Hawthorne Elementary

Hawthorne Elementary is a public school in Baltimore, MD, serving 499 students from Pre-K through 5th grade as part of the Baltimore County Public Schools district, where over 83% of students come from low-income households. The school faces significant challenges, with a 1-star rating and academic performance that has consistently ranked in the bottom 10% of Maryland elementary schools over the past decade.

The most critical issue at Hawthorne is extreme chronic absenteeism, which stood at 41.9% for the 2024-2025 school year—far higher than the district average of 25.6% and more than double the rates at nearby schools like Orems Elementary (16.1%) and Middleborough Elementary (20.2%). This attendance crisis directly impacts learning, with only 12.2% of students proficient in Math and 19.7% in English Language Arts—roughly half the already-low district averages. In contrast, Orems Elementary, located just 1.6 miles away and serving a similar high-poverty population, achieves 2-3 times higher proficiency rates with much better attendance.

Despite spending $22,100 per student—higher than the district average and many peers—Hawthorne's results lag behind lower-spending schools like Middleborough ($18,218). However, there is a glimmer of hope: chronic absenteeism has dropped from a peak of 63.5% in 2022-2023 to 41.9% in 2024-2025, and Math proficiency has doubled from 6% to 12.2% over the same period. This suggests that efforts to improve attendance may be starting to yield positive academic results, though the school still has a long way to go to match the performance of nearby schools like Sussex Elementary or Sandalwood Elementary.