The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 8% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Hernwood Elementary
Hernwood Elementary is a regular public elementary school in Randallstown, a largely residential suburb northwest of Baltimore, serving prekindergarten through fifth grade. The school sits within the large Baltimore County Public Schools system, which has in recent years adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum grounded in the science of reading, implemented a district-wide cell phone policy restricting phone use during instruction, and approved attendance boundary changes affecting several feeder patterns. These shifts shape the daily environment and may influence which elementary school a child attends.
The student body is diverse in background but not in numeric balance. The enrollment is modest for an elementary school serving seven grade levels, and the majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a share that signals a concentration of lower-income households. Racially, the school is overwhelmingly African American, with a small Hispanic presence and a very small white and multiracial enrollment. The community of Randallstown itself is a mature, unincorporated suburb that transitioned to a majority African American population by the 1990s. It has no traditional downtown; commercial life is strung along Liberty Road in strip centers, and the built environment is auto-oriented with limited walkability. Public transit is available but sparse. The housing stock includes single-family homes, townhouses, and apartments, with home values around the national median and rents that are not inexpensive for the area.
On state assessments, Hernwood Elementary shows results that many families would want to understand more fully before forming an impression. Proficiency rates in mathematics are low across grades three, four, and five; the share of students scoring at proficient or above declines slightly from third to fifth grade. In English language arts, the rates are higher but still below half, with fourth grade reaching the strongest result while third and fifth grades trail behind. Science, tested in fifth grade, shows a very low proficiency rate. These numbers are from a single year of testing, and multi-year trend data is not yet available, so it is not possible to say whether performance is improving or declining. A parent considering this school would likely want to ask the school directly about academic supports, intervention programs, and how the new literacy curriculum is taking hold in classrooms.
The school is part of a district that is executing the multi-year Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, which includes expanding pre-K, raising teacher salaries, and increasing college and career readiness standards. Hernwood already offers prekindergarten, and the district’s push toward universal pre-K likely affects this school. Voters also approved a bond issue for school safety upgrades, including secure entrances and cameras, which may have been installed or are in progress across the district.
Overall, Hernwood Elementary serves a high-poverty population in a mature suburban setting, with academic performance on state tests that is lower than many families would hope for. The school’s strengths are harder to identify from the available data: no information on program offerings, staffing ratios, discipline rates, or attendance patterns is present. The district-level changes—a research-backed literacy curriculum and expanded early childhood access—are positive signals, but their effect on Hernwood specifically is not yet measurable. A parent should visit the school, talk to teachers and administrators about how they support struggling students, and ask about the implementation of the science of reading curriculum in particular. For families who value a small, neighborhood elementary in a familiar suburban corridor, Hernwood is an option that comes with clear challenges in student outcomes that warrant close attention.
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