The top reported proficiency rate is 35% in English language arts. The lowest is 21% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Eastern Elementary
Eastern Elementary is a regular public school in Hagerstown, Maryland, serving grades three through five as part of Washington County Public Schools. It sits in a city that functions as the commercial and industrial heart of a tri-state area, with a historic downtown walkable core and a broader landscape shaped by interstates and suburban development. The Hagerstown metropolitan area has been among the fastest-growing in Maryland, though specific new housing projects were not identified in publicly available records. Housing values in the school’s zip code sit around the national median, and rents have been rising. For many families, the cost of renting is slightly more affordable than a mortgage payment at current interest rates.
Washington County Public Schools, the only school district in the county, is in the early stages of implementing the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a multiyear state education reform law that has expanded pre-K access, raised teacher salaries, and broadened career and technical programs. The district also approved an elementary redistricting plan taking effect in the 2025-2026 school year, redrawing attendance boundaries primarily in the Hagerstown area to balance enrollment across schools. Voters have approved a school construction bond that will fund a new elementary school and major renovations to existing buildings, a long-term investment in facilities.
Eastern Elementary enrolls a moderate number of students for a grade three-to-five school, with roughly comparable class sizes across the three grades. The student body is diverse: the largest single racial group is Black, followed closely by white students, then Hispanic students, with a substantial share of multiracial students and small numbers of Asian and Native American students. More than four out of five students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating a high concentration of low-income households. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available, so those dimensions of the student body cannot be described here. No information was returned on discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, or staffing ratios, which are gaps a parent may want to explore directly with the school.
On Maryland’s statewide assessments, administered through the MCAP for math and English language arts and the MISA for science, proficiency rates at Eastern Elementary fell below what many families would consider strong. In math, roughly one in five students scored at or above the proficient level across grades three, four, and five, with the lowest rate among fifth graders. In English language arts, about one in three students met the proficiency bar, with a slightly higher share in fourth grade and roughly the same in fifth. In fifth-grade science, about one in five students reached proficiency. Because only one year of data was available, there is no trend to report on whether performance is improving or declining. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to evaluate.
Eastern Elementary is an institution serving a high-poverty population in a growing but largely auto-oriented city, within a district undergoing major reforms and boundary changes. The academic results are a soft spot; a parent considering this school would want to look into the school’s approach to instruction and intervention, particularly in math and science, and ask about supports for students who are not yet meeting grade-level expectations. The district’s Blueprint implementation and new bond-funded facilities may bring resources and improvements over time, but for now the test score picture is modest. Families who value a diverse, urban-location elementary school that feeds into a reforming district may find it worth investigating further, with an eye on the upcoming redistricting to know which middle school follows.
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