Cashell Elementary vs College Gardens Elementary

Cashell Elementary holds a narrow but meaningful edge over College Gardens Elementary in overall rating — 9.6 versus 9.3 out of 10, a 0.3-point gap — and that delta sharpens considerably when viewed against the full Maryland pool. Cashell Elementary ranks #7 of 1,363 schools statewide while College Gardens Elementary ranks #29 of 1,363, a 22-position difference that places both schools firmly in Maryland's top tier, but leaves no ambiguity about which sits higher.

On academic performance, Cashell Elementary scores 9.6 versus College Gardens Elementary's 9.3 — a concrete three-tenths separation that reflects differences in measured proficiency rather than rounding noise. Growth scores tell a different story: both Cashell Elementary and College Gardens Elementary post identical 9.5 out of 10, meaning students at both schools make comparable year-over-year learning gains regardless of their starting point. The academic gap, in other words, is an entry-level difference, not a trajectory difference.

Cashell Elementary enrolls 342 students versus College Gardens Elementary's 506 — 164 fewer students in the building on any given day. That smaller footprint pairs with a student-teacher ratio of 12.2:1 at Cashell versus 14.9:1 at College Gardens, a 2.7-student gap per classroom on average. The free and reduced-price lunch population is 28% at Cashell Elementary and 39% at College Gardens Elementary, an 11-point difference that reflects the somewhat more economically diverse community College Gardens serves.

Both Cashell Elementary and College Gardens Elementary serve grades PK through 5 and sit 4.8 miles apart within Rockville, making them direct geographic alternatives for families in the area. No specialized magnet programs, language immersion tracks, or distinctive grade-level configurations differentiate the two schools based on available data — the meaningful distinctions are in class size and the academic rating margin rather than structural program differences.