The top reported proficiency rate is 22% in English language arts. The lowest is 6% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Gilpin Manor Elementary
Gilpin Manor Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in the town of Elkton, the county seat of Cecil County. It is a regular public school within the Cecil County Public Schools system and is not a charter or magnet school. The school is located on Newark Avenue, near the heart of Elkton, a community that mixes historic colonial-era buildings downtown with government offices, a hospital, and suburban-style residential development spreading outward. Elkton sits at the head of navigation on the Elk River and has a traditional Main Street spine. The town has been growing at a modest pace in recent years, and its public transit options are limited to a countywide curb-to-curb service that requires advance scheduling.
The student body at Gilpin Manor is diverse in its composition. White students make up the largest single group, followed by Black students, then Hispanic students, and a notable share of students who identify as two or more races. Smaller numbers of Asian and American Indian or Alaska Native students also attend. A substantial share of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals. Data on the share of students with individualized education programs or who are English learners was not available in the reporting used here, so a parent may want to ask the school directly for those numbers to understand the full range of support services available.
State testing results from the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program for the 2024-25 school year provide a look at academic performance across grades three through five. In math, the share of students scoring at the proficient or above level was below a quarter in each grade level tested. In English language arts, the results varied more by grade: third-grade proficiency was also at a low level, fourth-grade was somewhat higher, and fifth-grade reached roughly a third of students meeting the bar. Fifth graders also take the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment, and here the share reaching proficiency was very low. A parent reviewing these numbers would see that in both math and reading, a majority of students at Gilpin Manor are not yet meeting state proficiency benchmarks as defined by the MCAP, and that science results are particularly weak. These are the most recent single-year data available; because only one year of results is in the data, there is no trend line to show improvement or decline over time.
Because Gilpin Manor serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and no high school course access or college readiness metrics apply here. The comparison set against other Cecil County districts was too small to produce a meaningful ranking or positioning, so it is not possible to say how this school’s proficiency results stack up against other elementary schools in the county based on the data available.
The Cecil County Public Schools district that oversees Gilpin Manor has been navigating budget pressures in recent years. In the spring of 2024, the district warned that without full county funding for its budget request, it would have to cut programs including prekindergarten and increase class sizes. That crisis was averted when the county approved what was described as record funding for the district in the following fiscal year. For families at Gilpin Manor, this means that the pre-K program, which serves part of the school’s enrollment, and general class sizes were preserved for the time being, but the episode shows that district finances can shift quickly and that future budget cycles bear watching.
Housing in the Elkton area reflects a market where the typical home value and rent are modest compared to national averages. For a family considering a move into the attendance zone, the housing stock includes a mix of older homes near downtown and newer development on former rural land at the town’s edges. The median household income in Elkton is below the national figure, and the poverty rate is elevated, which aligns with the school’s high share of students receiving meal assistance.
Overall, Gilpin Manor Elementary is an economically diverse school in a small, historic county seat that has seen steady but not rapid growth. The academic results on state assessments show that most students are not currently meeting proficiency benchmarks, and the data does not provide trend information to indicate whether that is improving. The school does not serve grades where graduation rates or advanced coursework apply, so the primary measures of its work are the elementary-level test scores. A parent considering this school may want to learn more about the specific instructional supports in place for reading and math, particularly given the low proficiency rates, and check on the availability of services for students with disabilities and English learners, since those figures were not in the available data.
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