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What are the best elementary and middle schools in the DC region?

By Scott Gelman

Several D.C.-area campuses are among the best elementary and middle schools in their respective states, according to the latest set of U.S. News and World Report rankings released this week.

The rankings, which are at the district and state levels and not national, are based on data from the U.S. Department of Education. The publication used state assessment information from the federal agency and applied equal weight to four areas — reading proficiency, reading performance, math proficiency and math performance.

The outlet also used federal socioeconomic data to show which schools are best educating their students, according to LaMont Jones Jr., managing editor for education at U.S. News and World Report.

“They’re doing a good job of not just making sure that their students can perform at a certain level that’s expected on basic proficiency, but that they perform at a higher level, and that they do a good job of educating all the students that they have, regardless of their demographic background, their socioeconomic, their ethnicity, anything,” Jones said.

“They’re doing a good job educating all their students at the highest levels.”

Ocean City Elementary is listed as Maryland’s top elementary school, followed by Pinewood Elementary in Timonium and Benfield Elementary in Severna Park.

Glenarden Woods Elementary in Lanham and Bradley Hills Elementary are ranked at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

In D.C., Ross Elementary is ranked first overall, followed by Janney Elementary and Key Elementary.

Old Donation School in Virginia Beach is ranked as Virginia’s best elementary school, followed by Sangster Elementary in Springfield. Arlington Traditional is ranked No. 4 in the state.

At the middle school level, Alice Deal Middle School ranks first in D.C., followed by Oyster-Adams Bilingual School and Basis DC PCS charter school.

In Maryland, Clarksville Middle in Howard County tops the list. Thomas W. Pyle Middle in Bethesda is ranked third in the state, and Frederick Classical Charter is ranked seventh overall.

Old Donation School in Virginia Beach, which serves academically gifted students in grades three through eight, is ranked as Virginia’s top middle school, followed by St. Paul Elementary in Wise County and Mary G. Porter Traditional in Woodbridge.

Williamsburg Middle in Arlington is No. 4 in the state, and Rocky Run Middle in Chantilly is fifth.

Jones said the outlet recommends that parents and families use the information “as a starting point, not the end-all-be-all on a decision about where to send their child to school.”

“Every family situation is different,” Jones said. “Every child’s situation is different.”

California school district near Nevada caught up in a dispute over transgender athlete policies

By The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Lake Tahoe school district is caught between California and Nevada's competing policies on transgender student athletes, a dispute that's poised to reorder where the district's students compete. High schools in California's Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District, set in a mountainous, snow-prone area near the border with Nevada, have for decades competed in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, or NIAA. That has allowed sports teams to avoid making frequent and potentially hazardous trips in poor winter weather to competitions farther to the west, district officials say. But the Nevada association voted in April to require students in sex-segregated sports programs to play on teams that align with their sex assigned at birth — a departure from a previous approach allowing individual schools to set their own standards. The move raised questions for how the Tahoe-Truckee district would remain in the Nevada association while following California law, which says students can play on teams consistent with their gender identity. Now, California's Department of Education is requiring the district to join the California Interscholastic Federation, or CIF, by the start of next school year.
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