Montgomery County Public Schools is cutting support staff and preparing for fewer students when the academic year begins Tuesday, despite having the biggest budget in the district’s history.
Officials for Maryland’s largest public school system told reporters on Thursday that rising living costs necessitated the $3.72 billion fiscal 2027 budget — a $143 million (3.6%) increase over last year but $36 million short of what they wanted.
“The pace of costs going up has outpaced the budget going up,” Superintendent Thomas Taylor said in response to a question from The Washington Times.
The increased budget cuts 415 full-time psychologists, counselors, tutors, English-language assistants and other support staff who primarily serve the system’s Spanish-speaking students.
MCPS officials did not provide data on the current number of workers. The school system had 23,986 employees in the 2024-25 academic year, according to the most recent data analyzed by Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab.
Meanwhile, officials anticipate fewer students, as a pandemic-era trend of lower enrollment continues. A total of 156,050 students enrolled during the 2025-26 academic year, down more than 10,000 students from a historic peak of 165,267 students during the 2019-20 term.
Fall classes will resume Tuesday with about 12,000 enrolled high school seniors, roughly 10,000 per class in the middle school grades and 9,000 in kindergarten. International enrollment is 1,000 students this year, down from 1,544 at the end of last year and down from nearly 3,000 at the end of 2024.
Trump administration crackdowns on illegal immigration have added to the pandemic-era enrollment decline driven by falling birth rates, cutting into public funding based on enrollment.
Montgomery County, Maryland’s most populous jurisdiction, has the state’s largest concentration of Spanish-speaking residents.
According to the school district, Spanish-speaking students make up the majority seeking mental health services, reflecting deportation fears that have led many families with varying immigration status to self-deport under the Trump administration.
“Imagine going through that trauma,” county Board of Education President Grace Rivera-Oven said Thursday. “It’s an impact on the whole community.”
The school district says federal immigration agents have never entered its campuses, although they have stopped people on nearby corners. The school system does not have a formal sanctuary policy, but requires a judicial warrant to cooperate with the authorities.
That reflects a broader policy nationwide of public school districts declining to track students’ and families’ immigration status. In Northern Virginia, Arlington County Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Duran reiterated that stance to families in a letter sent Thursday.
“We know that recent immigration enforcement activity in our area is causing fear, uncertainty and stress for some members of our community,” Mr. Duran wrote. “Some families have been directly affected, while others may be worried about what these developments could mean for their loved ones.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials do not enter public schools to make arrests.
“Those who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The statement called the fear of campus arrests a “false narrative” that has demonized ICE agents, who have experienced a 1,300% increase in assaults and an 8,000% increase in threats since President Trump returned to office. It also noted that nearly 70% of ICE arrests involve illegal aliens already charged with or convicted of a crime.
“If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a daycare, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect the safety of the children,” the spokesperson said.
Other struggles
Meanwhile, MCPS officials are contending with other issues as students return to school.
The system is upgrading cameras and installing external door sensors at campuses, acting on a safety audit following two teen shootings earlier this year.
A February shooting at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville left one 16-year-old boy in stable condition, while an April shooting at Blake High School in Silver Spring injured a 17-year-old.
The district is expanding cellphone restrictions during instructional time that it enacted at middle schools last year, as it moves toward implementing a state law requiring all districts to impose bell-to-bell bans by the start of the 2027-28 term.
Most Montgomery County high schools banned phones during class time last year. Beginning next week, all schools will be required to lock away student phones throughout the day, including between class periods.
MCPS officials have credited last year’s restrictions for bolstering two consecutive years of academic performance growth, following years of declining test scores. They say that starting this year will allow them to work out any kinks ahead of the statewide implementation deadline.
“We’re excited about the school year,” said Mr. Taylor, the superintendent. “It’s going to be a great year.”
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this story.
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