Dickey Hill Elementary/middle, Baltimore MD

Original Research by School Decision on Dickey Hill Elementary/middle

Dickey Hill Elementary/Middle is a regular public school in Baltimore serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Located in the city’s Dickey Hill neighborhood, the school sits within the Baltimore City Public Schools system. The school is not a charter or magnet school.

The student body is predominantly Black, with small shares of Hispanic students and students who identify as two or more races. The proportion of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals is substantial, well above what is typical across the state. The school enrolls a modest number of students for a PK-8 campus, with a student count that spreads fairly evenly across the elementary and middle grades.

On the 2024-25 state assessments, reading and math proficiency rates were low at nearly every tested grade level. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above was in the single digits across grades three through eight, with several grade levels reporting no students reaching that bar. In English language arts, results were also weak for the lower and middle grades; grade three, for example, saw roughly one in eight students proficient, and fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were similar. Seventh grade was a notable exception, with a larger share of students meeting the proficiency standard. Science and social studies results were in the single digits as well. Overall, the school’s combined proficiency index placed it in the lowest tier relative to other schools across Baltimore city.

Because Dickey Hill does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. That absence is expected for a PK-8 campus and does not indicate a data gap.

The school offers a single pathway that runs from early childhood through middle school. There is no record of advanced coursework, career and technical education programs, or specialized academies in the available data. A parent considering this school should expect a traditional elementary-to-middle structure with no high school programming on site.

The surrounding community of Baltimore is an independent city with a service-based economy anchored by Johns Hopkins Hospital and the university. The Inner Harbor, Fort McHenry, and professional sports venues are among the city’s notable landmarks. The city’s population has seen a slight recent decline, and a major infrastructure project to replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge is underway, with completion expected in a few years. The housing market in the area around the school shows home values and rents that are moderately priced relative to the broader state market.

No recent district-level changes of lasting significance to families were found in the available public reporting. The district brief turned up general budget and enrollment data but no specific policy shifts or facility updates that would directly affect a parent’s experience at Dickey Hill.

The school’s primary identity is a neighborhood elementary and middle school that serves a high-need population. Academic attainment is a clear soft spot; across both math and reading, most students are not reaching the state’s proficiency standard, and the gap is wide. A parent looking at this school would want to investigate what academic support programs, tutoring, or intervention structures are in place, as the reported results suggest that the typical classroom experience is not producing grade-level proficiency for the majority of students. The single-year data point available provides no trend, so it is not possible to tell whether recent efforts are moving the numbers. For a family whose priority is a school with strong measured academic outcomes, this is not that school. For a family invested in a particular neighborhood zoned attendance or committed to the Baltimore City system, the character of the school is a straightforward PK-8 building serving a community where economic need is high and state test scores are low.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 310%

School 10% · district not reported

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 410%

School 10% · district not reported

▼ 18 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 50%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · district not reported

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

Grade 70%

School 0% · district not reported

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

Grade 89%

School 9% · district not reported

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

English language arts

Grade 313%

School 13% · district not reported

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 411%

School 11% · district not reported

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 510%

School 10% · district not reported

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 68%

School 8% · district not reported

▼ 37 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 742%

School 42% · district not reported

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · district not reported

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

Science

Grade 50%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 85%

School 5% · district not reported

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

Social studies

Grade 810%

School 10% · District 17% · ▼ 8 pts below district

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

This schoolBaltimore City 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.