Prince George’s County school officials cite falling kindergarten numbers, aging buildings and maintenance backlog

Prince George’s County Public Schools officials told the Plan Prince George’s 2035 Implementation Infrastructure Task Force on June 16 that overall enrollment stood at 132,152 students as of the official Sept. 30, 2024 census, but kindergarten enrollment fell to 8,850 — the lowest since about 2009 — and declining birth rates plus lower international arrivals are expected to push K–12 enrollment down slightly over the next few years.

The presentation by Rhianna McCarter, supervisor of school boundaries, framed the enrollment outlook and why it matters for capacity and planning. McCarter said the district added about 800 K–12 students since the previous Sept. 30 and noted, “about 20% of the students in our system are foreign born versus 4% nationally,” an enrollment source the district has tracked separately.

The district showed maps comparing official building capacity (excluding portables) to enrollment and reported approximately 11,000 portable seats countywide. The maps and discussion underscored long-running overcrowding in the northern part of the county despite recent replacement and new schools built through the Blueprint and P3 programs. Rhianna McCarter said that many Phase 2 P3 schools are replacement projects and that some new schools are being placed in growth…