Where Calvert County students shine, they shine. High school government students have finished first in Maryland for the fourth straight year, 30 points above the state. Where they are stuck, the school board did not hesitate to ask why.
Calvert County Public Schools officials gave the Board of Education the district’s 2026 MCAP results in science and social studies at its most recent meeting, and the numbers lean heavily in the district’s favor. The one exception is eighth-grade science, which did not move.
Science: a big jump in grade 5
Calvert outperformed the state on all three science assessments, presented by Elementary Supervisor of Science Janelle McPhillips:
- Grade 5: ranked second of 24 districts, 12 points above the state. Proficiency rose 9 points, and every Calvert elementary school beat the statewide grade 5 average.
- Grade 8: ranked sixth, 10 points above the state.
- High school life science: ranked fourth, 17 points above the state. Proficiency rose 7 points to 65%, the highest in four years.
African-American students, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students improved on all three assessments over 2025. Calvert ranked in the top quarter of Maryland districts on each. The district’s Aug. 3 release put grade 5 at 44.4% proficient, against 32.4% statewide, and grade 8 at 40.8%, against 30.9%.
Eighth grade: flat at 41%
Proficiency in eighth-grade science stayed at about 41%. Board member Lisa Grenis asked what is holding the grade back and what will change. McPhillips said staff are unhappy with the stagnant score, which tracks a similar trend statewide. “We’re also kind of scratching our heads wondering how they’re so similar,” she said. She noted the test covers standards from grades six, seven and eight, with different standards emphasized each year, and called proficiency a high bar. Staff are focusing on getting students back to lab stations and on science and engineering practices.
Scott McComb, the district’s director of system and instruction performance, said reasoning in science cannot be assessed at a desk. The state is trying to measure whether students can explain why a phenomenon happens, he said, and that takes hands-on work followed by writing.
Social studies: first for the fourth year
McComb presented the social studies results:
- Government (high school): ranked first in Maryland for the fourth straight year, 30 points above the state.
- Grade 8: ranked fourth, 17 points above the state.
Every student group, including students with disabilities, students with 504 plans, Hispanic students and African-American students, gained in social studies, McComb said. None stayed flat or fell. The same was true in government. The weak point for some students is the written portion, which requires analyzing sources and writing from them, he said. Students with disabilities can struggle with academic vocabulary and written expression, so staff are adding practice in both.
Asked whether the tests are the same as before COVID, McComb said the government exam has been essentially unchanged since before the pandemic. The eighth-grade social studies test became fully operational after COVID, so the district has only about four years of data. In science, the test format is the same, but the standards assessed change from year to year, and the state made a change after COVID that prevents direct comparison with earlier results. McPhillips said scores are “getting back” to where they were.
What’s next
The district will concentrate on content knowledge and explicit reasoning, retrieval and long-term retention, and using assessment evidence to adjust instruction. It also plans to continue using claim-evidence-reasoning writing in science and to build more writing across subjects. Staff said they are preparing for the state’s move to M-STAR, expected in the 2027-28 school year, and will keep using the Panorama tool to track student progress.
Board member Mike Harrison asked about students who are not proficient. McComb said that is why the district is putting attention on written expression and source analysis for all students, particularly those with disabilities.
