North Stonington School District

The North Stonington School District is a small, high-performing district in Connecticut—ranked 30th out of 153 districts with a 4-star rating—serving roughly 723 students across just two schools: North Stonington Elementary School (grades PK-6, 379 students) and Wheeler High School (grades 7-12, 344 students). With no separate middle school or additional campuses, both schools carry the district's academic reputation, and both hold 4-star ratings in the top 20% of their respective school categories.

The elementary school is the district's standout for early math: it ranks 89th out of 491 Connecticut elementary schools, and 3rd and 4th grade math proficiency reached 86.7% and 86.8% respectively, compared with state averages around 52%. ELA proficiency also runs well above state averages across grades 3-6. However, 5th-grade math fell sharply to 54.5% in 2025-2026 before rebounding to 76.5% in 6th grade—a drop that likely reflects a small cohort or data anomaly rather than a systemic problem. Wheeler High School matches that strength at the secondary level, ranking 29th out of 145 high schools with a 94.8% graduation rate, well above the state average of 91.2%. Wheeler's 11th-grade SAT ELA proficiency was 73.7%, roughly 18 points above the state average, and its 8th-grade math proficiency hit 60.7% versus 41.9% statewide.

Spending and class sizes differ noticeably between the two schools: Wheeler spends $20,252 per pupil with a student-teacher ratio of 8.0, while the elementary school spends $16,951 per pupil with a ratio of 10.4. Both schools serve relatively low-poverty populations, with free/reduced-price lunch eligibility at 19.0% for the elementary school and 18.6% at Wheeler. Chronic absenteeism is worth watching at the high school, where 15.7% of students are chronically absent compared with just 9.9% at the elementary school, though Wheeler still sits below the state average of 16.4%. Because the district is so small, year-to-year swings in test scores should be interpreted with some caution—but the overall picture is of a consistently strong district performing in the top 20% of Connecticut.