The Images shared with the MCPS Board of Education are WRONG.

Executive Summary

Recent presentations to the Montgomery County Board of Education utilized a specific data visualization to argue that housing growth has “decoupled” from student enrollment. This chart has been cited as a primary justification for consequential infrastructure decisions, including the proposed closure of Wootton High School. As a data science professional with nearly two decades of experience in time series analysis, I have audited this visualization and found it to be methodologically invalid. The presentation relies on mismatched axes, hidden baselines, and a known statistical anomaly to manufacture a divergence that does not exist in the raw data.

The Images shared with the BOE (WRONG)...

 https://parentscoalitionmd.substack.com/p/the-images-shared-with-the-mcps-board

Once again, MCPS skips public bidding process for "pilot" with unknown cost/benefit. Future cost could be tens of millions.

The Montgomery County Board of Education has had no public discussion of this pilot. The Board of Education has not voted to pilot this company's system and did not pick the 3 schools.

In 2024, MCPS estimated that weapons detection systems for secondary schools would cost $11,000,000.

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What we know about an AI-powered weapons detection system coming to county schools

The day before gunfire pierced a Montgomery County high school, the district quietly began rolling out a pilot program for an AI-powered weapons detection system.

Chief Safety Officer Marcus Jones wrote to families in three high school communities — Seneca Valley, Bethesda-Chevy Chase* and Magruder — to tell them that their campuses were poised to test VOLT AI.

“This pilot is a careful, short-term opportunity to test a potential tool,” the Feb. 8 letter reads...

...How much does it cost?

Sokolowski isn’t charging Montgomery County for its 30-day pilot.

“We are confident in our technology, so we allow companies and school districts to pilot completely for free.”

He said he has not yet discussed future pricing models with the district...

https://www.thebanner.com/education/k-12-schools/ai-powered-weapons-detection-montgomery-schools-wootton-HX2I2EI5YZC2NAK4OMDITQX2PU/

*Note: Superintendent Thomas Taylor has said he grew up in the BCC High School community and would be moving home when he took the MCPS superintendent position. 

Superintendent Taylor to Board of Ed.: There isn't a single line in the 10,000 lines that are in your budget that will be spent exactly how the dollars line up.

 "Your budget is a spending plan.

There isn't a single line in the 10,000 lines that are in your budget that will be spent

exactly how the dollars line up. 

You will have some that are higher and very few that are lower. 

But it is your plan as you have it mapped out for how

the system should spend its money."

Statement of MCPS Superintendent Thomas W. Taylor

Minute 2:39:00 of Board of Education - Operating Budget Work Session #2 - 1/20/26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0LEL933ml4

Proposed cuts to MCPS staff who support students, families raise concerns

50 central service positions on chopping block under fiscal year 2027 budget proposal

A typical work week for a pupil personnel worker for Tee Clark in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), can involve helping families and students experiencing homelessness complete required forms, advising families who are considering homeschooling or assisting in the re-enrollment of students who are involved with the county Department of Juvenile Services.   

“We show up at hospitals for kids. We show up at funerals for kids,” Clark told Bethesda Today on Tuesday. “We’re there with families who are grieving the loss of their kids because of whatever reasons. I was at a funeral about a month and a half ago with a family. I went to the house before the funeral. So we do a whole lot of personal touch with the families.”   

That’s why Clark, who serves the Northwood cluster, and her fellow pupil personnel workers, along with county school board members, are raising concerns about Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s recommendation to cut 10 of the district’s 52 positions and other positions that support students as part of his proposed $3.78 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2027.   

“Although I totally understand that we are [in very hard times] times of budgeting … I am very leery about cutting certain positions that we have built on for decades to ensure that we have that trust in the community,” school board President Grace Rivera-Oven said Tuesday during a work session on the budget proposal attended by Clark and other pupil personnel workers at the board’s Rockville headquarters...

  https://bethesdamagazine.com/2026/01/07/proposed-cuts-to-mcps-staff-raise-concerns/

Montgomery County Superintendent proposes $3.8B budget

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (7News) — The superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools is proposing a $3.8 billion operating budget for next fiscal year.

The proposed budget, a 5% increase over the current fiscal year, includes $139.7 million in salaries and benefits, $34.9 million to implement "robust staffing allocation standards" and reduce elementary class sizes, and $6.3 million for curriculum, instruction and professional learning in math, literacy, early childhood and Pre-K, according to the school district...

https://wjla.com/news/local/mcps-superintendent-proposes-37b-budget-for-fy27-salaries-staffing-reduce-elementary-class-sizes-curriculum-instruction-board-of-education-thomas-taylor-mcps