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Proposed school boundary changes could add 26 students and a sixth grade to Ernest Everett Just Middle School beginning in August, and some staff members are questioning whether the Mitchellville school will be able to handle the increase.

The additional students would bring the student population to 990, raising enrollment from currently 97 percent of the school's capacity to 100 percent.

The ideal range for school capacity is between 87 and 93 percent, which allows for school growth and reduces the need for temporary classrooms, school officials said.

Principal Carlton Carter said he is concerned about accommodating the additional students under the proposal, as well as future students that would attend the school because of the possibility of private schools closing because of the economy and residents moving into the area.

However, Carter said academically he supports the move to a sixth through eighth grade school.

"The true middle school model is sixth, seventh and eighth grade," he said.

The net gain of 26 students would come from approximately 218 students moving to other schools under the boundary changes, while the school would receive 104 students in sixth through eighth grades — 33 students from Benjamin Tasker Middle in Bowie, 43 students from James Madison Middle in Upper Marlboro and 28 students from Kettering Middle — as well as 140 sixth-graders coming from Lake Arbor Elementary, said MosesAlexander Greene, a county schools spokesman.

Rosa Mooten, the school's Parent Teacher Association president, said she is concerned the school will feel overcrowded when it reaches capacity or exceeds it in future school years.

"The board is trying to make sure no school is underutilized or overcrowded — I think they're doing a good job with that," Mooten said. "Utilizing them effectively — I'm all for that, [but] we don't need overcrowded schools. That's the concern I have."

Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle in Laurel and Thomas Johnson Middle in Lanham also could add sixth a grade in August, according to the Phase 2 Boundary Proposal.

The proposal by county schools Superintendent William Hite Jr. is under review by the school board. The plan seeks to even out enrollment in elementary and middle schools in the northern and central part of the county. High school boundaries will be addressed by the board in Phase 3.

The Board of Education could vote to approve the boundary review changes as early as January, school officials have said.

E-mail Liz Skalski at eskalski@gazette.net.