Maryland Traditional Public Schools
Most children (66% of all K-12 students) in Maryland attend traditional public schools. Traditional public schools are free to attend, open to all students, operated by school districts, and funded by taxpayers like you. Did you know Maryland spends an average of $16,417 per public school student each year? You can search your school’s spending and that of nearby schools at Project Nickel.
Most states have some form of open enrollment. This refers to whether parents can send their child to a public school other than their assigned school. Open enrollment is an important choice, expanding parents’ options and ensuring that zip code isn’t the sole determiner of their education. Unfortunately, Maryland only offers public open enrollment in a few circumstances. For example, a student may be able to request a school transfer if they move during the school year, if they are a child of an employee at the school they wish to transfer into, or if a health professional recommends a different school environment.
For a real-world example of the transfer process, check out the “Change of School Assignment Booklet” for Montgomery Public Schools, Maryland’s largest district.
Find out more about public schools in your state at the Maryland State Department of Education. You can learn more about Maryland open enrollment at “Public Schools Without Boundaries: A 50 State Report.”
Maryland Charter Schools
You can also choose charter schools. 2.4% of all K-12 students attend a public charter school in Maryland. Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that have extra freedom to innovate with curriculum and learning methods. Maryland has about 50 charter schools that parents can choose from.
Each school has a charter which explains the school’s purpose and what specific community need it serves. That could be providing a Spanish immersion program or offering a rigorous STEAM curriculum. If there are more families seeking admittance to a charter school than there are seats, a lottery system is usually used to determine admittance. In Maryland, charter school lotteries are usually held at the beginning of the calendar year.
For more information on charter schools in your state, check out the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools.
Maryland Private Schools
As you may know, private schools are nonpublic schools that charge tuition. Maryland has a variety of private schools, both religious and non-religious: There are more than 800 private schools across the state.
Tuition varies widely, but the average in the state is $13,524 for elementary schools and $17,815 for high schools. Maryland has one private school choice program, the Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today (BOOST) Program, which provides state-run educational scholarships for families under a certain income level. More than 3,200 (0.3%) Maryland students took advantage of this program in the 2021-2022 school year.
Additional support may be available. For example, the Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust partners with 18 private schools to provide admissions and financial support to high-achieving African American students in the Baltimore area. Also, the federal government allows parents to save for K-12 private school tuition using tax-preferred 529 savings accounts.
Learn more at Children’s Scholarship Fund-Baltimore, the Abell Foundation, Knott Scholarship Funds, Partners in Excellence, the Maryland Council for American Private Education, the Maryland Catholic Conference, and Private School Review: Maryland.
Maryland Online Learning
Online learning is sometimes overlooked, but it offers a uniquely flexible learning environment. For example, some families use this flexibility to accelerate learning. Meanwhile, others use it to provide a quieter, stress-free environment for learning. Whatever the reason, you may want to try online learning.
Unfortunately, Maryland does not currently have its own free, full-time online learning program available to students statewide. But, there are paid, full-time online school options available to families in all 50 states, Maryland included. Some of these paid providers are George Washington University Online High School, The Keystone School, Excel High School, and K12 Private Academy.
A local online option Maryland families can choose for a fee is Bryn Mawr Online, an AIMS-accredited, NCAA-approved, and AP-authorized online school for girls. The school is an outgrowth of Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, which is ranked as the number one college prep school in Maryland.
Also worth mentioning is that students in select Maryland districts, like Baltimore City Public Schools and Montgomery County Public Schools, can access district-run online learning for free. In addition, the Eastern Shore of Maryland Blended Virtual Program offers a blended learning program to public school students in grades 6-12 in certain Maryland districts. These include: Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne’s County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County and Worcester County public schools. Finally, students in some districts can take part-time courses through their school and Maryland Virtual Learning Opportunities.
To read more about online learning in Maryland, check out the Digital Learning Collaborative’s state profile.
Maryland Microschools and Mix-and-Match Learning
Today, some Maryland families are mixing and matching school options to come up with new ways to personalize education. Microschools are one of these ways. A microschool refers to students gathering together in a small group – with adult supervision – to learn, explore, and socialize. Microschools can take a variety of shapes and legal forms, from homeschoolers coming together at an enrichment center to a private school committed to small classrooms. What microschools share in common is a commitment to small-group learning and close-knit relationships, along with an emphasis on children as individual learners.
Here are a couple of real examples of microschools in Maryland:
Montessori Luna is a bilingual Montessori school in Pikesville with a nature-inspired program.
Mysa Microschool in nearby Washington, D.C. offers place-based education with crowdsourced curriculum from around the world.
Remember, microschooling is more a mentality than a specific legal distinction in most cases. Often, a family participates in a microschool while legally homeschooling, or being enrolled in a private or online school.
