Deer Park Middle Magnet School, Randallstown MD

Original Research by School Decision on Deer Park Middle Magnet School

Deer Park Middle Magnet School serves grades six through eight in Randallstown, a largely residential, unincorporated suburb northwest of Baltimore. The school is part of the Baltimore County Public Schools system, the entity that sets policy, curricula, and attendance boundaries for the area. Because Deer Park is a regular public school, not a charter, it draws its student body from a defined geographic zone within the district.

The student body is sizable for a middle school and overwhelmingly composed of students who identify as Black, with a much smaller share of Hispanic students and very modest numbers of white, Asian, and multiracial students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a commonly used indicator of household economic need.

On Maryland’s state assessments, the picture varies by subject. In English language arts, results across grades six, seven, and eight fall in a range that, while not reaching a high bar, show a meaningful portion of students meeting proficiency standards. In math, the figures are considerably lower, with a very small share of students scoring at the proficient or advanced level across all three tested grades. Science results for eighth graders, who take the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment, also reflect a low proficiency rate. Social studies results for eighth graders sit between the ELA and math outcomes. These are the most recent available test results, all from a single school year, so there is no multi-year trend data to show whether these numbers are moving up or down.

The school’s name includes “Magnet,” but the data provided does not specify a formal magnet program or theme, such as STEM or the arts. The limited course-access information means it is not clear what specialized offerings or advanced coursework, if any, are available to students. A parent considering this school would want to ask the school directly about any magnet focus, elective pathways, and support for students who need extra help in math.

The community context is important for understanding the school. Randallstown is a mature, built-out suburb without a traditional downtown, its commercial life strung along Liberty Road in strip centers. Housing values in the zip code sit at a level close to the national benchmark, and rents are at the national median. The area is majority African American, having transitioned to that demographic makeup in the 1990s. The district has recently adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum grounded in the science of reading, though that shift happened after Deer Park’s current students would have passed through elementary grades. The district also implemented a strict cell phone policy for middle schools, with phones silenced and stored all day, and a voter-approved bond is funding security upgrades district-wide. These district-level changes affect the daily experience at Deer Park but do not speak directly to academic programming.

The comparison data relative to other districts in Baltimore County was not usable for this school because the cohort of comparable districts was too small to draw meaningful comparisons. That means this narrative cannot place Deer Park’s performance in a local context. For families in Randallstown evaluating their options, the key questions will center on the specific magnet programming, if any, and the school’s approach to math instruction and intervention, given the low assessment results in that subject.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 614%

School 14% · district not reported

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

Grade 74%

School 4% · district not reported

▼ 9 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 82%

School 2% · district not reported

▼ 4 pts below state median · even with county median

English language arts

Grade 639%

School 39% · district not reported

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

Grade 745%

School 45% · district not reported

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 839%

School 39% · district not reported

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

Science

Grade 823%

School 23% · district not reported

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

Social studies

Grade 830%

School 30% · District 34% · ▼ 3 pts below district

even with state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

This schoolBaltimore 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-income40%Higher-income62%22 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income21%Higher-income31%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income13%Higher-income33%20 pp gap