The top reported proficiency rate is 50% in English language arts. The lowest is 32% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Shady Side Elementary
Shady Side Elementary is a regular public school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade in southern Anne Arundel County. It is a neighborhood school for Shady Side, a rural, waterfront census-designated place on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The community has no downtown commercial core; the elementary school, along with a park, a museum, and a community center, functions as a local civic anchor. The population of Shady Side has been declining in recent years, even as home values have risen, a pattern consistent with a rural area where new housing development has been limited. The school itself is part of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, a district that has recently opened a new high school in the western part of the county and adjusted attendance boundaries, though those changes primarily affect families in other areas.
Academically, Shady Side Elementary takes the Maryland state assessments, the MCAP for math and English language arts and the MISA for science. Test results are available for grades three through five. In math, proficiency rates were consistent across those grades at a level that a parent may want to investigate further with the school. English language arts results were somewhat stronger, with roughly half of students meeting the proficiency benchmark in each grade. Science proficiency, assessed only in fifth grade, was lower. Because this is the first year of available data for this set of tests, there is no trend to show improvement or decline. There was also insufficient data to compare Shady Side Elementary’s performance against other elementary schools in Anne Arundel County, so a parent cannot gauge how these results stack up locally from this source.
The school enrolls a total student body that is relatively small for its grade band. Most students are white, with smaller shares of Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students. About a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals through the federal school lunch program, a share that is modest compared to many schools nationally. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available, so a parent should ask the school directly about special education services and language support programs. Because the school serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate, no high school course access measures, and no college- or career-readiness indicators. The school is open, non-charter, and not a magnet school; no Title I status was reported.
Shady Side Elementary does not have published data on chronic absenteeism, discipline rates, staffing ratios, or course access. These gaps mean that a parent considering the school will need to supplement this profile with information from the school’s website or direct inquiries about class sizes, teacher experience, and the school’s approach to student behavior and attendance. The absence of that data does not indicate a problem; it simply means those records were not included in the sources used here.
For a family, Shady Side Elementary is the only public elementary school in a tight-knit rural peninsula community. The setting is low-density, with winding roads and waterfront access, and a long commute to Annapolis for work or services. The school’s academic profile shows room for growth in math and science, while English language arts performance sits near the halfway mark. A parent who values a small school embedded in a rural residential area with limited commercial bustle may find this a good fit. Those wanting robust comparative metrics, special-population data, or evidence of academic trends will need to seek that information from the school or district directly.
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