capacity.

The school has come up before. MCPS’s fall 2025 capital plan proposed closing Silver Spring International in June 2030 and reusing the building as a holding school. On December 11, 2025, the Board did not approve a condensed process for considering that closure, according to the Woodward boundary resolution. It instead voted to fold the question into a future boundary study, Bethesda Magazine reported.

Advocates for the school have organized. Save Our Silver Spring Schools, a community group formed around Silver Spring International and Sligo Creek Elementary School, argued in a guest opinion column in Montgomery Perspective on September 29 that “walkable schools like Silver Spring International Middle School (SSIMS) and Sligo Creek Elementary School anchor neighborhoods, support safety, and stabilize enrollment.” The column, by Angie Kronenberg, writing for the group, asked MCPS to publish the criteria for its closure study, how they would be weighted and its enrollment projection method.

MCPS pushed back in a statement Montgomery Perspective published on October 1, saying, “There is no predetermined closure list.” We reported on the exchange before the Board’s October 8 work session.

The same votes raised use at other schools

The reassignments raised projected 2031-32 use at several middle schools that had room, according to the Wootton and Woodward effects tables: Clemente from 57% to 87%, Takoma Park from 64% to 87%, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from 70% to 90% and Herbert Hoover from 77% to 91%. They cut projected use at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg from 106% to 76%.

The emptiest elementary schools were not part of the vote

The boundary studies behind the March vote covered only high schools and middle schools. Elementary schools were left out, so no elementary school boundaries changed. “No elementary schools were included in the boundary study,” says the capital plan the superintendent released in October.

Elementary schools are getting their own study. A February 19 memo from Montgomery County Council staff said MCPS had proposed a comprehensive elementary school boundary study, expected to take two or three years, with new boundaries taking effect in the 2029-30 or 2030-31 school year. The closure study now underway covers elementary and middle schools, according to the presentation MCPS gave the Board on October 8.

Among the elementary schools with the most empty space this fall, according to the capital plan, Somerset Elementary has 285 students in a building with 564 seats, 50.5% full, down from 342 students in 2022-23. North Chevy Chase Elementary, which serves grades 3 through 5 with Rosemary Hills, is 54.2% full. Montgomery Knolls, which serves pre-K through grade 2 with Pine Crest, is at 59.0%, and College Gardens is at 59.4%.

Other schools remain crowded, according to the same plan. Mill Creek Towne Elementary has 508 students for 338 seats, about 150% of capacity, and has been above 130% since at least 2022. Oak View Elementary, which serves grades 3 through 5, is at 131.8%, and Walter Johnson High School is at 128.1% until Woodward High School reopens next fall. Cashell Elementary is at 122.1% and Damascus Elementary at 121.4%.

Looking ahead to 2031-32, MCPS’s projections put 15 elementary and middle schools below 60% of capacity, and the number below 80% rises from 51 this fall to 87.

What MCPS says about empty seats

MCPS policy says schools “should operate in an efficient facility utilization range of 80 to 100 percent of program capacity.” Its preferred sizes are 450 to 750 students for elementary schools and 750 to 1,200 for middle schools.

As of mid-October, MCPS has not published a list of schools it is considering for closure or a utilization threshold for closing one. The Board’s March resolution starting the study says it “does not predetermine the closure or consolidation of any specific school.” Criteria will be developed during a second round of community sessions from November 30 to December 10, according to MCPS’s study website. According to the timeline MCPS presented on October 8, the superintendent will make a recommendation on February 4, 2027, public hearings will follow, and the Board will decide on April 15, 2027. MCPS has said any changes are not expected to take effect until the 2029-30 school year.

The first in-person community session on the closure study is Monday, October 19, at 6:30 p.m. at Gaithersburg Middle School. An online session runs at noon the same day. The full schedule is at the end of Part 1.

Utilization is enrollment divided by program capacity, MCPS’s measure of how many students a building is designed to serve. Middle school projections with and without the boundary changes come from MCPS’s effects tables for the boundaries the Board approved on March 26, 2026, which use capacities from before MCPS’s September 24 capacity update. All other figures, including this fall’s counts and the 2031-32 school counts, come from the capital plan the superintendent released in October 2026. This fall’s counts are preliminary.

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