Kemp Mill Elementary, Silver Spring MD

Original Research by School Decision on Kemp Mill Elementary

Kemp Mill Elementary sits in the heart of Silver Spring, a dense, diverse edge city just north of Washington, D.C. The school serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and is a regular public school within the Montgomery County Public Schools system. Silver Spring itself is an urbanized area with a walkable downtown core, a major transit center, and a population notable for its foreign-born communities from El Salvador, Ethiopia, India, and China. The neighborhood around the school is a mix of residential streets and commercial corridors, inside the Capital Beltway.

The school is medium-sized for an elementary school, with a student body that is overwhelmingly Hispanic. The remaining students are predominantly Black, with small numbers of White, Asian, and multiracial students. A substantial share of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating that many families face economic pressure. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not available in this profile, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about the support programs in place for those groups.

State assessment results from the 2024-25 school year provide a clear picture of academic performance at Kemp Mill. In mathematics, the proportion of students meeting proficiency declines markedly from third to fifth grade, with very few reaching the standard by fifth grade. In English language arts, the pattern is similar: third graders have the highest results, but by fifth grade the share meeting proficiency is low. Fifth-grade science results show very few students meeting the bar. Only one year of data was available, so there is no trend line to compare. As the school serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to consider, and no high school outcomes to draw on.

Housing in the area carries a price tag above the national median; rents are also elevated, which will be a factor for any family considering a move into the attendance zone. Montgomery County as a whole has seen steady increases in its school district budget, with MCPS now receiving a large portion of the county’s spending. The district recently adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum and is in the middle of a systemwide boundary analysis, two changes that could affect the educational approach at Kemp Mill and potentially reshape attendance areas in the coming years.

This school sits in a community that is transit-rich, culturally diverse, and economically varied. A parent looking at Kemp Mill should weigh the low state assessment results, especially in the upper elementary grades, against the school’s setting and the broader district resources. The academic numbers are a soft spot that warrants a direct conversation with the school about instruction, intervention, and how the school supports students who are not yet meeting grade-level standards. No county-level comparison was possible because the available data did not include a peer set for this elementary school, so a family would want to look at other nearby schools within the district to get a fuller picture of the local landscape.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 331%

School 31% · district not reported

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 413%

School 13% · district not reported

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 52%

School 2% · district not reported

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 37 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 347%

School 47% · district not reported

even with state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 421%

School 21% · district not reported

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 36 pts below county median

Grade 58%

School 8% · district not reported

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 41 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 4Lower-income8%Higher-income8%0 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income17%Higher-income16%1 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income12%Higher-income17%6 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income6%Higher-income13%7 pp gap