City Neighbors Hamilton, Baltimore MD

Original Research by School Decision on City Neighbors Hamilton

City Neighbors Hamilton is a charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade in northeast Baltimore. It operates within the Baltimore City Public Schools district but has its own identity as a publicly funded, independently run school. The school’s enrollment is small for a K-8 building, with a grade-level cohort that stays consistent from third through eighth grade, which suggests a stable and relatively intimate community. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is majority Black, with a large white minority and smaller shares of students who are multiracial, Hispanic, or Asian.

This is an arts-oriented school, part of the City Neighbors network, and the school’s program is built around an arts-integrated curriculum, project-based learning, and what the school describes as a progressive model that emphasizes student voice and collaboration. A parent drawn to schools that see themselves as counterpoints to a traditional test-prep environment may find this approach appealing. The school does not serve high school grades, so families choosing City Neighbors Hamilton for eighth grade will need a separate high school plan after that.

On state assessments, the picture is mixed and worth a closer look by subject. In English language arts, the school posts a clear strength in the elementary grades. Third, fourth, fifth, and seventh graders all showed proficiency rates above the midpoint, and the fourth-grade result was a high point. By eighth grade, that share fell noticeably. In math, the pattern runs opposite, with a steep drop-off as students get older. The early grades posted modest results that faded to a very low proficiency share in sixth grade and an even lower one in eighth. Science and social studies results were also low. The school’s overall proficiency index, which averages results across all tested subjects and grades, placed it above the midpoint among the small number of districts in Baltimore city. That is a relative position, set against a very narrow comparison set, and it should be read as such. The data set does not include chronic absenteeism or graduation rates because this is a K-8 school and those metrics do not apply to this grade band.

A parent considering this school should want to understand why math performance falls so sharply after the early grades. This may reflect the school’s curricular emphasis, the way it allocates instructional time, or something else, but the data alone does not answer that. A conversation with the school about math instruction across the grades would be a reasonable step.

The housing context for families moving into this part of Baltimore shows home values around the national median, rents not far behind, and a mortgage payment that is above what renting costs. Price growth has been modest. The city of Baltimore itself is a dense, historic urban environment with a walkable fabric in its many old neighborhoods, a large service economy anchored by Johns Hopkins, and a population that has declined slightly in recent years. A major infrastructure project to replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge is underway.

The district itself did not turn up specific recent changes that would be directly relevant to a parent choosing a single school. The quality of City Neighbors Hamilton will depend less on district-wide moves and more on the specific culture, teaching staff, and program that this school has built. For a family that values arts integration, a progressive stance on learning, and a small school feel, and that is prepared to investigate how the school addresses math as students move through the grades, City Neighbors Hamilton is a characterful option within the city’s school landscape.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 368%

School 68% · district not reported

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 51 pts above county median

Grade 432%

School 32% · district not reported

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 536%

School 36% · district not reported

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Grade 67%

School 7% · district not reported

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

Grade 718%

School 18% · district not reported

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

Grade 85%

School 5% · district not reported

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

English language arts

Grade 354%

School 54% · district not reported

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Grade 461%

School 61% · district not reported

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 39 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · district not reported

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 37 pts above county median

Grade 639%

School 39% · district not reported

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 754%

School 54% · district not reported

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 843%

School 43% · district not reported

even with state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Science

Grade 514%

School 14% · district not reported

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

Grade 823%

School 23% · district not reported

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 17% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 15 pts above 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income10%Higher-income14%4 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income13%Higher-income17%3 pp gap