School closure process, new boundary study to begin in August  

Analysis to address declining enrollment, impacts of previous studies

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July 17, 2026 11:04 a.m.

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With Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and the state planning department projecting declining enrollment, the district is set to embark on another boundary study in August, determining attendance areas and if any middle or elementary schools should be closed for the 2029-2030 school year. 

The study comes on the heels of a middle and high school boundary study that resulted in the school board approving in March boundary lines that will permanently move Rockville’s Thomas S. Wootton High School into the upcoming Crown High in Gaithersburg — along with sweeping changes to the district’s programming model.    

“We found ourselves in an interesting place in MCPS history and in Montgomery County history,” Superintendent Thomas Taylor told the board Thursday at its weekly meeting in Rockville. “It is not unprecedented. We’ve experienced this before, but it’s been an awful long time. Hopefully it’s not long lasting, but we do need to adjust for it.”  

According to school board documents, the elementary school boundary study will consist of two phases: the first includes determining recommendations for any elementary or middle school consolidations, closures or changes to programs such as “paired schools,” wheere K-2 and 3-5 grade students are split up between two schools. The second phase will be an elementary school boundary study that will take into account decisions made in the first phase.  

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The study will likely include the decision on whether to close Silver Spring International Middle School (SSIMS) due to the building being “no longer tenable,” according to Taylor. In December, the Montgomery County school board voted to suspend considering the school’s closure and decided to incorporate a decision into a future elementary school boundary study.   

“You’re going to have a lot of work in front of you,” Board member Julie Yang, who recently won the primary for the District 1 seat on the County Council, told MCPS staff members at Thursday’s meeting. 

According to school board documents, the decision to close schools will consider issues such as building conditions, enrollment and capacity and impacts to educational programs. After Yang asked what lessons staff learned from the most recent boundary study, Andrea Swiatocha, deputy chief of facilities management told the board they would be focused more on the students’ experience.  

“I think that definitely gets lost in the conversation so much because we do absolutely have to take into facility condition and utilization,” Swiatocha said. “But emphasizing and focusing on that student experience. What are the services we are able to provide at these different schools? Based on the sizes, based on the staffing that we have available? How do we keep it focused on that?”  

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The district and Maryland Department of Planning are projecting declining enrollment for MCPS. According to school board documents, the district is expecting the student population to decline by 7,500 students between 2025 and 2031. The state is also  expecting the district’s student population to decline 4,500 in enrollment. The state is also projecting 97% of births between 2018-2030 to be enrolled in MCPS in the 2035 school year.  

According to documents, the board is planning to hire the same company that did the high school boundary study, Flo Analytics. While the most recent boundary study was focused on middle and high schools, it still had an impact on which elementary schools fed into which middle schools.   

Phase one of the timeline is set to begin in August, with the superintendent presenting a recommendation for the closure and consolidation of schools in February and March 2027. Phase one is set to end in May with a board decision on the consolidation and closures after public hearings in March and April 2027.  

Phase two is scheduled to begin in June, with the first round of options being released in August and September 2027. A second round of boundary options will be released in November and December 2027 after feedback from community members. The superintendent will release a recommendation in February or March 2028 and after public hearings the board will vote on the boundary decisions in May 2028. The boundary study is set to be implemented for the 2029-2030 school year. 

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine