The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in Math. The lowest is 20% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Maclary (r. Elisabeth) Elementary School
R. Elisabeth Maclary Elementary sits on St. Regis Drive in Newark, a regular public school in the Christina School District serving kindergarten through fifth grade. The enrollment is modest for an elementary school of its grade band, and the student body is notably diverse, with white, Hispanic, and Black students each forming roughly equal portions of the population and no single group constituting a majority. A small share of students identify as Asian or as two or more races. Free and reduced-price lunch data was not available, and the same gap appears for special-education and English-learner counts, so it is hard to gauge the economic need or language-support population from what was provided. Title I status was also not reported.
On state assessments, Maclary's most recent results show a mixed picture. In math, roughly two-fifths of tested students reached proficiency on the Smarter Balanced exam. In English language arts, the proficient share was somewhat lower. Science proficiency, measured through the Delaware System of Student Assessment, was weaker still, and fourth-grade social studies results from the prior year were the lowest of the reported subjects. A parent weighing these numbers may want to ask the school how it supports science and social studies instruction in the upper elementary grades, since those results trail reading and math.
Looking back across a decade, the school's proficiency rates have ebbed and flowed with a general downward drift. Math peaked in the years just before the pandemic and then fell sharply, recovering only partway since. ELA followed a similar arc, with recent years sitting below where the school stood in the mid-2010s. The current rates represent a partial rebound from the post-pandemic low point but remain below the school's own earlier performance.
Against its comparison set, Maclary's overall proficiency index lands above the midpoint among New Castle County districts. That positioning reflects the countywide spread rather than a statewide one, and it suggests the school is performing in the upper half of its local peer group even as its absolute numbers leave room to grow. Because Maclary is an elementary school, no graduation rate applies, and chronic absenteeism data was not available.
Newark itself is a college-dominated small city shaped by the University of Delaware. Main Street runs alongside the campus and functions as the commercial and social corridor, with student-oriented businesses and established residential neighborhoods mixing together. The surrounding area has shifted from farmland to housing developments, though open farmland persists just across the state lines in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Most residents drive to work, and the city is car-dependent outside the immediate downtown-campus core, though a rail station connects Newark to SEPTA and Amtrak service on the Northeast Corridor. The University of Delaware is the dominant employer, and the poverty rate is influenced heavily by the student population. The city maintains an extensive park system with dozens of parks and miles of trails.
Housing in the school's zip code sits above both the state and national benchmarks for typical home values, and rents run moderately high as well. Estimated mortgage costs exceed typical rent by a modest margin, meaning buying carries a somewhat higher monthly burden than renting at current rates. For families considering the area, this is a market where homeownership requires a meaningful income. A broader change is on the horizon for property taxpayers: following a countywide reassessment, the Christina School District's tax base rose substantially for the 2025-2026 year. The district plans to increase total tax receipts while lowering the nominal rate, a restructuring that will reshape what homeowners pay annually over time.
Maclary offers a standard elementary pathway within a diverse, university-adjacent community. Its academic results are mid-tier locally but have not returned to their pre-pandemic levels, and families may want to look into how the school is working to reverse that trend.
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