Under 300 students? Watch your back.

Superintendent Jerry Weast has decided to close an elementary school because it is too small. He says that it is under the Board guidelines of at least 300 students for an elementary school.  It isn't. The Board doesn't have any guidelines.

He says enrollment is projected to drop. Odd, since in June he said enrollment at the same elementary school was projected to stay the same and then increase by 2014.

A chart showing the difference between the June 2009 enrollment projection and October 2009 enrollment projection is here,  kind of a dramatic difference. What happened? Or, more important, who wants the 27 acres that Monocacy Elementary sits on?

So if you have a child at an "under 300" MCPS elementary school, watch your back. Weast sees those schools as facilities that he can close or consolidate with a neighbor as "too small". Then he can remove the land from the school system's inventory and turn it over to developers.

Here is a list of the MCPS elementary schools that showed enrollment of under 300 for the 2008-09 school year from the MCPS Master Plan dated June 26, 2009.

Carderock Springs

Cashell

Damascus

East Silver Spring

Germantown

Monocacy (to be closed per Weast plan)

Oak View

Seven Locks

Westover