What middle schools are Taylor likely to close?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridgeview will almost certainly be closed and its area merged into Lakelands Park.

Ridgeview has 20 acres and more than 700 students. I don't know that this is a good one to close. No way can Lakelands Park absorb that number of students, even with boundary changes involving more schools.

Ridgeview’s current population is 733 students, yes. However, after the boundary change, by 2031, its projected population will be just 416, giving a 44% utilization rate.

That same year, in 2031, Lakelands Park is projected to have 613 students, giving a 55% utilization rate.

There’s no way the county will keep two middle schools in one district with those utilization rates.

Lakelands Park has a capacity of 1,122 students. If they are merged in 2031 you get 416 (Ridgeview) + 613 (Lakelands) = 1,029 = 91.7% utilization rate. That’s exactly what this board will be looking for.

So Ridgeview looks like an obvious closure and could become holding school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridgeview will almost certainly be closed and its area merged into Lakelands Park.

Ridgeview has 20 acres and more than 700 students. I don't know that this is a good one to close. No way can Lakelands Park absorb that number of students, even with boundary changes involving more schools.

Ridgeview’s current population is 733 students, yes. However, after the boundary change, by 2031, its projected population will be just 416, giving a 44% utilization rate.

That same year, in 2031, Lakelands Park is projected to have 613 students, giving a 55% utilization rate.

There’s no way the county will keep two middle schools in one district with those utilization rates.

Lakelands Park has a capacity of 1,122 students. If they are merged in 2031 you get 416 (Ridgeview) + 613 (Lakelands) = 1,029 = 91.7% utilization rate. That’s exactly what this board will be looking for.

So Ridgeview looks like an obvious closure and could become holding school.

Just to add on/clarify the comment, with Crown High School opening, Fields Road ES, which had 453 students in 2024-2025, is planned to be reassigned to Frost MS to have all of the schools in a cluster align with the proposed regions. And with nothing else filling into Ridgeview, this leads to the 44 percent utilization rate mentioned by the pp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridgeview will almost certainly be closed and its area merged into Lakelands Park.

Ridgeview has 20 acres and more than 700 students. I don't know that this is a good one to close. No way can Lakelands Park absorb that number of students, even with boundary changes involving more schools.

Ridgeview’s current population is 733 students, yes. However, after the boundary change, by 2031, its projected population will be just 416, giving a 44% utilization rate.

That same year, in 2031, Lakelands Park is projected to have 613 students, giving a 55% utilization rate.

There’s no way the county will keep two middle schools in one district with those utilization rates.

Lakelands Park has a capacity of 1,122 students. If they are merged in 2031 you get 416 (Ridgeview) + 613 (Lakelands) = 1,029 = 91.7% utilization rate. That’s exactly what this board will be looking for.

So Ridgeview looks like an obvious closure and could become holding school.

Just to add on/clarify the comment, with Crown High School opening, Fields Road ES, which had 453 students in 2024-2025, is planned to be reassigned to Frost MS to have all of the schools in a cluster align with the proposed regions. And with nothing else filling into Ridgeview, this leads to the 44 percent utilization rate mentioned by the pp.

Exactly! And to add on to that. Lakelands Park is also dropping significantly because Darnestown ES is being moved to Kingsview Middle School, leaving a significant gap there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Possibly one of the MSMC schools (or Newport Mill.) They're pretty old/in bad shape, and I think there's enough capacity to spare in that region to close one of them.

+1 for Newport Mill. The enrollment has decreased every year for a while now. It’s tiny.

DD went there years ago. I hadn’t realized the population of middle schoolers in this area had shrunk so much. She had a horrible experience there with bullying, so I certainly won’t be sad if it closes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Argyle's building is in pretty bad shape and for that reason, is worth considering for closure and rebuild.

It's wasteful to rebuild schools right now when there are more open schools than needed. If it is closed, the students likely will and should be reassigned to other middle schools instead. If they decide to keep the magnet program they could try to launch that at another nearby school like Odessa Shannon maybe (not all the staff would transfer over, though.)

Odessa Shannon is under enrolled and they should redraw boundaries to take students from other schools that are in bad shape facility-wise. I am guessing that is what will happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridgeview will almost certainly be closed and its area merged into Lakelands Park.

Ridgeview has 20 acres and more than 700 students. I don't know that this is a good one to close. No way can Lakelands Park absorb that number of students, even with boundary changes involving more schools.

Ridgeview’s current population is 733 students, yes. However, after the boundary change, by 2031, its projected population will be just 416, giving a 44% utilization rate.

That same year, in 2031, Lakelands Park is projected to have 613 students, giving a 55% utilization rate.

There’s no way the county will keep two middle schools in one district with those utilization rates.

Lakelands Park has a capacity of 1,122 students. If they are merged in 2031 you get 416 (Ridgeview) + 613 (Lakelands) = 1,029 = 91.7% utilization rate. That’s exactly what this board will be looking for.

So Ridgeview looks like an obvious closure and could become holding school.

