Huntingtown High School is Calvert County’s top-ranked public high school in U.S. News & World Report’s newly released 2026-2027 Best High Schools rankings, placing 36th among Maryland’s high schools and No. 1,771 nationally. Northern High School followed as the county’s second-highest finisher, ranking 45th in Maryland and No. 2,103 nationally. The rankings were published Aug. 18, 2026.
The new edition marks a substantial expansion of U.S. News’s methodology. The outlet evaluated roughly 27,000 eligible public high schools nationwide and ranked nearly 18,000 of them, with 275 Maryland schools placing in the state field this cycle, produced in partnership with the research firm RTI International using data from the 2023-2024 school year. Rankings are built from six weighted factors: college readiness accounts for 30% of a school’s score, state assessment proficiency and state assessment performance each account for 20%, and underserved-student performance, college curriculum breadth, and graduation rate each account for 10%.
Calvert County’s two remaining comprehensive high schools, Calvert High School in Prince Frederick and Patuxent High School in Lusby, did not place among Maryland’s newly published top 50. In the prior edition of the rankings, Patuxent had placed 123rd and Calvert High 141st out of roughly 212 ranked Maryland schools, but those figures predate the August update and this article could not confirm where either school landed in the new, larger field; U.S. News’s own site blocked automated verification, and no secondary source reviewed reported their updated individual ranks.
The four comprehensive high schools differ in age and origin. Calvert High has operated under its current name since 1963, after moving from an earlier site along Maryland Routes 2 and 4; in 1965, desegregation merged Brooks High School, the county’s former all-Black high school, into Calvert High. Northern High School, in Owings, was founded in 1973 and enrolled 1,478 students as of the 2024-25 school year. Huntingtown High School opened in 2004 along North Solomons Island Road. Patuxent High School, established in 1996 in Lusby, draws students from the surrounding Cove Point, Chesapeake Ranch Estates, Drum Point and Solomons communities.
Beyond the four comprehensive schools, Calvert County Public Schools operates three specialized or alternative campuses that fall outside the U.S. News rankings entirely. The Career and Technology Academy shares a campus with Calvert High School in Prince Frederick and draws students bused in from all four comprehensive high schools for career and technical coursework, including health professions, automotive service, carpentry and computer programming. The district also runs the Calvert County Alternative School, based in Prince Frederick, and Calvert Country School, also in Prince Frederick, which is federally classified as a special education school and enrolled 40 students with a staff of 12 teachers during the 2024-25 school year.
Districtwide, Calvert County Public Schools served 15,179 students during the 2024-25 school year under Superintendent Dr. Andraé Townsel. The district lists 25 total schools: four high schools, six middle schools and either 12 or 13 elementary schools, depending on which district-affiliated source is consulted, alongside the specialized campuses. It is governed by a six-member Board of Education, five of whom are elected countywide in nonpartisan elections, plus one student member elected by the Calvert Association of Student Councils; the elected board currently includes President Antoine S. White, Vice President Inez N. Claggett, and members Dawn C. Balinski, Lisa M. Grenis and Jana L. Smith-Post.
