The top reported proficiency rate is 17% in English language arts. The lowest is 6% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Highland Park Elementary
Highland Park Elementary sits in Landover, a sprawling, auto-oriented suburban community in Prince George’s County. Landover is more a collection of subdivisions—Ardwick Park, Kentland, Dodge Park, and others—than a single town with a downtown. Its landscape mixes residential streets with major commercial and industrial anchors: the Northwest Stadium, Giant Food’s corporate headquarters and plant, and the former Landover Mall site, which closed and was demolished, leaving a gap in the retail fabric. Metro’s Orange, Blue, and Silver lines serve the area, providing transit access to Washington, D.C., but the street network is built around highways and arterials.
Highland Park is a regular public elementary school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade. The student body is small and almost entirely composed of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Demographically, the school serves a student population that is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic enrollment and very few white or multiracial students. This peer environment reflects the surrounding residential area.
On the 2024-25 Maryland state assessments, achievement was low. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above was in the single digits across third, fourth, and fifth grades. In English language arts, the proficiency rate was higher than in math but still in the teens; the third-grade result was reported as a range rather than a single figure. In fifth-grade science, proficiency was similarly low. These are soft spots of a significant magnitude. A parent may want to discuss with the school what academic interventions and supports are in place and how the school monitors student progress. Only one year of state test data was available, so there is no pattern to compare against.
The school operates within Prince George’s County Public Schools, a large district that recently increased its operating budget and launched a system-wide literacy initiative built around the science of reading. The district also conducted a boundary review in 2024 that could alter attendance zones starting in the 2025-2026 school year. A family should confirm which school their address currently feeds into, particularly if a redistricting change is pending.
Housing in the zip code area that includes Highland Park is modestly priced relative to national and state benchmarks, though the local market showed a slight year-over-year decline in home values. Rent has been rising, and the ratio of rent to income is moderate, reflecting an area where housing costs are a meaningful portion of household budgets. Landover itself has been in transition, with the old mall site awaiting redevelopment and planning efforts underway for new housing and commercial spaces near the Morgan Boulevard Metro station.
For a family considering Highland Park, the core takeaway is a small elementary school in a suburban setting where the academic proficiency numbers are a concern and where a large majority of students come from low-income households. The strength here is the potential for close relationships in a small school; a parent will want to look into the specific academic support structures and how the new district-wide reading initiative is being implemented at this school.
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