Summary:
In zip code 20814 (Bethesda, MD), there is one elementary school, Bethesda Elementary, serving grades K-5 as part of the highly-rated Montgomery County Public Schools district.
Bethesda Elementary is a top-tier school with consistently strong academic performance. Its test scores in Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) far exceed both the Montgomery County district and Maryland state averages. For example, in the most recent school year, 61.5% of students were proficient in Math, which is more than double the state average of 27.1%. The school has a strong ranking history, placing in the top 15% of Maryland elementary schools, though its ranking has slipped slightly from the 94th percentile (5 stars) in 2023-2024 to the 87th percentile (4 stars) in 2025-2026. This decline is not due to falling scores—which remain high—but because other schools are improving at a faster pace.
The school benefits from substantial resources, spending $18,907 per student, and has a relatively low percentage of students receiving free/reduced lunch (25.27%). Chronic absenteeism is also low at 16.6%, compared to the district average of 22.6%. While overall performance is excellent, there are a few areas of note: 4th-grade ELA scores (58.8%) are lower than 3rd and 5th grades, suggesting a potential challenge at that level. Additionally, Science proficiency (51.9% in 5th grade), while above average, is the school's weakest subject relative to its own high Math and ELA scores.
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