Enrollment & capacity
Which schools are running out of room
A probabilistic ten-year enrollment forecast for every regular MCPS school, checked against capacity. Built from public data — enrollment history, Census, births, and the county's approved-development pipeline — and backtested against what actually happened. Base year: SY 2025–26.
23schools at severe risk by 2030–31
6more at high risk
2,029projected seats short across over-capacity schools
48schools likely over capacity within 3 years
Zones are current attendance areas colored by capacity-risk category — the chance a school's enrollment exceeds its funded capacity in the selected year, from 2,000 simulations. Click a zone for that school's profile.
Highest projected utilization, 2030–31
Enrollment shown as the forecast median with an 80% range; utilization compares the median with funded capacity (planned additions included). Confidence grades how often the model has been materially wrong about similar schools.
| School | Level | Capacity | Forecast 2030–31 | Utilization | P(over) | Likely over from | Risk | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mill Creek Towne Elementary | ES | 336 | 462 (387–555) | 139% | 99% | 2026–27 | severe | medium |
| Damascus Elementary | ES | 269 | 338 (278–405) | 127% | 94% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Cabin Branch Elementary | ES | 687 | 848 (721–993) | 124% | 95% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Cashell Elementary | ES | 292 | 360 (314–411) | 124% | 97% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Takoma Park Middle | MS | 1,257 | 1,461 (1169–1817) | 118% | 81% | 2027–28 | severe | high |
| Winston Churchill High | HS | 1,936 | 2,216 (1819–2688) | 116% | 81% | 2026–27 | severe | high |
| Germantown Elementary | ES | 279 | 320 (267–378) | 115% | 84% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Oak View Elementary | ES | 345 | 389 (312–486) | 115% | 75% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Sequoyah Elementary | ES | 414 | 470 (391–561) | 115% | 81% | 2026–27 | severe | medium |
| Roberto W Clemente Middle | MS | 1,141 | 1,267 (1000–1602) | 113% | 73% | 2027–28 | severe | medium |
| Arcola Elementary | ES | 638 | 702 (600–811) | 111% | 78% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Waters Landing Elementary | ES | 703 | 769 (652–900) | 110% | 77% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Washington Grove Elementary | ES | 552 | 605 (517–698) | 110% | 78% | 2029–30 | severe | low |
| Woodlin Elementary | ES | 570 | 610 (522–712) | 108% | 71% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| James Hubert Blake High | HS | 1,743 | 1,864 (1501–2271) | 108% | 65% | 2026–27 | severe | medium |
| Bethesda Elementary | ES | 560 | 598 (502–707) | 107% | 68% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Flora M. Singer Elementary | ES | 585 | 616 (534–710) | 106% | 67% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Burnt Mills Elementary | ES | 687 | 723 (612–843) | 106% | 66% | 2026–27 | severe | medium |
| Georgian Forest Elementary | ES | 631 | 659 (558–778) | 105% | 63% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Richard Montgomery High | HS | 2,220 | 2,311 (1904–2784) | 105% | 62% | 2026–27 | severe | high |
| Cloverly Elementary | ES | 395 | 410 (351–480) | 105% | 62% | 2026–27 | severe | medium |
| Farmland Elementary | ES | 725 | 753 (622–893) | 104% | 59% | 2026–27 | severe | low |
| Albert Einstein High | HS | 1,598 | 1,635 (1354–1970) | 103% | 55% | 2026–27 | severe | high |
| Montgomery Blair High | HS | 2,889 | 2,958 (2444–3531) | 103% | 56% | 2026–27 | high | high |
| Rosemont Elementary | ES | 577 | 588 (503–687) | 103% | 56% | 2026–27 | high | low |
| Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle | MS | 905 | 910 (736–1112) | 102% | 51% | 2027–28 | high | medium |
| Newport Mill Middle | MS | 812 | 813 (664–988) | 101% | 51% | 2029–30 | high | high |
| Garrett Park Elementary | ES | 774 | 774 (663–899) | 101% | 50% | 2030–31 | high | low |
| Paint Branch High | HS | 1,998 | 1,983 (1638–2434) | 101% | 48% | 2026–27 | watch | high |
| Watkins Mill Elementary | ES | 722 | 723 (625–834) | 101% | 50% | 2026–27 | high | low |
Top 30 of 202 regular schools. Special and alternative programs are not forecast.
