Maree Garnett Farring Elementary/Middle

Maree Garnett Farring Elementary/Middle is a public PK-8 school in the Brooklyn area of Baltimore, MD, serving 717 students as part of the Baltimore City Public Schools district, where it faces significant academic challenges but has shown some promising signs of improvement.

Academically, the school performs below both district and state averages, with overall math proficiency at 14.3% and ELA at 23.8% in the 2025-2026 school year. However, a notable bright spot is the middle school ELA program: 6th graders achieved 38% proficiency, outperforming the district average and even surpassing nearby schools like Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle (43%) and Lakeland Elementary/Middle (53.3%) in that specific grade. This suggests effective instruction in middle school reading. In contrast, science proficiency is critically low, with only 4.2% of 5th graders and 10.7% of 8th graders meeting standards—roughly one-third of the already-low district averages. The school also spends a substantial $21,800 per student, higher than the high-performing Thomas Johnson Elementary/Middle ($18,188), indicating that funding alone hasn't yet translated into strong outcomes.

Chronic absenteeism, a major challenge, has improved dramatically from a peak of 57.8% in 2021-2022 to 32.4% in 2024-2025—a 25.4 percentage point drop that now places it significantly better than the district average (46.4%) and second-lowest among nearby PK-8 schools. This improvement is a positive sign for school engagement. While the school's state ranking has risen from the 5th percentile to the 14th percentile, it remains in the bottom 15% of Maryland elementary schools. The proximity of Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle, just 2.26 miles away, which achieves much higher scores (37.4% math, 60% ELA) with a lower poverty rate, shows that significant improvement is possible, but Farring still has a long way to go in math and science.