Thomas Stone High School

Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf, MD, is a large public high school serving 1,230 students in grades 9-12 as part of the Charles County Public Schools district, which ranks in the bottom 20% of Maryland districts. The school has a 1-star rating and ranks in the bottom quarter of the state, with 56.4% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.

The most critical concern is the school's math proficiency rate, which is catastrophically low at just 0.6%—far below the district average of 17% and the state average of 27.1%. This is dramatically worse than nearby schools like North Point High School (6% math proficiency) and La Plata High School (5.5% math proficiency). Even struggling schools in neighboring Prince George's County Public Schools, such as Gwynn Park High (8.7% math proficiency), outperform Thomas Stone in math. The school also has an extremely high dropout rate of 11.5%—more than double the district average—and a chronic absenteeism rate of 38.9%, the highest among all Charles County high schools. These factors create a vicious cycle where students who are not in school cannot learn, leading to poor test scores and a higher likelihood of dropping out.

Despite spending $21,315 per student—the highest among its Charles County peers—the school achieves the worst academic and behavioral outcomes. This is a stark contrast to North Point High School, located just 5.23 miles away, which has a 3-star rating, a 20.6% chronic absenteeism rate, and a 69.8% ELA proficiency rate. Thomas Stone's English Language Arts proficiency of 38.9% is below the district average but not an outlier compared to schools like St. Charles High School (36.8%). However, the math scores are in a league of their own in terms of failure, with 0% of students proficient in Algebra I. The school's ranking has declined steadily from the 63rd percentile in 2014-2015 to the 22nd percentile today, indicating a long-term crisis that requires urgent intervention.