Meager state funding and surging enrollments in Montgomery County schools will mean delays in school construction and modernization, and more students in temporary trailer classrooms.
Six elementary schools – four in Silver Spring, one in Kensington and one in Rockville – are in need of a total of 24 additional classrooms because of unexpected enrollment jumps, according to Superintendent Jerry Weast’s recommended capital budget for fiscal 2010. Those delays are in addition to slowdowns at the high school level in last year’s capital budget.
This year, the state has announced $260 million for school construction, down from $340 million last year and $402 million the year before. If past years are an indication, Montgomery County will receive about 12 percent of that, or about $30 million, “even though we have 16 percent of the state’s students,” Weast said at a Tuesday board meeting.
The potential $30 million from the state is about $10 million less than hoped for, cutting into funds for projects in planning stages or slated down the road.
“There’s not much room for any kind of wiggle if we don’t get the $40 million,” Weast said.
In recent years, state funding has provided about 20 percent of total capital funding for the schools, while the county government has produced the remainder. Last year, the district budgeted about $239 million.
Enrollment increases appeared overwhelmingly at the elementary school level, resulting in this fall’s unforeseen need for classrooms.
More than 75 percent of the district’s new students are in elementary school; About half of the enrollment bump is in kindergarten and first grade.
The district expects total enrollment to increase by nearly 6,000 students to 145,000 by 2014, even as high school enrollment is expected to decline by nearly 3,000.
Even so, Patti Twigg, a representative of Burtonsville’s Paint Branch High School PTA, urged the board at an October forum to remember the high schools.
“Can we really wait for the projected enrollment bubble to reach our high schools before addressing the crumbling infrastructure?” Twigg asked. Modernizations at Paint Branch, which currently has five portable classrooms in addition to power surges, crowded hallways and rusty lockers, was delayed last year and could be pushed back further in the current budget crunch.
Montgomery County’s school board will hear parent and community reaction to the delays in public meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday at the district’s Rockville offices.
