Montgomery County schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor has set ambitious goals for the state’s largest school district: By 2035, he says, every campus should score the equivalent of a four- or five-star rating on the Maryland School Report Card.

The latest results show there’s a long way to go — but the district is inching in the right direction.

New ratings were released Tuesday during a state school board meeting, giving parents and community members a sense of every campus’s overall performance on a scale of one to five stars.

The scores are calculated based on state standardized test scores, with attendance, student surveys and graduation rates also factored in.

Here are four takeaways from Montgomery County Public Schools’ performance.

More schools earned 4 or 5 stars

Montgomery County had 93 schools earn four stars, while 18 campuses scored a five, based on 2024-25 school year data.

That’s about 54% of all its campuses.

In the previous year’s ratings, exactly half of schools earned four or five stars. The increase was driven by eight more campuses scoring a four.

“We celebrate this strong momentum and the incredible work of our students and educators. And our commitment doesn’t waver: we will keep pushing until 100% of our schools reach 4 stars and above,” Superintendent Thomas Taylor said in a statement.

3 schools earned 1 star

Montgomery County saw a few schools fall to the lowest level.

In 2024, a single school earned one star: Longview School, which serves students with severe disabilities.

Longview was joined in 2025 by two other campuses, which also serve students with disabilities. The John L. Gildner Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents and the Carl Sandburg Learning Center each scored one star.

Both those schools earned two stars last year. They are among the roughly 9% of campuses statewide that decreased by one star level.

Montgomery schools faired better than average

Across Maryland, about 86% of schools earned three stars or higher.

In Montgomery County, roughly 96% did so.

This is to be expected, considering the district outperforms the state in reading and math on the annual standardized test, called the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program.

Bethesda and Potomac schools earned top marks

Most of the schools to earn five stars in Montgomery County were elementary schools, with Wayside Elementary in Potomac and Bannockburn Elementary in Bethesda leading the pack.

Walt Whitman High, also in Bethesda, was the top-performing secondary school, with Winston Churchill in Potomac coming just behind.

No middle school earned five stars, but Bethesda’s Thomas W. Pyle Middle came closest.