Monarch Global Academy Pcs Laurel Campus, Laurel MD

Original Research by School Decision on Monarch Global Academy Pcs Laurel Campus

Monarch Global Academy PCS Laurel Campus is a K-through-8 public school in Laurel, Maryland, operating as a regular school within Anne Arundel County Public Schools. The school draws from a substantial share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, and its student body is predominantly Black, with a large Hispanic population and smaller shares of White and Asian students. It is not a charter or magnet school.

The school’s academic performance on the MCAP and MISA state assessments reveals a clear unevenness across subjects. In English language arts, overall proficiency sits just above the midpoint, with grade 3 and grades 6 and 7 posting notably stronger results. By grade 8, ELA proficiency drops to around half. Math is a much softer area overall, with proficiency rates in grades 3 through 7 clustering near a quarter to a third of students reaching the proficient level. Grade 8 math results were zero, meaning no tested student met the benchmark. Science proficiency in grades 5 and 8 is also low, around a fifth to just over a quarter. Social studies, tested only in grade 8, lands near the midpoint. The school has only one year of assessment data available, so no trend can be observed. Because this is a K-8 school, there is no graduation rate to report.

The community context matters here. The campus sits on Brock Bridge Road in Laurel, a city that began as a 19th-century mill town on the Patuxent River and later developed into an early commuter suburb for Washington, D.C., and Baltimore after the railroad arrived. Today it is largely residential, with a historic Main Street, a MARC train station connecting to both cities, and a dinosaur fossil park that is locally notable. Housing values in Laurel are moderately above the national median, and rents have been rising. A parent moving to this area should expect a suburban setting with some historic charm and reasonable access to two major job markets, but with housing costs that are not cheap.

Within the broader Anne Arundel County district, a new comprehensive middle and high school opened recently in the Severn area, redrawing some attendance boundaries for families in the western part of the county. It is not clear from available data whether Monarch Global Academy’s attendance zone is affected by that change. No district strategic priorities or larger reforms were surfaced in the research, so those are left unmentioned.

Course access, discipline rates, and staffing data were not available for this school. Chronic absenteeism and special education or English learner counts were also missing from the records provided. A parent would want to ask the school directly about those supports, especially given the academic challenges in math and science. The comparison with other Anne Arundel County districts could not be run because the school was the only entity in its cohort for the county-based comparison set, so no relative placement is available.

In short, Monarch Global Academy PCS Laurel Campus offers families a traditional K-8 pathway in a commuter suburb with reasonable transit options. The school’s ELA performance is a relative strength, particularly in the middle grades, while math and science proficiency is low enough to warrant a close look from any parent concerned about those subjects. The student body is economically diverse, and the surrounding housing market is expensive but not extreme. A parent considering this school should prioritize a conversation with the administration about how the school addresses math instruction and supports students who are not yet at grade level, especially as they approach the transition to high school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 334%

School 34% · district not reported

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · district not reported

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 521%

School 21% · district not reported

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 627%

School 27% · district not reported

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

Grade 730%

School 30% · district not reported

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

Grade 80%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 356%

School 56% · district not reported

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 443%

School 43% · district not reported

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 543%

School 43% · district not reported

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 663%

School 63% · district not reported

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

Grade 769%

School 69% · district not reported

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · district not reported

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Science

Grade 520%

School 20% · district not reported

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · district not reported

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

Social studies

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 47% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above 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 4Lower-income13%Higher-income14%1 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income33%Higher-income22%11 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income44%Higher-income46%1 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income19%Higher-income20%1 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income24%Higher-income49%26 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income6%Higher-income11%6 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income9%Higher-income34%25 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income6%Higher-income15%10 pp gap