Southern Middle, Lothian MD - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Southern Middle

Southern Middle is a regular public school serving grades six through eight in the unincorporated community of Lothian, Maryland, part of the Anne Arundel County Public Schools system. The school sits on a campus along a main road in a semi-rural area that mixes farms, single-family homes, and mobile home parks with gravel pits and industrial facilities. Heavy truck traffic travels the narrow, winding roads, and walkability is low. There is no traditional downtown; civic life centers on natural areas such as the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary and community groups like We Are Lothian, which organizes health fairs and youth events. Home values in the area are elevated relative to national and state medians, and the housing stock is predominantly owner-occupied.

The student body is majority white, with a substantial Hispanic population and smaller shares of Black, multiracial, and Asian students. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a reflection of the economic diversity in the community. The school is of moderate size for a middle school with three grade levels.

Academic performance shows a clear split between English language arts and mathematics. In ELA, more than half of students scored at or above the proficient level in each grade, with seventh grade the strongest. By contrast, math proficiency rates are low across all three grades, and the decline is especially sharp in grade eight, where only a modest share of students reached the proficient mark. Science and social studies results, available only for grade eight, fall between the two; roughly a third of students met the proficiency bar in science and a slightly larger share in social studies. The school also offers Algebra I to some students, and those who took the assessment performed at a high rate, though only one year of data is available and it does not indicate how many students participated.

The overall pattern is one of a school where reading and writing are a relative strength but where mathematics is an area of concern. A parent exploring the school may want to ask what math interventions and supports are available, particularly for eighth graders, and how the school is working to improve those results.

From the district level, a notable recent change is the opening of Severn Run High School in the western part of the county, which redrew attendance boundaries. That shift may affect future feeder patterns for some middle school families, though Southern Middle’s own enrollment and boundary area were not specifically mentioned in the information available. No data on discipline, chronic absenteeism, staffing, or course access was provided, so those parts of the school experience are not covered here. State testing data is present and complete for the subjects and grades tested, though there is only a single year of results, so trends are not yet visible. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 622%

School 22% · district not reported

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 723%

School 23% · district not reported

▲ 11 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 814%

School 14% · district not reported

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 656%

School 56% · district not reported

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 761%

School 61% · district not reported

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 856%

School 56% · district not reported

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Science

Grade 833%

School 33% · district not reported

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 47% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

This schoolAnne Arundel County Public Schools, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income31%Higher-income63%32 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income24%Higher-income34%10 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income22%Higher-income31%9 pp gap