Just to add on/clarify the comment, with Crown High School opening, Fields Road ES, which had 453 students in 2024-2025, is planned to be reassigned to Frost MS to have all of the schools in a cluster align with the proposed regions. And with nothing else filling into Ridgeview, this leads to the 44 percent utilization rate mentioned by the pp.

Ridgeview and SSIMS are great examples of Taylor creating the conditions himself to justify future closures.

I can guarantee those two school are closing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Argyle's building is in pretty bad shape and for that reason, is worth considering for closure and rebuild.

It's wasteful to rebuild schools right now when there are more open schools than needed. If it is closed, the students likely will and should be reassigned to other middle schools instead. If they decide to keep the magnet program they could try to launch that at another nearby school like Odessa Shannon maybe (not all the staff would transfer over, though.)

I think they'd have to split Agyle and shift them between Odessa and another MS. But I can see your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridgeview will almost certainly be closed and its area merged into Lakelands Park.

Ridgeview has 20 acres and more than 700 students. I don't know that this is a good one to close. No way can Lakelands Park absorb that number of students, even with boundary changes involving more schools.

Ridgeview’s current population is 733 students, yes. However, after the boundary change, by 2031, its projected population will be just 416, giving a 44% utilization rate.

That same year, in 2031, Lakelands Park is projected to have 613 students, giving a 55% utilization rate.

There’s no way the county will keep two middle schools in one district with those utilization rates.

Lakelands Park has a capacity of 1,122 students. If they are merged in 2031 you get 416 (Ridgeview) + 613 (Lakelands) = 1,029 = 91.7% utilization rate. That’s exactly what this board will be looking for.

So Ridgeview looks like an obvious closure and could become holding school.

Just to add on/clarify the comment, with Crown High School opening, Fields Road ES, which had 453 students in 2024-2025, is planned to be reassigned to Frost MS to have all of the schools in a cluster align with the proposed regions. And with nothing else filling into Ridgeview, this leads to the 44 percent utilization rate mentioned by the pp.

Ridgeview and SSIMS are great examples of Taylor creating the conditions himself to justify future closures.

I can guarantee those two school are closing.

100% those two are closing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridgeview will almost certainly be closed and its area merged into Lakelands Park.

Ridgeview has 20 acres and more than 700 students. I don't know that this is a good one to close. No way can Lakelands Park absorb that number of students, even with boundary changes involving more schools.

Ridgeview’s current population is 733 students, yes. However, after the boundary change, by 2031, its projected population will be just 416, giving a 44% utilization rate.

That same year, in 2031, Lakelands Park is projected to have 613 students, giving a 55% utilization rate.

There’s no way the county will keep two middle schools in one district with those utilization rates.

Lakelands Park has a capacity of 1,122 students. If they are merged in 2031 you get 416 (Ridgeview) + 613 (Lakelands) = 1,029 = 91.7% utilization rate. That’s exactly what this board will be looking for.

So Ridgeview looks like an obvious closure and could become holding school.

Just to add on/clarify the comment, with Crown High School opening, Fields Road ES, which had 453 students in 2024-2025, is planned to be reassigned to Frost MS to have all of the schools in a cluster align with the proposed regions. And with nothing else filling into Ridgeview, this leads to the 44 percent utilization rate mentioned by the pp.

Ridgeview and SSIMS are great examples of Taylor creating the conditions himself to justify future closures.

I can guarantee those two school are closing.

100% those two are closing!

Such a waste that SSIMS already rebuilt part of the building just for them to turn around and announce a possible closure a year later? This is why MCPS runs out of 3 billion dollars. They have no financial literacy (or any concrete plans about anything they do) whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Possibly one of the MSMC schools (or Newport Mill.) They're pretty old/in bad shape, and I think there's enough capacity to spare in that region to close one of them.

+1 for Newport Mill. The enrollment has decreased every year for a while now. It’s tiny.

It’s a small school, but they just built Silver Creek a short ways down Connecticut, so I am not sure there is excess capacity exactly.

[Anonymous]

What happens when neighborhoods inevitably turn over and MCPS needs more capacity again? Portables?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens when neighborhoods inevitably turn over and MCPS needs more capacity again? Portables?

Then they can reopen old schools, like they did with Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens when neighborhoods inevitably turn over and MCPS needs more capacity again? Portables?

Our ES still has portables where my child does specials but the CIP claims it is 100 students under capacity

[Anonymous]

MCPS is a joke. OSMS was underenrolled when they were rebuilding, so MCPS just decided to stop construction/completion of a bunch of rooms on the third floor that now just sit there, not finished so teachers are floating instead of having their own rooms bc the numbers did go back up. Starting projects you don't finish is just so wasteful. The obviously need to finish the rooms but I'm sure with the budget cuts, it'll be last on the list because the rest of the building is brand new. Finish projects when you have the funds, don't wait until MCPS is broke and you can't fix it.

[Anonymous]

“ Ridgeview and SSIMS are great examples of Taylor creating the conditions himself to justify future closures”

+100

Both of these “imbalance” situations of having schools projected at <60% only created in the very last “modified option H”
And “modified option B” with 2 weeks notice to anyone.