A Rockville councilmember wants Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) to pass six tests before closing any school in the county.

Adam Van Grack, a councilmember who is also an MCPS graduate and parent, published the framework in an opinion piece Wednesday, Sept. 30, in Bethesda Magazine. He argued that what he called flawed enrollment projections could lead to the same mistakes that followed the Wootton High School decision.

The stakes are direct for Potomac families. Winston Churchill High School is already projected to exceed capacity by 243 students by the 2030-31 school year, according to the Montgomery County Planning Board. The planning board placed the Churchill service area in Tier 1 for Utilization Premium Payments, meaning new residential developments there face fees to offset school overcrowding.

Van Grack's criteria require MCPS to demonstrate a durable enrollment decline in the community a school serves, not just a temporary dip. The district must also produce enrollment forecasts that account for planned housing development, analyze the educational and community effects of consolidation, weigh the cost of rebuilding capacity if projections prove wrong, review all financing alternatives and follow Maryland's legal closure procedures under COMAR 13A.02.09 (the state regulation governing permanent school closures).

The framework arrives as MCPS prepares to decide which elementary and middle schools to close or consolidate. The district projects enrollment will fall from 150,746 students in 2026-27 to 139,402 by 2035-36, according to WTOP. The Maryland State Department of Planning projects a smaller decline, to 143,390 students. MCPS hired FLO Analytics under a nearly $2 million contract to conduct the Phase 1 closure study this school year. The Board of Education is expected to vote on closures in May 2027.

Van Grack pointed to a specific flaw in how MCPS counts future students. The district assigns zero projected enrollment to housing developments that have not yet reached the approved preliminary or site plan stage. Under the current MCPS approach, he wrote, "… a hypothetical, project-approved 500-unit townhouse development in Rockville Town Center on the verge of a site plan approval receives the exact same projected enrollment value as a vacant cornfield in Poolesville: zero."

Van Grack argued the Board of Education's March 26 vote to end comprehensive high school operations at the Wootton Parkway campus did not meet his proposed standard. He wrote that MCPS avoided Maryland's formal school-closure procedures by calling the action a "relocation," a label he rejected. MCPS has said the framework for upcoming elementary and middle school decisions will follow COMAR 13A.02.09, according to Van Grack's piece.

The Wootton decision has already produced tangible fallout. In August, Van Grack announced that developer EYA indefinitely suspended the approved 60-home Rockshire Village redevelopment across from Wootton, citing the closure vote as the reason.

Van Grack also cited the cautionary history of Woodward High School in Rockville, closed in 1987 during an earlier enrollment decline. Students were consolidated into Bethesda's Walter Johnson High School, which by 2001 began a major expansion adding 19 classrooms. MCPS is now preparing to reopen Woodward as a comprehensive high school to address overcrowding.

State Sen. Cheryl Kagan has separately raised concerns about MCPS enrollment estimates and the challenges created when municipalities such as Rockville and Gaithersburg control their own zoning while MCPS plans schools countywide.

Community forums begin Oct. 19 and run through early December, including an in-person session at Herbert Hoover Middle School on Tuesday, Dec. 1, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The Board of Education is scheduled to discuss the closure study at its Thursday, Oct. 8, meeting.