A group of education activists says the Montgomery County school system is basing important decisions about building projects to address overcrowding on inaccurate enrollment projections.
In a letter to school leaders, County Executive Marc Elrich and the Montgomery County Council, a group of 15 cluster coordinators who advocate on behalf of neighborhood schools, and Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Association officers outlined concerns about new enrollment projections that they said differed greatly from earlier models.
They said the latest projections don’t take up-to-date county growth factors into consideration and bend results to align with historic trends that may no longer be valid.
“The takeaway message is nobody’s confident in these numbers,” Walter Johnson High School Cluster Coordinator Jim Bradley said. “Without that data being really accurate, all the decisions you make are questioned.”
For example, in the new model, projections for Albert Einstein High School in Kensington showed 200 fewer students than the previous model, concerning to some community members due to ongoing and approved development in downtown Silver Spring, where some students live.
Similarly, new projections for Ashburton Elementary School, a chronically overcrowded Bethesda school, dropped by more than 100 students, forecasting enrollment to remain steady, despite a growing enrollment since 2000.
Without correcting what they say are “inaccuracies,” thousands of public schools students could be negatively affected for decades as construction projects continue to back up throughout the county, the group asserts.
Since 2008, the school system’s enrollment projections have been off by an average of 5,000 students, according to data analyzed by the group. With an enrollment of about 163,000 students, the 5,000 difference equates to about a 3.4 percent error rate.
“We recognize that no forecast is going to be 100 percent accurate, but we need to do the best that we can with the abundance of data that we have available, and this is not it,” the letter says. “Further, the enrollment projections made by MGT (of America Consulting) are already having a significant ripple effect throughout the county, and decisionmakers at all levels are basing public policy decisions upon these flawed numbers.”
MGT did not return a phone call seeking comment. The school system said in a statement it believes MGT’s projections are “based on sound practices and data.”
“We look forward to continuing to refine our analysis of our projections for the coming years and making any necessary adjustments as factors and conditions warrant to ensure MCPS continually works with the most up to date information to inform our enrollment forecast,” the statement says.
The group refers to a recent decision made by the school board to conduct a districtwide boundary study to explore options to ease crowding in various areas of the county, an effort that will depend heavily on the enrollment of schools over the next decade. The group also points to a December vote by the Rockville mayor and City Council to allow some residential building projects to proceed despite overcrowding at two high schools that serve parts of the city.
MGT used a weighted average of four projections models and curved the results based on historical trends for each school. The company used housing stock data from 2016 and added a 1 percent countywide growth rate.
The letter’s writers argue there are areas of the county with little to no recent growth, while others have a housing growth rate of up to 4 percent.
MGT estimated the school system’s enrollment will continue an overall upward trend through the 2027-2028 school year, when the company believes there will be 175,035 students countywide.
Brian Krantz, a parent activist from Bethesda, last year created a spreadsheet compiling public enrollment and capital improvements program data for each of the school system’s 206 schools, and made the data available in graphs and interactive formats.
He suggests the school system and MGT re-examine new projection forecasts and employ methods to include more up-to-date housing growth data and include approved, but unbuilt, projects in projections.
“The weights were chosen arbitrarily and subjectively in a manual process for each school – not using a scientific process, and results in projections that are solely based on past enrollment trends,” Krantz said.
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@moco360.media
