Maryland’s largest school system is moving ahead with a plan to expand its magnet and specialty programs throughout the county, despite calls for a delay from some parents who worry the changes could diminish the quality of the offerings.
Montgomery County Public Schools currently offers a handful of countywide programs and others limited to specific clusters of high schools. About 10 to 15 percent of high-schoolers participate.
The district’s plan would group four to six high schools into “regions,” each offering specialized programs such as leadership and public service or medical science and health care. Students can apply to programs within the region of their home school.
District leaders say the changes could allow more students to enroll in the classes, no matter where they live in the county.
“We needed to think about … who has access and who doesn’t,” said Jeanine Franklin, director of the school system’s department of consortia and application program services. “Because what we were finding — and our data will say it — is that there are students who have access to it and certain students who didn’t.”
What does the proposal do?
The district’s plan would eliminate the Downcounty and Northeast consortia, the district’s two current regions of specialty programs. Instead, clusters of high schools would be split into six regions. Each school will be assigned a variety of specialties, such as medical science, performing arts and engineering.
Students can apply to programs within the region of their home school. Currently, students in the consortia can select a specialty program using a ranked-choice system. But the proposed model would rely on two enrollment systems. Some will be interest-based, where students can apply for a desired program and if the number of applicants exceeds the amount of seats, a lottery will determine who gets a seat. The district will also offer a criteria-based system that determines enrollment based on data like grades and a student’s overall academic file.
The changes, if approved, would affect students who are currently seventh-graders and would be enrolled in the high school specialty programs starting in the 2027-28 school year.
Why are school administrators pitching the change?
Franklin said the district has long lacked consistency in its magnet and specialized programs. Some provide transportation, others don’t. Some programs are open to all students in the county, while others only allow students from specific clusters.
That means some families now have several options for the same program, but others have only one. For example, Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville accepts students from across the county for its renowned International Baccalaureate program. But an IB program at John F. Kennedy High currently only accepts students in the Downcounty Consortium and from four other high schools.
The school system has had over 2,000 students on a waiting list at a time, Franklin said, but enrollment has varied across programs. Richard Montgomery’s I.B. program has filled its 500 seats, but similar offerings at three other high schools are underenrolled.
“We need to create opportunities for students,” Franklin said.
Is this the same as the boundary study?
No. The district is also revising attendance boundaries for some students because of the reopening of Charles Woodward High School in Rockville in 2027 and the potential opening of Crown High School in Gaithersburg. (Superintendent Thomas Taylor has also pitched using Crown as a holding school due to declining enrollment in the district.)
School administrators chose to package the boundary study and program analysis together, Taylor said Thursday, because school assignments will also influence program options. A decision on the boundary plan will be made in the spring.
Meanwhile, Taylor also recently pitched one of the school system’s largest capital improvement plans in recent years, a request that would close some schools and could force other program changes.
What do parents and educators think?
Some parents and educators have urged the district to delay any magnet and specialty program changes, citing, in part, the other major overhauls also in the works.
Summayah Milstein, a parent of two students at Kennedy High School, said the amount of changes has caused some confusion. Kennedy High isn’t impacted by the boundary study, but Milstein said many parents aren’t aware it could face changes under the program analysis that is also happening. She accused the district of “doing such a poor job of communicating and actively engaging and listening to the community.”
The Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations recently requested that the school system slow down the process. The Montgomery County Education Association announced earlier this month that it opposes the proposed changes, saying the process was moving too quickly and with little input.
“When educators, community members and parents agree that MCPS is headed down a problematic path, you might have a problem,” said David Stein, president of the union that represents about 14,000 educators in Montgomery County. He added that the plan gives “the illusion of equity, without real equity” and “creates programs in name only.”
Ricky Ribeiro has a son who recently graduated from Kennedy High, where the district tried to replicate the revered IB program at Richard Montgomery High. He said the program at Kennedy didn’t have the same levels of resources, experienced teachers and professional development as Richard Montgomery and hasn’t been able to replicate its results.
“We need to talk about resources. We need to talk about what’s going to be put in place to ensure these programs are successful,” said Ribeiro, who is also a leader in an advocacy group called Black Coalition for Excellence in Education. “MCPS has not done that work to convince us that is going to be the case.”
The Black and Brown Coalition, a local advocacy group, said in a statement that they were in favor of the plan. Byron Johns, one of the group’s co-founders, said the current system doesn’t work well, since there are some students who have multiple different options and other students who only have a handful, contingent on their Zip code.
“It’s just time to make a move. Status quo is not serving all kids as best as they can,” Johns said. “I don’t by any stretch of the imagination think that this model is perfect, but it’s a net positive, and we just need to get started.”
How has the district responded?
At Thursday’s school board meeting, Franklin said the school system was “ready to move forward” and would not delay the program study.
School board member Brenda Wolff, who represents District 5, said she also opposed delaying the changes. She said that a lot of the families who have spoken out against the proposals at board meetings either “have kids in the program or have kids who have graduated from these programs.”
“They don’t want change so they come in here with all kinds of delay tactics,” she said. “We don’t have it all figured out … but do we want to let perfection be the enemy of change? I say, ‘No, we don’t.’”
Still, the district has made some changes in response to feedback.
For example, the district said Thursday that it would rename a planned “agroecology” specialty at Nortwood High School in Silver Spring to the “environmental science and leadership program” after staff said the initial name was too confusing. Another new program, called “less commonly taught languages,” was also added to Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring.
What happens next
Montgomery school administrators will continue refining their proposal through December. They will also host more community information sessions until March.
Taylor will release a recommendation in January and the school board will vote on the program proposal, along with the boundary study, in March.
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