The top reported proficiency rate is 86% in Math. The lowest is 84% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Cold Spring Elementary
Cold Spring Elementary serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade in Potomac, a primarily residential and affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. The school is part of Montgomery County Public Schools, the large Maryland district that covers this community. Potomac itself has a small commercial cluster called Potomac Village at the intersection of Falls Road and River Road, but is otherwise a car-dependent suburban area characterized by large residential lots and scattered strip malls. Many residents commute to Washington, D.C., or Northern Virginia for work. The community transformed from a rural farming area into a suburban one beginning in the 1950s, and its population has been relatively stable in recent decades.
Cold Spring Elementary is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet school. Information about Title I status was not provided, though the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals is very small, which aligns with the area’s overall affluence. The student body is predominantly white and Asian, with smaller shares of students who are two or more races, Hispanic, or Black. Data on the percentage of students with disabilities or those learning English was not available in the source material.
The school’s academic performance on the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) in the most recent testing year shows results that are high across the board. In English language arts, strong majorities of students in grades three, four, and five scored at the proficient or above level, with the fifth-grade share the highest among the three. In mathematics, proficiency rates were similarly high in all three tested grades. The fifth-grade science assessment, the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment (MISA), also showed results in a high range, though the reporting was slightly less precise. Parents should note that these results represent a single snapshot in time; trend data across multiple years was not available because the data set only includes one year of testing. This is not a concern about the school’s trajectory, simply a limit on what can be said about improvement or decline over time.
Because Cold Spring Elementary serves only elementary grades, the school does not have a graduation rate or high school course offerings such as Advanced Placement or dual enrollment. The district, Montgomery County Public Schools, has adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum beginning in the 2023-24 school year that affects how reading is taught across all its elementary schools. The district’s budget has also grown to a substantial share of the county’s total budget, a reflection of ongoing fiscal commitment. Additionally, MCPS has been conducting a systemwide boundary analysis as part of long-term facilities planning, a process that could lead to future changes in which schools students in this area attend.
No comparison data relative to other schools within Montgomery County was produced for this school because the comparison cohort was too small to generate reliable metrics. That means the reader cannot easily gauge how this school’s proficiency rates or attendance patterns stack up against its nearest peers within the county, though the absolute performance described above gives a clear picture of strong results.
For a family considering Cold Spring Elementary, the picture is one of a school serving a community with a very low rate of economic disadvantage, where academic outcomes on state assessments are high in both reading and mathematics across all tested elementary grades. The school environment is suburban, car-dependent, and located in one of the more expensive housing markets in the region. Families should be aware of the district’s ongoing boundary analysis, which could potentially affect attendance areas, though no specific changes have been determined. The school’s lack of trend data or detailed subgroup performance on achievement and attendance means there are some gaps a parent may want to explore directly with the school, but the available evidence points to a consistently strong academic setting for elementary-aged students.
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