The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in English language arts. The lowest is 8% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Fairland Elementary
Fairland Elementary is a regular public school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade in Silver Spring, Maryland, part of the Montgomery County Public Schools system. It is not a charter school. Title I status was not provided in the data. The school is one of many elementary options in a very large, well-funded suburban district that has adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum in recent years and whose operating budget makes up a substantial share of the county's total spending. The district has also been conducting a systemwide boundary analysis, a process families in the area may want to track.
Montgomery County as a whole commands a high cost of housing. The typical home value in the area around the school's zip code is well above both the state and national benchmarks, and monthly mortgage costs on a median-priced home far exceed typical rent. Rent itself consumes a meaningful portion of area income. This is an expensive corner of an already expensive region. The country's unemployment rate in mid-2026 is steady at a modest level, and national median household income has drifted upward over the past several years, but these national figures do not necessarily capture local conditions.
The school serves a student body that, by the available data, is majority Black, with a large Hispanic minority. Asian, white, and two-or-more-races students each make up a much smaller share. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating a school where economic need is the norm rather than the exception. The data did not include counts of students with individualized education plans or English learner status, so the full scope of support needs is not visible from this profile. The enrollment is stable and fills a standard elementary grade span.
The picture from state test results in the 2024-25 school year is one where proficiency rates are below half in every tested grade and subject, and they decline noticeably from third to fifth grade. In math, roughly two-fifths of third graders scored at the proficient or advanced level, but by fourth grade that figure slipped, and by fifth grade it dropped further. In English language arts, the same pattern holds: third graders were near the halfway mark, fourth graders a bit lower, fifth graders markedly lower. Science results in fifth grade, the only tested grade for that subject, were in the single digits. A parent looking at these numbers would see a school where a significant share of students are not yet meeting state benchmarks, and where the gap widens as students move through the grade levels. Only one year of data was available, so there is no trend to examine for improvement or decline.
Because this is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report. The school does not serve the grades where that metric applies.
The community context is Silver Spring, an unincorporated edge city that is dense, diverse, and transit-rich, with a walkable downtown core anchored by a major transit center serving Metro, MARC, and bus lines. The Purple Line light rail is under construction and expected to open later in the decade, connecting Silver Spring to Bethesda and College Park. The downtown area has seen redevelopment and mixed-use construction. The broader Silver Spring area includes inner suburban neighborhoods, park systems along four creek valleys, and major federal employers such as NOAA and the FDA. This is not a rural or car-only setting; it is a place where many families rely on public transit and where civic life is concentrated in the downtown core.
Fairland Elementary sits in the part of Silver Spring that is less dense and more suburban than the downtown core. The school's academic profile is one where a parent would want to investigate the specific supports available, the curriculum implementation at the school level, and how the school addresses the academic gaps that the state test data shows. The district's new literacy curriculum may be a relevant factor to ask about. The school's economic profile suggests that wraparound services and community partnerships are likely part of the daily reality, but the data did not provide specifics on those offerings.
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