Schools to watch
The six schools with the highest probability of exceeding 110% of capacity by 2030–31. The teal band is the range the model considers likely (80%); the gold dashed line is MCPS's own published projection for comparison.
Mill Creek Towne Elementarysevere
Data table
| School year | Actual | Forecast (p10–p90) | MCPS projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017–18 | 389 | — | — |
| 2018–19 | 464 | — | — |
| 2019–20 | 506 | — | — |
| 2020–21 | 482 | — | — |
| 2021–22 | 463 | — | — |
| 2022–23 | 468 | — | — |
| 2023–24 | 497 | — | — |
| 2024–25 | 528 | — | — |
| 2025–26 | 513 | — | — |
| 2026–27 | — | 518 (484–551) | 540 |
| 2027–28 | — | 528 (475–584) | 543 |
| 2028–29 | — | 518 (455–589) | 533 |
| 2029–30 | — | 482 (415–562) | 530 |
| 2030–31 | — | 462 (387–555) | 529 |
| 2031–32 | — | 463 (382–563) | — |
| 2032–33 | — | 459 (378–556) | — |
| 2033–34 | — | 457 (377–556) | — |
| 2034–35 | — | 456 (379–557) | — |
| 2035–36 | — | 457 (378–550) | — |
Cashell Elementarysevere
Data table
| School year | Actual | Forecast (p10–p90) | MCPS projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017–18 | 382 | — | — |
| 2018–19 | 363 | — | — |
| 2019–20 | 340 | — | — |
| 2020–21 | 313 | — | — |
| 2021–22 | 321 | — | — |
| 2022–23 | 336 | — | — |
| 2023–24 | 342 | — | — |
| 2024–25 | 386 | — | — |
| 2025–26 | 377 | — | — |
| 2026–27 | — | 381 (355–408) | 399 |
| 2027–28 | — | 384 (347–423) | 396 |
| 2028–29 | — | 380 (339–427) | 385 |
| 2029–30 | — | 370 (324–419) | 377 |
| 2030–31 | — | 360 (314–411) | 384 |
| 2031–32 | — | 364 (318–421) | — |
| 2032–33 | — | 363 (315–419) | — |
| 2033–34 | — | 365 (314–418) | — |
| 2034–35 | — | 361 (314–416) | — |
| 2035–36 | — | 361 (313–417) | — |
Cabin Branch Elementarysevere
Data table
| School year | Actual | Forecast (p10–p90) | MCPS projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023–24 | 498 | — | — |
| 2024–25 | 645 | — | — |
| 2025–26 | 716 | — | — |
| 2026–27 | — | 766 (711–823) | 825 |
| 2027–28 | — | 813 (730–896) | 838 |
| 2028–29 | — | 830 (728–939) | 842 |
| 2029–30 | — | 842 (726–980) | 839 |
| 2030–31 | — | 848 (721–993) | 812 |
| 2031–32 | — | 827 (704–975) | — |
| 2032–33 | — | 823 (699–962) | — |
| 2033–34 | — | 821 (692–970) | — |
| 2034–35 | — | 821 (697–964) | — |
| 2035–36 | — | 822 (700–971) | — |
Damascus Elementarysevere
Data table
| School year | Actual | Forecast (p10–p90) | MCPS projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017–18 | 331 | — | — |
| 2018–19 | 341 | — | — |
| 2019–20 | 362 | — | — |
| 2020–21 | 354 | — | — |
| 2021–22 | 361 | — | — |
| 2022–23 | 366 | — | — |
| 2023–24 | 345 | — | — |
| 2024–25 | 331 | — | — |
| 2025–26 | 338 | — | — |
| 2026–27 | — | 342 (317–368) | 340 |
| 2027–28 | — | 336 (298–373) | 336 |
| 2028–29 | — | 332 (287–381) | 332 |
| 2029–30 | — | 330 (276–390) | 336 |
| 2030–31 | — | 338 (278–405) | 325 |
| 2031–32 | — | 326 (269–389) | — |
| 2032–33 | — | 322 (267–385) | — |
| 2033–34 | — | 322 (266–387) | — |
| 2034–35 | — | 323 (267–384) | — |
| 2035–36 | — | 321 (266–383) | — |
Takoma Park Middlesevere
Data table
| School year | Actual | Forecast (p10–p90) | MCPS projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017–18 | 1090 | — | — |
| 2018–19 | 1107 | — | — |
| 2019–20 | 1162 | — | — |
| 2020–21 | 1158 | — | — |
| 2021–22 | 1129 | — | — |
| 2022–23 | 1077 | — | — |
| 2023–24 | 1124 | — | — |
