By Adam Pagnucco.
Below are the top ten stories on Montgomery Perspective in February 2026, ranked by page views.
1. Taylor: “What’s the Worst That Could Happen? They Fire Me?”
2. Parents Group Readies Civil Rights Complaint Against MCPS
3. Why Don’t We Have the Money?
4. Kagan Criticizes “Really Bad Estimates” from MCPS
5. Wootton High School is Becoming a Major Election Issue
6. Taylor Recommends Relocating Wootton High School to Crown Site
8. Taylor Sets Boundaries for Elected Officials at MCPS Schools
9. Fani-Gonzalez Gets an Opponent
10. JCRC Takes on the Socialists
February was a strong month on this site and five of the top six stories were directly or indirectly tied to Wootton High School. That proves the point of the fifth-ranked post – namely that Wootton is becoming a major election issue.
Here is a chart illustrating the elephant in the room for MCPS, Wootton and everything related to public education in Montgomery County. It uses data from the Superintendent’s Recommended FY27 Capital Budget to show enrollment from 1969 through 2026, as well as projected enrollment through 2032.
Notice two things.
First, MCPS enrollment peaked at 165,267 in the 2019-20 school year, right before the pandemic hit. The system has lost 5% of its students since then and is projected to lose another 4% by 2032.
Second, MCPS has lost enrollment before. Between 1973 and 1984, the system’s enrollment declined by 28%. According to the Washington Post, MCPS closed 61 schools between 1976 and 1984.
This is the kind of history that parents fighting to keep their neighborhood schools open are facing.
Let’s throw in two more things. You would think that declining enrollment would cost less money, right? Wrong. In a recent school board session, Board of Education Member Natalie Zimmerman asked MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor how much it would cost to operate the dilapidated Wootton building as a holding school vs fully renovating it as a continuing high school. Taylor’s answer: up to $100 million for use as a holding school and $200 million or more for a full “refresh.”
Either way, it’s a lot of money. And we don’t have it right now for reasons I outlined in last month’s third-ranked post.
I will have a lot more to say about this in the near future as the irresistible force of big bills for necessary things (like schools) is hitting the immovable object of a long-neglected and moribund county economy.
In the meantime, on to March. And the upcoming primary elections.