Joann Leleck at Broad Acres Elementary, Silver Spring MD

Original Research by School Decision on Joann Leleck at Broad Acres Elementary

JoAnn Leleck at Broad Acres Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in Silver Spring, a densely populated, unincorporated edge city in southeastern Montgomery County that borders Washington, D.C. The school sits within the Montgomery County Public Schools system, a large district that receives a substantial share of the county’s budget and has recently adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum, Benchmark Advance and HMH Into Reading, which shapes reading instruction across all its elementary schools. The school is a regular public school and is not a charter or magnet.

The student body is large for an elementary school, and the community it serves is notably diverse. The great majority of students are Hispanic, with smaller shares of Black, Asian, and white students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, reflecting the economic profile of the surrounding neighborhood. The school’s enrollment is concentrated in the early grades, with a sizable prekindergarten program, which suggests an investment in early learning access that some families may prioritize.

On state assessments, the school’s proficiency rates are low. In English language arts, the share of students scoring proficient varied considerably by grade, with fourth graders performing notably higher than third or fifth graders. In math, proficiency was lower across all tested grades, with fifth grade showing a very small share meeting the bar. On the fifth-grade science assessment, the proficiency rate was also very low. Because the data only covers a single year, there is no trend line to show whether these results are stable, improving, or declining. A parent may want to ask the school how it supports students who are below grade level and what specific interventions or programs are in place to lift achievement.

Silver Spring itself is an urbanized, walkable area with a strong transit hub at the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center, which connects to Metro, MARC, and bus lines, and the Purple Line light rail is under construction. The downtown core has a concentration of civic and commercial destinations, and the larger area includes creek-valley parks with trails. Major employers include NOAA, the FDA, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church headquarters. The population is foreign-born at a high rate, with large communities from El Salvador, Ethiopia, India, and China. The school is located in this diverse, transit-oriented setting, which may appeal to families who value proximity to the D.C. region and a dense, mixed-use environment.

The Montgomery County district is also in the middle of a systemwide boundary analysis as part of its long-term facilities planning, which could lead to changes in attendance zones. Families should be aware that school boundaries may shift in the coming years.

There is no data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing, or course access in the available information, so those aspects of the school environment are not possible to characterize here. Because the school serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report. Overall, JoAnn Leleck at Broad Acres offers early childhood access in a diverse, urban-suburban setting within a well-funded district, but its academic results on state tests are a clear soft spot that any prospective family would want to explore directly with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 316%

School 16% · district not reported

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 423%

School 23% · district not reported

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 56%

School 6% · district not reported

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 328%

School 28% · district not reported

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

Grade 440%

School 40% · district not reported

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 518%

School 18% · district not reported

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 31 pts below county median

Science

Grade 53%

School 3% · district not reported

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

This schoolMontgomery 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 3Lower-income9%Higher-income8%1 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income9%Higher-income7%1 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income11%Higher-income9%2 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income9%Higher-income17%8 pp gap