Summary:
The New Britain School District in Connecticut has three middle schools serving grades 6–8 — Pulaski Middle School, Slade Middle School, and House of Arts Letters and Science (HALS) Academy — and the differences between them could hardly be more dramatic. The district overall ranks near the bottom in Connecticut, but that low ranking hides one of the state’s very best middle schools sitting alongside two of its very lowest-performing ones.
HALS Academy is a standout high performer, ranked 3rd out of 258 Connecticut middle schools in 2025-2026, with an average math proficiency of 82% — far above the state average of 43.5% and roughly ten times higher than the other two schools. About 56% of HALS students qualify for free/reduced lunch, yet the school still excels. By contrast, Pulaski Middle School ranks 256th and Slade Middle School ranks 252nd out of 258, with math proficiency at just 8.4% and 9.0%, respectively. Their ELA proficiency rates, 9.8% at Pulaski and 15.3% at Slade, are similarly far below the state average of 51.5%, meaning the academic gap within this single district is massive.
Chronic absenteeism closely tracks these outcomes: Pulaski has a 37.4% chronic absenteeism rate and Slade 27.5%, while HALS comes in at 13.3% — better than the state average. Both low-performing schools did show meaningful improvement in math and ELA from the prior year, which is encouraging, but they remain in the bottom 1–2% statewide. Interestingly, HALS actually spends less per student ($13,315) and has a higher student-teacher ratio than Pulaski or Slade, yet it produces dramatically better results. For parents, this district shows that high achievement is absolutely possible in New Britain, but the experience for a child depends heavily on which of these three schools they attend.
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