The top reported proficiency rate is 17% in English language arts. The lowest is 4% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Springhill Lake Elementary
Springhill Lake Elementary is a regular public school in Greenbelt, Maryland, serving students in prekindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Prince George's County Public Schools district. The school sits in a community with a distinctive origin: Greenbelt was built in the 1930s as a federally planned New Deal town, and that heritage still shapes the place. The original core, known as Old Greenbelt, was designed with superblocks, interior footpaths, and underpasses that connect housing to Roosevelt Center, the commercial and civic hub with a co-op supermarket, a theater, and a cafe. This makes the historic district notably walkable. Outside that core, the city spreads into more conventional suburban development.
The school itself draws from a student body that is largely Hispanic and Black, reflecting the broader demographics of the area. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, which places the school in a high-poverty context. The student population is large for an elementary school, with a full roster across every grade from kindergarten through fifth.
On state assessments administered through the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program, proficiency rates were low across all tested subjects and grades. In English language arts, the share of students scoring proficient or above was modest in third grade and remained at a similar level in fourth and fifth grades. In mathematics, the rates were markedly lower, with a very small fraction of students reaching proficiency in any grade. In science, the rate was also low. These results represent a single year of data, so there is no trend to compare against, but the picture they paint is clear: academic performance as measured by state tests is an area of real challenge for the school.
A parent considering Springhill Lake Elementary will find a school with a high concentration of students in poverty and a student body where a large share are English learners, though exact counts for that population were not available in the data. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. The Prince George's County district, which oversees the school, has implemented a district-wide literacy initiative aligned with the science of reading, a curriculum shift that affects how elementary students are taught. The district also recently completed a boundary review to address overcrowding, which could affect attendance zones.
For a family, the central question is whether the school's support services and instruction can meet the needs of a student in this high-poverty setting. The assessment results suggest that many students are not yet on grade level in reading and especially in math. A parent may want to learn directly from the school about what interventions, tutoring, or extended learning opportunities are available to address these gaps. The school's location in Greenbelt does offer some broader community assets: a county library branch in the center of town, access to a Metro station on the Green and Yellow lines, and nearby employers like NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that anchor the local economy. But for academic outcomes at the elementary level, the data indicates that Springhill Lake has substantial ground to cover.
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