Summary:
In zip code 20747, there is one middle school, Drew-Freeman Middle, serving grades 6 through 8 in District Heights, Maryland, as part of the Prince George's County Public Schools district.
Drew-Freeman Middle is a large school with 1,022 students, and it faces significant academic challenges. The school has consistently ranked in the bottom 11% of Maryland middle schools for the past three years. Academic proficiency rates are very low: only 5.2% of students are proficient in math, 22.2% in English Language Arts, and 4.2% in science. These scores are far below both the district and state averages. A concerning trend is that English proficiency drops as students get older, from 25.1% in 6th grade to 17.8% in 8th grade, suggesting the school struggles to build literacy skills through middle school.
Despite the low test scores, there are a few positive signs. The school's chronic absenteeism rate of 17.5% is notably lower than the district average of 30.2%, indicating that most students are attending class regularly. Additionally, there has been a slight year-over-year improvement in both math and English proficiency. The school spends $19,355 per student, a high amount that does not currently translate into strong academic results, likely due to the profound challenges of serving a population where 96.58% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. This combination of high poverty and low performance points to deep systemic challenges that require community-wide solutions.
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