Best High Schools in Zip Code 20032

Zip code 20032 in Washington, DC is home to five high schools serving grades 9-12 with a combined enrollment of 2,159 students, ranging from large charter and traditional public schools to a specialized early college program and an alternative school. If you are exploring schools in this area, you will find a mix of bright spots and serious academic challenges, particularly in math. The two top-ranked schools are Friendship PCS – Technology Preparatory High School (#11 of 36) and Bard High School Early College DC (#12 of 36), both earning 4-star ratings. Friendship leads the area in ELA proficiency (35.6%) and also posts the lowest student-teacher ratio (7.6), while Bard DC has the highest graduation rate (91.9%) and the best math proficiency (10.3%). The other two traditional high schools, KIPP DC PCS – Legacy College Preparatory PCS and Ballou High School, rank much lower (#23 and #33) despite spending nearly $35,000 per student.

Graduation rates across these four schools are actually strong, averaging about 89% when you exclude Ballou STAY High School, which serves a distinctly different population as an alternative/STAY program and reports a 19.8% graduation rate. Ballou STAY shares the same address as Ballou High School but has no recent test scores and no ranking, making direct comparisons unfair. The real concern is proficiency: even the best school in the ZIP code, Bard DC, only reaches 31.5% ELA proficiency, and math proficiency is in single digits for almost everyone — KIPP Legacy (2.7%), Ballou HS (3.0%), Friendship (8.1%), and Bard (10.3%). Algebra I proficiency is above the state average only at Bard DC. Meanwhile, per-student spending varies from about $25,000 at Ballou STAY to $34,800 at KIPP Legacy, yet Bard DC spends the least among the main high schools and achieves the best outcomes, showing that higher costs do not guarantee better results.

For parents, the most important takeaway is that ZIP code 20032 offers a few academically solid options — particularly the smaller, specialized schools like Friendship Tech Prep and Bard DC — but overall proficiency is far below the DC state averages (39.6% ELA, 28.2% math). The largest school, KIPP Legacy (646 students), has improved its ranking over time but still struggles with math, while Ballou High School graduates a high percentage of students despite low test scores. The District of Columbia Public Schools operates the two Ballou schools and Bard DC, while Friendship PCS and KIPP DC PCS run the charter options. No free/reduced-price lunch data is available for these schools, but the biggest area for collective improvement is clearly mathematics, where nearly every school needs significant support.