Montgomery County schools facing a $3 billion maintenance backlog, officials say

About 100 hours before students return to the classroom, Montgomery County Public Schools leaders issued a warning about what kind of buildings they’ll be walking into.

The county school system, they said, is operating with an estimated $3 billion deferred maintenance backlog.

“And growing every day,” said Andrea Swiatocha, MCPS’ deputy chief of facilities management.

For students and teachers of Maryland’s largest school system, that can mean moldy ceilings, cracked surfaces in parking lots and HVAC systems that can’t be counted on to keep them cool.

“We have a lot of challenges, but we’re ready to hit them face-on,” Superintendent Thomas Taylor said.

Officials assured the school board Thursday night that facilities workers have been busy tackling hundreds of projects. They replaced the roof at DuFief Elementary, gave Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School a fresh paint job and ensured Newport Mill Middle School had disabled-access ramps.

“They have been working around the clock,” Swiatocha said.

Still, major issues remain — with limited funding and not enough staff to address them all.

“Even if we did win a $1 billion Powerball, that would cover one-third of where we are,” Taylor said. “We really do need to have incremental planning over more than a decade to get us dug out of this hole that we’re in right now.”

Teachers at Charles R. Drew Elementary School don’t want to wait. They showed up at Thursday’s meeting with signs asking the school board, “Would you go to work [without] bathrooms in full working order?”

Teachers say their campus is an active construction zone, with water leaking from the ceiling and other long-standing problems.

“We were always without AC,” Jess Bain, a fifth-grade teacher, said. “No learning happens when kids are drooping.”

After the meeting, Taylor approached Drew Elementary teachers and pledged more district support.

Bain replied: “We need more than words.”

The challenges

Montgomery County’s infrastructure footprint spans more than 26 million square feet, and the average age of an MCPS campus is 30.

That translates into an onslaught of maintenance requests. In fiscal year 2026, MCPS fielded about 700 emergency work orders, which cover issues as serious as a campus losing power or flooding.

Swiatocha said the district is struggling to fill maintenance staff vacancies, despite intensive recruitment efforts. Wages lag those in the private sector, officials said.

“Our biggest competitor for trades right now is data centers,” said James Duffy, director of the facility maintenance department. “That is pulling the labor industry down. ... They are paying way, way over scale.”

District officials emphasized they haven’t received nearly enough funding from the county’s capital budget to keep up with facility needs across more than 200 school buildings.

This has real consequences for students’ learning. MCPS had to close buildings 11 times in fiscal 2026 because of infrastructure problems.

“MCPS schools experience MANY more isolated incidents that disrupt teaching and learning without requiring full facility closures,” district documents read.

It wasn’t all bad news Thursday night. Swiatocha told board members about a ribbon-cutting ceremony planned for two elementary school buildings Friday morning.

“We all wish,” she said, “we had more money to do more capital projects.”