Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has overestimated enrollment every fall since 2020. The gap has widened as the district kept forecasting growth that never came.

An investigation by Moderately MOCO compared each MCPS enrollment forecast from 2014 through 2025 with the actual count that followed. Before the pandemic, forecasts landed within 0.7% of the count, sometimes high and sometimes low. Since 2020, every forecast has come in too high.

The misses ballooned after an initial post-pandemic correction. MCPS was off by just 109 students in 2022, but the gap widened to 1,702 in 2023, 1,894 in 2024 and 3,974 in 2025. This fall's preliminary count of 151,967 students came in 3,407 below the district's forecast of 155,374.

For three straight years, MCPS projected enrollment would grow.

Each time, it fell.

The investigation found that most of the gap was not in kindergarten. MCPS kindergarten forecasts missed by a few hundred students or less in most years. The bulk of the overcount came from grades above kindergarten, where the district consistently expected more students than appeared.

County Council staff analysts Keith Levchenko and Doug Prouty flagged the pattern in a January memo to the council's education committee. They tabulated every MCPS forecast since 2020 against actual counts and described "continued patterns of enrollment far below previous projections," according to Moderately MOCO.

MCPS has also kept assuming that 87% of county births would become MCPS kindergartners five years later. That rate hit 87.2% in 2019 but has not returned, ranging from 78.7% to 84.8% since 2020. This fall's preliminary rate is 80.7%. The capital plan released in October still anticipates a return to 87%, according to data MCPS presented to the Board of Education on Thursday, Oct. 15.

As we reported Oct. 16, the district's preliminary enrollment of 151,967 represents a drop of 4,083 students from last year. Donald J. Connelly, MCPS director of planning and construction, called the numbers "pretty dramatic" at the Oct. 15 Board of Education work session, as reported by The Baltimore Banner.

"The headline is that there are fewer births," Superintendent Thomas Taylor said at that same session, according to The Banner.

The district cited falling birth rates and declining international enrollment. MCPS enrolled 2,150 international students in 2025-2026, down from 4,583 in 2023-2024, according to Bethesda Magazine.

The forecast failures carry real consequences for Potomac families. MCPS is launching a two-year study of which elementary and middle schools to close or consolidate. Superintendent Taylor said in an Oct. 15 message to staff that the district has excess capacity of about 1,000 high school seats, more than 4,700 middle school seats and more than 11,000 elementary seats, according to MoCo Show.

The district's new 10-year forecast projects 137,825 students by 2036-37, which MCPS says would be 27,442 below the 2019 peak.

Community engagement sessions on the closure study begin Monday, Oct. 19, with Round 1 in-person meetings running 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at locations across the county through Oct. 29. A second round runs Nov. 30 through Dec. 10. The session closest to Potomac is Tuesday, Dec. 1, at Herbert Hoover Middle School. Details, times and virtual session links are on the study website. Any changes would take effect in the 2029-30 school year.