The top reported proficiency rate is 48% in English language arts. The lowest is 19% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Gale-bailey Elementary School
Gale-Bailey Elementary School is a regular public school in the Charles County Public Schools district, serving students from prekindergarten through fifth grade. The school sits in Marbury, a small, rural unincorporated community in Charles County that is overwhelmingly residential. With minimal commercial activity and no traditional downtown, Marbury is a low-density place. The elementary school is located within the community itself; the nearest middle and high schools are outside Marbury, so families with older children have a longer drive ahead. Housing values in the area land near the middle of the range for a school in this region, and the local mortgage costs are roughly what you would find nationally, creating a moderate entry point for families.
The student body is diverse in composition. White students represent the largest single group, followed by Black students, with smaller shares of Hispanic students and students who identify as two or more races. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, which means the school serves a mix of economic backgrounds. The school is not a charter school, and its magnet and Title I status are not reported in the data we have.
When it comes to academic performance, the picture is mixed, and recent assessment results from Maryland’s MCAP and MISA tests give parents a clear set of facts to consider. In English Language Arts, proficiency rates start strong in third grade, then decline noticeably by fifth grade. Third graders at the school hit a level that would be considered a solid showing, but by fifth grade fewer than half of students are meeting the bar. In math, the pattern is steeper and more concerning: proficiency drops from third grade to fourth, and again to fifth, where the share of students reaching the proficient level is quite low. In science, which is tested in fifth grade, the proficiency rate is also low. Taken together, these results suggest that the school does a better job launching early readers than it does sustaining proficiency in later elementary years, especially in math and science. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what support is available for students who are not on track in math and to ask about how the school addresses the slide seen between grades.
The school is about typical size for an elementary school in its grade band. There is no state testing data available for earlier grades because those grades are not tested in Maryland, so the full picture begins in third grade. The school does not have high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. The county-level comparison that would normally place the school among its county peers could not be generated because the cohort was too small to yield meaningful results; that is a data limitation, not a judgment about the school’s standing.
The district itself, Charles County Public Schools, was searched for recent parent-relevant changes, but nothing specific that would alter a family’s day-to-day experience was found in publicly reported sources. The absence of such a report does not mean nothing is happening; it means the publicly available information is thin on changes that meet a lasting-impact bar.
For a family considering this school, the key question is arithmetic readiness. The school shows a classic pattern of early literacy strength and a math performance gap that widens across the grades. If a child needs strong math support or enrichment in the upper elementary years, this is a place where you would want to ask pointed questions about intervention programs, small-group instruction, and the curriculum approach. The rural setting and small surrounding community mean that out-of-school enrichment options are limited to what a family can drive to; the school itself is the anchor. The school’s composition is fairly mixed, and the housing market is moderate, so this is not an exclusive enclave. It is a straightforward rural elementary school with clear achievement patterns that deserve a close look from any parent considering enrollment.
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