Report: Extracurricular Activities Offered Across Montgomery County Public Schools

Montgomery County Office of Legislative Oversight 

Memorandum Report 2025-1

...

Major Findings. OLO found the following: 

1. As of 2023, The Office of Extracurricular Activities is collecting extracurricular offerings and participation data across all schools.

2. The costs associated with participating in extracurricular activities vary based on activity and equipment/supply needs. However, since 2018, there is no flat fee required for participation in extracurricular activities at MCPS. Further, the Department of Recreation offers afterschool programming at no cost for students at select schools.

3. MCPS elementary schools provide a range of afterschool programming for students and work with childcare providers to provide afterschool childcare in many schools. Most of these programs charge monthly tuition, although childcare vouchers and scholarships are available. 

4. For high school extracurricular data collected, OLO found that the number of extracurriculars offered increased from 2019 (pre-COVID) to 2023 (post-COVID). While the data collected was from yearbooks and may not reflect all extracurriculars offered, OLO heard anecdotally from several MCPS employees at different high schools that they saw an increase in the number of extracurriculars available from 2020 to 2023. 

5. OLO found several relationships in the high school data, summarized below. 3 After reviewing data, OLO found opportunity gaps in extracurricular offerings by race, ethnicity, and income, similar to past OLO findings. Schools with a student population that have a high-income, Asian and White students, tend to offer more extracurriculars while schools with a student population that have a low-income, Black and Hispanic/Latino students tend to offer less extracurriculars.  

Specifically: 

• Dropout Rate. High schools with low dropout rates (≤5.0) offered more extracurriculars on average, compared to high schools with dropout rates greater than 5%. 

• Chronic Absenteeism Rate. High schools with lower rates of chronic absenteeism (below 30%) offered more extracurriculars on average, compared to high schools with rates of chronic absenteeism above 30%. • Habitual Truancy. High schools with lower rates of Habitual Truancy (≤9%) offered more extracurriculars on average compared to schools with higher rates of habitual truancy greater than 10%.

 • FARMS Rates. Analysis of data shows schools that offer more extracurriculars tend to have lower rates of students eligible to receive free and reduced-priced meals (FARMS). 

• Academic Achievement. Data implies students at schools that offer more extracurriculars tend to have higher SAT scores and a higher percentage of students meeting Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) requirements. 

 6. Middle schools had similar findings between the number of students participating in afterschool sports and outcome data: • FARMS Rates. There is a strong negative relationship between participation in sports and FARMS rates. The schools with a higher number of students participating in sports tend to have lower FARMs rate

Attendance Rate. There is a moderate positive relationship between participation in sports and attendance rate. The data show schools with higher sports participation rates generally have higher attendance rates. • Race/Ethnicity. Data show schools with higher rates of sports participation tend to have a larger percentage of Asian and White students while schools with lower rates of sports participation tend to have a larger percentage of Black and Hispanic/Latino students.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OLO/Resources/Files/2025_reports/OLOReport2025-1.pdf