Summary:
Zip code 21853 in Princess Anne, Maryland, is home to two elementary schools—Greenwood Elementary School (grades 2-5) and Princess Anne Elementary School (Pre-K through 1st grade)—that together form a natural feeder pattern within the Somerset County Public Schools district, which is ranked near the bottom of Maryland.
These two schools serve a high-poverty community, with over 82% of students at each school qualifying for free or reduced lunch. A key difference is resource allocation: Princess Anne Elementary, which focuses on early education, spends $23,293 per student and has a lower student-teacher ratio of 13.4:1, while Greenwood Elementary spends $21,434 per student with a ratio of 15.1:1. This creates a discontinuity where younger students receive more intensive support before transitioning to larger classes. Academic performance is a major challenge at Greenwood Elementary, the only school with test data. While it outperforms the district in Mathematics (15.6% proficient vs. 12.1%), it lags behind in English Language Arts (26.4% vs. 34%) and Science (9.1% vs. 13%). Chronic absenteeism is a systemic crisis, affecting 30.5% of students at Greenwood and 33.9% at Princess Anne—meaning nearly one in three students is chronically absent, which likely drives the low test scores.
Despite high per-student spending (over $21,000 at both schools), academic outcomes remain critically low, suggesting funds are directed toward addressing the intense needs of a high-poverty population rather than directly boosting test scores. For parents, this area offers a clear educational path from early childhood through upper elementary, but the data reveals significant hurdles: high poverty, severe absenteeism, and academic performance that falls well below state averages. Greenwood Elementary shows relative strength in Math compared to its district, but both schools face an uphill battle in a district ranked 23rd out of 25 in Maryland.
Thank you for your feedback!