Original Research by School Decision on Delmar Middle Level Ilc
Delmar Middle Level ILC sits in Delmar, a small bi-state town that straddles the Delaware-Maryland line in Sussex County. The town grew up as a railroad hub and still carries that heritage, though today it functions largely as a suburb of Salisbury, Maryland. US Route 13 serves as the main commercial artery, and State Street runs directly along the state border. The town's motto, "The Little Town Too Big For One State," captures the split civic identity. Publicly reported sources note steady population growth over the past decade, with the combined Delaware and Maryland sides growing at roughly twice the rate of the Delaware portion alone. The 2020 Comprehensive Plan envisions housing growth, light industrial employment zones, and a more walkable commercial center along the Route 13 corridor, though the town remains primarily auto-oriented today.
This school is classified as a special education school serving ungraded middle-level students. That designation matters for understanding what data is and is not available. State assessment results were not reported for this school. No multi-year academic trend data was available. A four-year graduation rate was not reported. Chronic absenteeism figures were not reported. In each case, the absence aligns with the school's special-purpose configuration: an ungraded, special-education setting does not map onto the standard tested-grade and graduation-cohort frameworks that produce those metrics. A parent reading these gaps should not read them as weak results. They reflect the nature of the school rather than its performance.
Enrollment was reported, but the figures show essentially no students captured in the standard count. Free and reduced-price lunch data was missing. Individualized education program rates and English learner counts were also missing. Race and ethnicity categories were reported but contained no enrolled students in any group. Discipline, course access, staffing, and attendance data were all absent. Title I status was not reported. The school is not a charter school and has no magnet designation.
The neighbor comparison set, described as relative to districts in Sussex County, could not place this school on proficiency, graduation, or attendance measures because the school has no reported values for any of those metrics. This is consistent with the school's special education designation and ungraded structure.
The housing market in the surrounding zip code shows a typical home value below both the Delaware state benchmark and the national benchmark, with a modest year-over-year decline. The price-to-income ratio sits above four, and current mortgage rates hover in the mid-six percent range. Rental data for the immediate area was not available. The broader economic picture includes a national unemployment rate that has held steady in recent months and a median household income that has risen gradually over the past several years. No specific major employers were identified in publicly available sources for Delmar itself, though the town's location along US Route 13 places it within a short drive of Salisbury's commercial and employment base.
The Delmar School District operates schools on both sides of the state line, with elementary students attending school in Delmar, Maryland, under an agreement with Wicomico County Public Schools. Middle and high school facilities sit on the Delaware side. We looked for recent district-level changes that parents might care about, but found little of lasting impact in available sources, so we left it out rather than guess.
What a parent has here is a specialized placement within a small, growing, bi-state community. The school's special education designation means it exists outside the standard academic reporting framework, so families considering this option will want to ask the school directly about its instructional model, student support services, and how it measures progress for the students it serves. The data available does not answer those questions, and naming that gap is more useful than filling it with speculation.
See more original research from School Decision →