FY2025-FY2030 Adopted Capital Improvement Program

FY2025 Adopted Budget Capital Improvement Program

Board of Education As a target for planning, the FCPS has established that the school system should ultimately operate at a capacity below 100% at each level. The purpose would be to decrease the number of schools that are more than 100% capacity and create enough flexibility to more effectively respond to instructional program needs and enrollment growth. The Board of Education (BOE) has accepted a target goal of 90% capacity at each level. The Frederick County Comprehensive Plan also includes a policy, which states that the County should “maintain a system wide enrollment capacity of 90% at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.”

As shown in the table, Frederick County anticipates an increase in overall student enrollment of approximately 6,675 over the next seven years. In fact, student enrollment continues to increase in Frederick County at the highest rate in the state, with enrollments steadily increasing while most other counties are seeing decreasing enrollments. To accommodate the additional enrollment anticipated and to address current capacity issues in certain areas of the county, funding is provided for the construction of several projects through FY 2030. These projects will increase elementary school capacity by 2,098 seats and high school capacity by 63. Currently, no additional middle school seating is planned before 2030, but there will be a slight decrease by 159 seats with the replacement Middletown Co-located Middle School project (School Capacity Project table). Additional middle school and high school capacity is planned within the ten-year planning period. System-wide there is no excess elementary capacity, in fact there is a 99-seat capacity deficit. There are 15 elementary schools at or over 100% of capacity. Five schools, which are all listed as addition/replacement, one new school, and several limited renovation projects are scheduled to receive construction funding in this CIP. This will add a total of 2,141 additional seats.

Current and Projected Enrollment Growth September 2023 – 2030

Total Change Per Year

Pre K-12 Total

Elementary Middle High

Sep. 2023 21,883 10,563 14,895 47,341 Sep. 2024 22,601 10,792 14,989 48,382 1,041 Sep. 2025 23,059 10,879 15,141 49,079 697 Sep. 2026 23,700 11,241 15,181 50,122 1,043 Sep. 2027 23,975 11,671 15,380 51,026 904 Sep. 2028 24,485 11,903 15,637 52,025 999 Sep. 2029 24,903 12,166 15,952 53,021 996 Sep. 2030 24,936 12,466 16,614 54,016 995 Total Increase 3,053 1,903 1,719 6,675

-Enrollments are “equated” enrollment

-Enrollments do not include students enrolled at Success Program, Heather Ridge, Rock Creek or Frederick County Virtual School.

Data obtained from the Superintendent's Recommended Draft Educational Facilities Master Plan Annual Update - June 2024

Rendering of Yellow Springs Elementary School, courtesy of FCPS

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