Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton said she has said for years that Montgomery County Public Schools was incorrectly calculating school capacity

Rockville looks at changes to school rules

Rockville eyes changes to help get more money for schools

...The standards guide how the city determines whether potential development projects would overcrowd its schools.

But the standards have failed to either control school growth or draw funding from the county for school projects, Councilman Tom Moore said.

Moore wants the city to follow the county’s guidelines of allowing development that causes enrollment to hit 120 percent of a school’s programmed capacity, rather than Rockville’s standard of 110 percent.

The 110 percent threshold was designed to allow the city to request county money before a school’s enrollment hits 120 percent of capacity, with the money allocated to that school’s cluster more quickly, but it hasn’t worked, he said.

Moore suggested other changes. He wants developers to pay a fee for projects when a school’s enrollment reaches 105 percent to 120 percent of capacity. He wants the city to assess the average of all schools in a cluster rather than each school’s capacity. Also, the city should calculate a project’s impact on enrollment when a developer applies for approval, not when it’s approved, as is done now.

Older residents are moving out of Rockville and being replaced by younger families with schoolchildren, with 85 percent of the city’s enrollment growth coming from existing homes rather than new development, Moore said.

Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton said she has said for years that Montgomery County Public Schools was incorrectly calculating school capacity and that more students would come from existing homes.

But before any changes are made, officials must make sure parents and other stakeholders are aware of them before January’s public hearing...