Summary:
The Howard County Public Schools district includes 14 high schools serving grades 9-12 (with Homewood School serving grades 6-12), located in a highly ranked Maryland district that holds the 4th position out of 25 districts statewide and earns a 4-star rating.
The district shows a clear divide between top-performing and struggling schools. River Hill High leads as the academic standout with the highest state ranking (11th out of 227), 93.3% ELA proficiency, 49.4% math proficiency, and the lowest chronic absenteeism rate at 13.6%. Marriotts Ridge High follows closely with a top-20 state ranking and 89.5% ELA proficiency. At the other end, Wilde Lake High, Oakland Mills High, and Long Reach High form a cluster of underperformance with 2-star ratings, math proficiency under 15%, and chronic absenteeism rates between 28-38%. Homewood School is a unique outlier as a specialized program with only 109 students, extremely high per-student spending ($81,791), and a 36.3% graduation rate, serving students with significant needs.
Key metrics reveal math as a district-wide challenge, with even top schools showing math proficiency below 50% and Algebra I end-of-course scores in single digits for most schools. Chronic absenteeism strongly correlates with lower performance, as schools with the highest rates also have the lowest test scores and graduation rates. Notably, higher spending does not guarantee better outcomes—the lowest-performing traditional schools have the highest per-student spending, while top performers like River Hill and Marriotts Ridge have some of the lowest. Hammond High and Atholton High show notable improvement, with Hammond rising from a 2-star to 3-star rating and Atholton moving from 3-star to 4-star over the past two years.
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