Howard County has some of the BEST Schools in the State and Country!
Howard County Schools make up a network of 72 schools with total enrollment of almost 50,000 students. The community consist of 274,000 people and contains some 39 elementary, 18 middle and 12 high schools along with two special schools and one school that combines the elementary and middle schools. Howard County is located midway between Washington DC and Baltimore along I95 and the community consist of a good mix of old and new with areas of urban and rural neighborhoods nestled amount historical areas and newer communities.
In 2010 Columbia/ Ellicott City was ranked #2 on Money magazine’s list of Best Places to Live and the listed “excellent schools” as one of the reasons.
In addition, in July 2007 Forbes magazine listed the Howard County Public School System in the top 10 school districts in the nation for providing the best public education for the price.
In 2010, 99.7% of the High School students met the High School Assessment over 73% of the students took the SAT in 09/10 with mean scores of 541 in Critical Reading, 557 in Math and 541 in Writing. Over 90% of the HoCo graduates went on to continue their education with 63% attending 4 year colleges/universities.
Howard County is very diverse with over 2000 students involved in the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) representing 61 different languages and 78 different countries. The schools also have a variety of programs Gifted and Talented Education with about 40% of the students in grades in K to 12 participating.