MCPS may use Crown High School as Temporary Holding School

Just days after the most recent Crown boundary study info session, it seems that things are once again completely up in the air..

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October 16, 2025

At Today’s 10/16 MCPS Board of Education meeting (just two days after the meeting the rest of this article is about), MCPS provided updates that may completely change the trajectory of this study, including the possibility of using Crown HS as a holding school. You can view the full slides here but we will go over the most important information and then update as more comes in.

MCPS update on Programs Analysis

At the meeting, MCPS staff “presented an update to the Board of Education about the work on the Secondary Academic Programs Analysis, a plan focused on adding opportunities, not taking any away.” 

The Boundary and Programs Analysis studies have increasingly been linked together as they have related impacts across the student body as shown by this slide from today’s presentation:

Boundary Study Updated Timeline

The slides also showed the updated timeline for the Boundary Study process which you can see below.

Crown High School now being Considered to use as holding school

A surprise addition is that there are new considerations for the Crown Boundary study. With declining enrollment (and continued projected enrollment declines), MCPS is looking at the opportunity to use Crown HS as a temporary holding school before establishing it is a permanent school.

Three High schools (Damascus, Magruder, and Wootton) are all rated amongst the worst conditioned schools in the county so this provides opportunity to be used while doing work on those schools.

We will be updating this article with more information as we dig in deeper so be sure to check in later and follow us on all social media

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