More students will be stuffed inside Montgomery County classrooms when schools resume Monday, because of an enrollment explosion that surpasses county officials’ enrollment estimates by about 800 students.
About 144,000 students will file into classrooms this year, up about 2,300 students from last fall. The school board projected a 1,500 increase, said Larry Bowers, chief operating officer for Montgomery County Public Schools, at a Friday school board meeting.
As a result, the average class size will increase by one student in the elementary level to 19. In middle and high schools, “We’re more than likely going to have a greater number of large classes than we did last year,” he said.
In the past three years, enrollment in Montgomery County schools has shot up by 6,300 students, partly because of the district’s strong national reputation.
The grade level most affected will be kindergarten, Bowers said, which will inflate by 300 extra students.
Superintendent Jerry Weast, who announced his retirement but will serve through June, warned that bloated kindergarten classrooms will become problematic in first grade, then second grade, then high school as children move through the system: 58 percent of the most recent 12th-grade class were in the county as second-grade students.
“You just don’t know how much fun that’s going to create for you,” Weast told the board. “Fun in the bad way.”
Spokesman Dana Tofig said there are extra desks in storage, but that “you can only plan for what you know.”
“We can usually find space for [extra students]. You order supplies as quick as you can. The question becomes, do you need to create an additional class?” Tofig said. “We’ll just see what happens.”
Aside from inflated enrollment, the board said it felt prepared for the beginning of school. Two administrative openings remain vacant, the smallest amount Bowers could remember on the Friday before schools opening. Weather-damaged roofs have been restored; 17,000 computers have been installed or updated; and 96 new school buses are ready to go.
But perhaps the most interesting addition to watch will be the new teachers. Earlier this summer, MCPS cut 330 teaching positions, then hired dramatically fewer instructors than last year’s 645, because of a $97 million cut from its $2.2 billion fiscal 2010 budget.
Of the 430 teachers hired this year, 25 percent have high school diplomas signed by Weast.
