Montgomery Co. to address school overcrowding

WASHINGTON — More families are moving to the D.C. Metro area, and as a result, green spaces at local schools are increasingly being replaced with portable classroom trailers due to overcrowding.

NBC4 Washington reports 100 new portable classrooms greeted children at area schools this fall. In the next few years, growth at four Montgomery County high schools — including Montgomery Blair, Northwood, John F. Kennedy and Albert Einstein — is expected to bring 1,300 more students than the schools can handle.

“We’re definitely dealing with some crowding,” Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman Dana Tofig tells NBC4. “We’re building as fast as we can, but we’re definitely going to need some more help.”

Tofig and county leaders are looking to the state to provide more money to help finance overcrowding solutions. However, Council President Craig Rice tells NBC4 that more portable classrooms aren’t the answer.

“We don’t want the safety concerns nor the stigma associated with kids being outside of the school, so we need that school construction money,” Rice says.

NBC4 reports the Montgomery County school system is expected to announce numbers of growth coping strategies on Tuesday.

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