Greencastle Elementary, Silver Spring MD

Original Research by School Decision on Greencastle Elementary

Greencastle Elementary is a regular public school in Silver Spring serving prekindergarten through fifth grade and operating within Montgomery County Public Schools, one of Maryland’s largest districts. The school is located on Robey Road in the eastern part of the greater Silver Spring area, an unincorporated, dense edge city that borders Washington, D.C. Silver Spring’s downtown core is urban and walkable, concentrated around the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center, which connects to Metro, MARC, and buses. The greater Silver Spring mailing address covers a broad stretch of suburban neighborhoods, and Greencastle sits in a residential pocket inside the Capital Beltway.

The school serves a sizable enrollment for an elementary. Its student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic presence and a small share of Asian, white, and multiracial students. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a marker of the economic context families here are navigating. English learner and special education enrollment data were not available in the public record, so a full picture of support needs and resources is incomplete.

Academic results on Maryland’s state assessments are low relative to the rest of the state. In math, proficiency rates in grades three through five fall in a range that is modest. The fourth-grade English language arts proficiency rate is higher than the math results. Fifth-grade science performance is the weakest of the tested subjects. Across all tested subjects and grades, the share of students scoring proficient or above is below what many families would hope for. The school offers only a single year of assessment data in this reporting, so there is no trend line to show whether performance has been improving or declining. A parent considering Greencastle may want to ask the school directly about its instructional improvement plans and how it supports students who are not yet at grade level.

Because Greencastle ends at fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no high school pathways are offered on this campus. Students who continue on attend one of the district’s middle and high schools, and families in this attendance area should look ahead at what feeder patterns apply.

The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and no information was available on Title I status, though the high share of students qualifying for meal assistance would typically place it in that category. The district has adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum that began in the 2023-24 school year, which may shift how reading is taught. Montgomery County Public Schools also operates under a sizable budget that constitutes a large portion of the county’s overall spending, and the district is conducting systemwide boundary studies that could eventually affect which schools children attend.

Greencastle Elementary sits within a community that is diverse, transit-connected, and undergoing continued redevelopment. The school itself faces clear academic challenges, and the available data points are limited. Families looking for a more detailed picture of student support services, curriculum structure, and school climate will want to go beyond the numbers and visit, speak with teachers and staff, and learn about recent initiatives the school is pursuing to raise student achievement.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 324%

School 24% · district not reported

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Grade 417%

School 17% · district not reported

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 514%

School 14% · district not reported

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

English language arts

Grade 329%

School 29% · district not reported

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

Grade 438%

School 38% · district not reported

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 531%

School 31% · district not reported

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Science

Grade 510%

School 10% · district not reported

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 18 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-income13%Higher-income34%21 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income11%Higher-income23%12 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income15%Higher-income27%12 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income11%Higher-income25%14 pp gap