The top reported proficiency rate is 43% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Middleborough Elementary
Middleborough Elementary is a regular public school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in the Baltimore County Public Schools system. The school is located in the Baltimore zip code 21221, an area where the housing market shows home values near the middle of the national range, and rents are a bit lower than a typical monthly mortgage payment—an economic context that matters for families considering the neighborhood.
The student body is fairly small for an elementary school serving this grade band. Racially, the school is majority white, with a substantial black or African American population, a smaller group identifying as two or more races, and a modest Hispanic representation. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating a significant share of households with lower incomes.
On the 2024-25 state assessments, Middleborough Elementary’s performance is mixed and tells a story of a school where strengths in early literacy do not carry through to upper grades or to math and science. In third-grade English language arts, a majority of students scored at or above the proficient level, a result that stands as a genuine strength and suggests the early literacy curriculum, which the district recently overhauled around the science of reading, may be taking hold. By fourth and fifth grade, however, proficiency in ELA drops off substantially, falling below half. In math, fewer than a third of students in each tested grade reached proficiency, and the fifth-grade science proficiency rate is low.
These are soft spots that a parent would want to investigate further. The school offers only one year of trend data, so it is not possible to tell whether this is a recent decline or a long-standing pattern. A family considering Middleborough Elementary would want to ask the school how it supports students who are not yet meeting benchmarks in math and upper-elementary reading, and whether the early literacy gains in third grade are being sustained as students move up.
The district has made several parent-relevant changes that affect Middleborough Elementary. The adoption of a new elementary literacy curriculum grounded in the science of reading began in the 2023-24 school year, which likely shapes what happens in every classroom here. The district also implemented a district-wide cell phone policy restricting phone use during instructional time, which for elementary students means phones must be stored and silenced all day. Baltimore County voters recently approved a bond issue for school safety improvements such as secure entrances and cameras, which applies to this school as well.
On the broader school environment, several data points are simply missing. There is no information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, course access, or the school’s Title I status. The comparison set—relative to districts in Baltimore County—was too small to yield any positioning, so there is no county-level context on proficiency, graduation, or attendance. Those gaps limit what can be said about how this school stacks up against its neighbors.
For a family, Middleborough Elementary presents a mixed academic picture. The third-grade reading result is a clear positive, pointing to a foundation that works for many students in that grade. The drop-off in later years and the low math and science outcomes are real concerns. Families who prioritize early literacy and want a smaller, diverse-by-race elementary school in a Baltimore-area setting with moderate housing costs may find it a reasonable fit, but they should come ready to ask hard questions about how the school addresses the weaker results in upper grades and in subjects beyond reading.
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