Summary:
Zip code 06405 (Branford, CT) is home to just one middle school: Francis Walsh Intermediate School, a public school serving grades 5 through 8 with 775 students as part of the Branford School District. As the only middle school in the area, it serves as the primary option for local families, and it presents a mixed but largely positive profile. The school consistently earns a 3-star rating from SchoolDigger, ranking 113 out of 258 middle schools statewide (56th percentile), which places it slightly above the Connecticut median even though the district itself ranks in the 46th percentile of districts.
Academically, Francis Walsh excels in the early middle school years. In 2025–2026, 5th graders posted strong SBAC proficiency rates of 73.2% in ELA and 57.0% in math, both well above state averages (53.5% and 45.8%, respectively). That performance fades by 8th grade, where ELA proficiency drops to 50.0% (roughly matching the state's 51.1%) and math falls to just 38.7%, below the state average of 41.9%. This represents a 23-point drop in ELA and an 18-point drop in math from 5th to 8th grade, making 8th grade math the school's clearest area of concern. Encouragingly, 5th grade scores improved dramatically year over year, with ELA jumping 12.4 points and math rising 7.3 points.
Attendance is a major strength: the school's chronic absenteeism rate is just 8.9%, well below the district's 10.7% and roughly half the state's 16.4%. The school also benefits from a favorable student-teacher ratio of 10.7:1 and relatively high per-student spending of $19,265. With 42.45% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch, the school serves a moderately high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, yet still outperforms state averages in most grades and subjects. While the school's state percentile has slipped modestly from 62nd to 56th over three years, Francis Walsh remains a solid, above-average middle school option whose main challenge is sustaining its early success through 8th grade.
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