The top reported proficiency rate is 73% in English language arts. The lowest is 28% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Matapeake Middle School
Matapeake Middle School, located in the Stevensville area of Kent Island, serves grades six through eight for Queen Anne’s County Public Schools. The school sits in a community that blends a residential suburb with a historic downtown along the Chesapeake Bay. Stevensville is a steadily growing commuter town, connected to the western shore by the Bay Bridge, with a mix of young professionals and long-term residents. Housing values in the area are above state and national medians, and the median household income is well above the national average. The historic downtown has restaurants, shops, and art venues, though the school like most civic institutions sits on its own campus away from that center. The broader community is car-dependent, with most residents commuting to the Baltimore-Annapolis-Washington corridor.
Matapeake Middle serves a student body that is predominantly white, with a smaller share of Hispanic students and very small populations of Black, Asian, multiracial, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a share that is moderate and aligns with the area’s above-average income profile. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. Data on special education and English learner populations was not available in the record.
On state assessments, the school shows a clear split in performance between English language arts and math. ELA proficiency rates are strong across all three grades, with the sixth grade rate especially high and seventh and eighth grades also well above the midpoint of what one would expect. The overall ELA proficiency rate is about what many families would consider a solid result. Math is a different story. Proficiency rates in math decline from sixth to eighth grade, and the overall math proficiency rate is notably lower. This is a consistent soft spot across all three grades. Science, tested in eighth grade only, sits roughly in the middle: about half of students met the proficiency bar. Social studies, also tested in eighth grade, was a little better, with a majority proficient. The gap between ELA and math performance is wide, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly around how math instruction and support are structured as students move through the middle grades.
Because the county has only one school district, there is no set of county peers to compare this school against. The data does not provide a multi-year trend beyond the single year available, so it is not possible to say whether this performance level is stable, improving, or declining. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report.
The district itself has no recent major changes reported in the record. A parent looking for a full picture of the academic pathway here would want to understand how Matapeake Middle feeds into the high school and what advanced or support options exist at the next level, but the data on programs and course access at this school was not available.
Matapeake Middle offers a reading program that appears to work well for most students. The math results are the main thing a family would want to investigate. The school is part of a growing, relatively affluent Eastern Shore commuter community, and its student body reflects that demographic. For a family weighing this school, the peer environment, community setting, and ELA outcomes are clear positives, while the math performance is the open question.
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