MCPS sixth graders to be allowed to play interscholastic sports 

District also piloting flag football, sports program for all middle schoolers

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August 13, 2026 11:40 a.m.

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Sixth graders in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) will now be allowed to compete against their peers in middle school interscholastic sports in a pilot program introduced by the school district for the 2026-2027 school year, according to MCPS Director of Systemwide Athletics Jeff Sullivan. 

“What we’ve seen is also over time, there’s been an increased need to provide access and opportunity to sports, especially for underserved populations,” Sullivan told Bethesda Today on Thursday. “We really kind of looked at the pipeline of sports, the access to sports, and thought, ‘You know what, let’s open this up for our sixth graders and provide that opportunity.’” 

The district will also be piloting a new boys and girls flag football program for middle schoolers. The pilot for sixth, seventh and eighth graders comes after the district introduced girls flag football in high school during the 2024-2025 school year, joining other Maryland school districts who also piloted the program.  

Sullivan told Bethesda Today that the flag football program would be piloted in the spring season in partnership with the Washington Commanders. 

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“That’s a program shift and addition that we’re very excited about,” Sullivan said.  

The pivot to introduce interscholastic sports for all middle schoolers is a shift from allowing only seventh and eighth graders to participate in interscholastic sports while sixth graders were only allowed to participate in intramural sports. The middle school sports program will now allow sixth graders to participate in boys and girls slow pitch softball and cross country in the fall, basketball in the winter and soccer in the spring.  

According to the MCPS website, the intramural sports program is conducted before and/or after school between students at the same school, and the primary reason for participation is “enjoyment of the activities rather than the pressure to compete and win.” Interscholastic sports provide sport competition opportunities between students at different schools. 

“Historically, the athletics program at the middle school level has been an extension of the physical education program,” Sullivan told Bethesda Today. “The progression has been in sixth grade we have an intramural program in all of our middle schools … as kind of an introduction, and then they progress to the interscholastic athletics in seventh and eighth grade … so there’s a pipeline of learning.”  

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Sullivan said the opportunity for intramural sports will still exist, but the pilot will open doors to interscholastic sports that may not exist for some families outside school.  

“Our initial reaction has been very positive,” Sullivan said of the addition of sixth graders to interscholastic sports. “I think our parents and students are very excited about it, and I think with the pilot, we give ourselves the opportunity to assess that, but it’s something I know that parents have been asking for.”  

Adding flag football was also due to interest in the sport “skyrocketing and exploding,” Sullivan said, both in Maryland and nationally. The sport was popular in intramural sports and now will allow middle schoolers to participate interscholastically.  

Sullivan said the district will examine participation data and postseason data with athletic coordinators to determine the success of the pilots. MCPS will look at roster composition, if it introduced new opportunities for players and the impact of access to interscholastic sports for sixth graders. 

Intramural sports will still be around, Sullivan said, to give students who may not be interested in interscholastic sports or may not make it on the school teams.  

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“We need to be mindful of, with our sixth graders is ensuring, if they do try out for the team and are not selected as sixth graders, that [they] come back the next year,” Sullivan said. “Similar to our program as a whole, we want to keep the doors open every step of the way as students progress through the pipeline of not just sports but of middle school and high school as well.”  

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine