This school year, MCPS has enrolled a record number of more than 159,000 students, which lines up with the county’s forecast. However, fears remain regarding schools’ capacities to house the growing number of students coming into the county.

MCPS has been struggling to handle school overcrowding as projections from the 2016 MCPS Student Enrollment and Facilities report show that by 2021, at least 19 high schools will lack seats for students. Blair, Clarksburg, Einstein, Walter Johnson and Northwood were projected to have de cits exceeding 400 seats. The report also highlighted how the average annual enrollment increase of MCPS over the past eight years was 2,550 students, yet the average annual increase in seats for the county overall was 1,874 in the same period.

In October of this year, Superintendent Jack Smith recommended the creation of a group to discuss, study and propose solutions to the overcrowding problem. The dif culties of overcrowding come at a time when MCPS is focusing its attention on reducing class sizes. It has allocated $37.9 million to create new teaching positions in order to both handle the in ux of students and reduce class sizes.