Summary:
In zip code 21215, there is one high school, Frederick Douglass High, which serves 539 students in grades 9-12 and is part of the Baltimore City Public Schools district, a district ranked 24th out of 25 in Maryland.
Frederick Douglass High faces severe academic and attendance challenges. The school spends a high amount per student at $26,525, yet academic outcomes are critically low. In the 2025-2026 school year, only 2.2% of students were proficient in Mathematics, compared to 13.3% for the district and 27.1% for the state. English Language Arts proficiency was 21.4%, also below district and state averages. The school's chronic absenteeism rate is an alarming 84.3%, nearly double the already high district average of 46.4%. This attendance crisis is a primary driver of the school's struggles, as it is extremely difficult for students to succeed academically when they are not regularly in class. The graduation rate is 62.4%, well below the district average of 71.7%, and the dropout rate is 31.5%, meaning nearly one in three students leaves without a diploma.
Despite a relatively low student-teacher ratio of 11.7:1 and high per-pupil spending, the school ranks 209th out of 227 schools in Maryland, placing it in the 8th percentile. The student body is economically disadvantaged, with 86.46% qualifying for free or reduced lunch. While there was a slight improvement in Math proficiency from 0.9% to 2.2% year-over-year, ELA proficiency declined from 24.5% to 21.4%. The data suggests that the school's primary challenges are not simply academic but are deeply rooted in socio-economic factors and chronic absenteeism, indicating a need for intensive wraparound services and attendance interventions to address these root causes before significant academic gains can be expected.
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