| 2024–25 | 1177 | — | — |
| 2025–26 | 1197 | — | — |
| 2026–27 | — | 1191 (1112–1265) | 1201 |
| 2027–28 | — | 1448 (1294–1615) | 1190 |
| 2028–29 | — | 1424 (1224–1658) | 1176 |
| 2029–30 | — | 1483 (1233–1783) | 1137 |
| 2030–31 | — | 1461 (1169–1817) | 1111 |
| 2031–32 | — | 1475 (1143–1933) | — |
| 2032–33 | — | 1425 (1044–1952) | — |
| 2033–34 | — | 1434 (1019–2020) | — |
| 2034–35 | — | 1414 (949–2070) | — |
| 2035–36 | — | 1371 (888–2102) | — |
Germantown Elementarysevere
Data table
| School year | Actual | Forecast (p10–p90) | MCPS projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017–18 | 321 | — | — |
| 2018–19 | 321 | — | — |
| 2019–20 | 324 | — | — |
| 2020–21 | 301 | — | — |
| 2021–22 | 289 | — | — |
| 2022–23 | 294 | — | — |
| 2023–24 | 318 | — | — |
| 2024–25 | 314 | — | — |
| 2025–26 | 316 | — | — |
| 2026–27 | — | 325 (299–351) | 314 |
| 2027–28 | — | 316 (282–353) | 317 |
| 2028–29 | — | 321 (279–369) | 315 |
| 2029–30 | — | 321 (274–373) | 315 |
| 2030–31 | — | 320 (267–378) | 320 |
| 2031–32 | — | 316 (265–374) | — |
| 2032–33 | — | 313 (263–372) | — |
| 2033–34 | — | 314 (264–373) | — |
| 2034–35 | — | 314 (262–373) | — |
| 2035–36 | — | 316 (263–374) | — |
How this forecast works — and how wrong it tends to be
grade-cohort survival with feeder articulation, births-scaled kindergarten, and a development overlay; 2,000-simulation Monte Carlo. Every input is public; every method was kept only if it beat a simpler alternative on held-out years.
Track record (backtest)
Trained on data through each past year, then scored against what actually happened (average error in students per school):
| Years ahead | This model | No-change | MCPS official |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 28.1 | 31.3 | 29.5 |
| 2 | 47.9 | 49.4 | 52.8 |
| 3 | 60.2 | 62.6 | 69.5 |
| 4 | 73.1 | 75.4 | 82.7 |
| 5 | 86.5 | 86.4 | 93.9 |
| 6 | 92.6 | 95 | 68.4 |
MCPS's published projections ran 16–66 students high per school over 2019–2024 vintages. 80% intervals covered ~80% of held-out outcomes (bases 2022-2023).
What to keep in mind
- Forecasts include the board-adopted March 2026 boundary and facility changes (Woodward reopening, Northwood expansion, Wootton's relocation to Crown Farm, Damascus expansion), calibrated to the adopted resolutions' published effects tables with their phase-in schedules. Other future boundary changes are not modeled.
- Approved development is not guaranteed: completion probabilities and timing are modeled, not known. Units are split by the county's own approval status — fully-approved units are weighted near-term, while not-yet-fully-entitled future phases carry a low weight and are back-loaded into the out-years. Recently-completed units whose residents haven't yet enrolled are not added.
- Ten-year projections are scenarios, not predictions; kindergarteners of 2031+ are not yet born.
- Special and alternative programs are excluded; paired K-2/3-5 campuses share development yield.
- PreK seats are capped program slots allocated by MCPS, not neighborhood-driven; this forecast holds them level. Where MCPS's own projection diverges sharply at a school with a large PreK program, it may reflect planned seat reallocations that public data cannot see.
- MCPS's published projections are shown for comparison; historically they ran 16-66 students high per school at 1-5 year horizons (2019-2024 vintages).
