The top reported proficiency rate is 32% in English language arts. The lowest is 7% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on George Washington Carver Elementary
George Washington Carver Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the St. Mary's County Public Schools system. It is located in Great Mills, a primarily residential suburban community in southern Maryland that functions largely as a bedroom community for nearby Lexington Park and the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Great Mills has no formal downtown or local government; its built environment consists of residential subdivisions, small strip shopping centers along Great Mills Road, and countryside to the south. The naval air station is the dominant employer, drawing military personnel and civilian defense employees who seek off-base housing. Public transit and a dedicated library branch within Great Mills were not identified in available sources, though county-level services may fill those gaps. The community is described as rapidly developing, with apartment rents essentially flat over the past year and traditional farming, fishing, and crabbing communities under economic pressure.
The school itself has a moderate enrollment for an elementary school, serving students from the immediate area. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The student body is predominantly Black and Hispanic, with a smaller white population and a notable share of students who identify as two or more races; Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaska Native students are present in very small numbers. The school does not serve high school grades, so outcomes such as graduation rate and college readiness do not apply here.
Data on academic performance comes from the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) for math and English language arts, and the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment (MISA) for science, administered in grades three through five. Across tested subjects and grade levels, proficiency rates were generally below what many families would consider strong or typical. In math, the share of students meeting the state proficiency standard varied by grade: roughly one in three third graders reached that level, while about one in seven fourth graders and one in four fifth graders did. In English language arts, results were somewhat higher—around one in three students in grades three and four, and about one in four in grade five. Science results for fifth graders were very low, with a small fraction of students scoring proficient. These are single-year results from the 2024-25 school year, and no earlier data was available to show trends over time. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how the school is working to improve, as the district brief found little of lasting impact or recent strategic changes publicly reported.
The comparison frame available—relative to districts in St. Mary's County—could not produce meaningful context because only one school district exists in the county, so there is no peer set to situate the school against. Housing values in the zip code that serves the school sit near the national benchmark, with typical rents that absorb a substantial share of a median household income. The national unemployment rate has held steady in recent months, and mortgage rates have been moderately elevated.
No information was available on program offerings, special education or English learner rates, discipline, staffing, attendance, or magnet or Title I status, so those aspects cannot be described here. For families considering this school, the most concrete picture available is one of a high-poverty elementary school in a car-dependent military-adjacent community, where state assessment results fall well below what most parents would hope for, and where the school district has not publicly highlighted recent initiatives or changes.
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