Mount Airy Middle, Mount Airy MD

Original Research by School Decision on Mount Airy Middle

Mount Airy Middle is a regular public school serving grades six through eight in Carroll County, Maryland. The school sits in the town of Mount Airy, a residential community that straddles the Carroll and Frederick county line and functions primarily as a bedroom suburb for commuters traveling to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Frederick. The town is largely car-dependent, with a historic downtown core along Main Street and single-family neighborhoods spreading outward on hilly terrain. Housing values in the area are well above national and state medians, and the town has seen modest population growth in recent years.

Academically, the school presents a mixed picture. On state English language arts assessments, the share of students scoring proficient or above is relatively strong, with the highest performance in sixth grade and decreasing somewhat by eighth grade. Eighth-grade science results fall below that English language arts mark. In math, proficiency rates are lower. While seventh-grade math results are notably higher than sixth grade, eighth-grade math proficiency is very low compared to the other grades. This steep drop in eighth-grade math is a clear soft spot. A parent exploring this school should look into what math instruction and support look like at the eighth-grade level. Social studies performance for eighth graders is solid. The school also reports results for algebra I, though the context for who takes that assessment in middle school is not provided here.

The student body is predominantly white, with a much smaller share of Hispanic students and even smaller shares of Black, Asian, and multiracial students, as well as a small number of American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students. A modest portion of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is below the national average. The school serves just over seven hundred students, with similar enrollment across the three middle grades. Information on special education and English learner populations was not reported in the available data, so those figures are unknown here.

Because Mount Airy Middle is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report. The school is part of Carroll County Public Schools, and the district brief did not surface any recent major changes, such as boundary adjustments or program overhauls, that would directly affect this school. The comparison set that would position the school relative to other Carroll County districts was too small to generate a meaningful proficiency index, so statewide context is limited.

For families weighing this school, the key takeaway is that English language arts is a clear strength, while math performance is uneven and eighth-grade math in particular warrants a closer conversation with the school about curriculum and intervention. The school serves a fairly homogeneous, relatively low-poverty community in an affluent and growing commuter town. The town itself offers a small historic core but is largely oriented toward car travel and residential living, with most adults commuting out for work.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 628%

School 28% · district not reported

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 734%

School 34% · district not reported

▲ 22 pts above state median

Grade 85%

School 5% · district not reported

▼ 1 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 674%

School 74% · district not reported

▲ 29 pts above state median

Grade 769%

School 69% · district not reported

▲ 21 pts above state median

Grade 856%

School 56% · district not reported

▲ 12 pts above state median

Science

Grade 838%

School 38% · district not reported

▲ 12 pts above state median · even with county median

Social studies

Grade 862%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 31 pts above state median

This schoolCarroll 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-income63%Higher-income69%5 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income25%Higher-income43%18 pp gap