Risk categories
- low under 20% chance of exceeding capacity and expected utilization below 90%
- watch 20-50% chance of exceeding capacity, or expected utilization 90-100%
- high over 50% chance of exceeding capacity
- severe over 50% chance of exceeding 110% of capacity, or sustained overcrowding likely
Technical details — full methodology and data sources
How a school's forecast is built
- Grade progression (the backbone). For every school and grade, the model measures how each cohort has historically carried into the next grade (e.g. this school's 3rd graders → 4th graders a year later), weighting recent years more heavily. Small or volatile schools are partially pooled toward the districtwide rate for that grade so one odd year doesn't swing them. These ratios silently absorb ordinary migration, private-school switching, and housing turnover.
- Entry grades. Kindergarten is a recency-weighted level scaled by the county birth wave: Maryland's Sept-1 cutoff maps each K class to births five-to-six years earlier, so K classes through 2030–31 reflect children already born. Middle- and high-school entry grades follow their feeder schools' outgoing cohorts (share-weighted, blended with the school's own recent level); paired K-2/3-5 elementary campuses articulate the same way.
- Development overlay. Approved-but-unbuilt residential projects (Montgomery Planning pipeline, snapshot 2026-06-02) are assigned to the schools serving each site and converted to students with the county's official student-generation rates by housing type and impact area. Approval is not construction: projects carry completion probabilities and multi-year delivery ramps, and fully-approved dormant projects are discounted.
- Uncertainty. 2,000 Monte Carlo simulations draw every major input from distributions estimated on this district's own history — per-school progression noise, kindergarten and entry-grade residuals, per-project completion and yield, plus a correlated whole-school shock sized so that 80% intervals actually covered ~80% of held-out outcomes in testing. The probabilities on this page (P over 100%, sustained overcrowding) are counts across those simulations.
- Validation. Everything above was chosen by backtest: the model is re-trained on data as it stood in each past year (2019–2025) and scored against what actually happened, alongside a no-change baseline and MCPS's own published projections of the same vintage. Candidate inputs that did not improve held-out accuracy — a Census-cohort kindergarten model, a county-total steering constraint, an explicit housing-turnover adjustment, trend-extrapolated progression ratios — were kept as diagnostics instead of forecast inputs. Pre-K is held at its latest observed count rather than modeled demographically: it is an administratively sized program (seats are set by budget, and were cut for 2025-26), and holding the latest allocation backtests better too. Internal consistency is checked on every run (grade flows conserved county-wide, entry grades within each school's feeder history, K within observed birth-capture rates).
The data behind it
- Enrollment by school and grade, 2017-18 → 2025-26 — MCPS School Profile extract, Maryland Report Card, and the MCPS Schools at a Glance books (which also fill the COVID year the state never published), anchored to MCPS's official September 30, 2025 count (privacy-suppressed small cells reconstructed exactly from the never-suppressed school totals).
- Capacity and MCPS's own projections — MCPS School Profile facilities data (program capacity, funded future capacity, relocatables) plus six vintages of MCPS's published projections (2018–2025) used as the comparison benchmark.
- Feeder patterns — MCPS cluster/articulation data, with articulation shares fitted to observed grade flows.
- Births — MD Vital Statistics resident births through 2023 (2024 provisional) (dual-source verified), driving the kindergarten wave.
- Census & ACS — 2020 block-level child ages and ACS household/housing/mobility profiles per attendance area; used to cross-check forecasts and grade confidence, not as direct inputs (they didn't beat the simpler model in testing).
- Development pipeline & student-generation rates — Montgomery Planning's approved-projects layer and the official FY26-27 generation rates by housing type and School Impact Area.
- Parcel sales — SDAT records (~355k parcels, sale dates/prices/owner-occupancy) summarized into neighborhood turnover indicators that feed the per-school confidence grade.
- Boundaries — MCPS attendance boundaries, 2024-2025 vintage, plus the board-adopted 2027-28 changes (Woodward reopening with Northwood relief, Wootton's program moving to Crown Farm, the Damascus addition) applied as per-school, per-year enrollment and capacity adjustments from the board's own effects tables. Boundary studies not yet adopted are not modeled.
Every input is public. The full pipeline, validation reports, and honest negative results are documented in the project repository.
Source: mc-development forecast model — base year SY 2025–26; boundaries 2024-2025; development pipeline snapshot 2026-06-02; MD Vital Statistics resident births through 2023 (2024 provisional) · Updated: 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z