Summary:
Zip code 06410 in Cheshire, CT is served by six public schools in the Cheshire School District, covering kindergarten through 12th grade for roughly 4,077 students. This is a highly regarded district, ranked 16th out of 153 Connecticut districts with a 5-star rating, and every school here outperforms state averages by wide margins.
The crown jewel is Dodd Middle School, currently ranked 13th out of 258 middle schools (95th percentile) with strong ELA, math, and science scores. Among elementary schools, Highland School is the largest and highest-ranked, though its ranking has slipped from the 96th to the 90th percentile over three years. Norton School boasts the district's best attendance (3.3% chronic absenteeism) and excellent ELA scores, but has a weak spot in 5th grade math. Chapman School has improved to the 87th percentile, while Doolittle School remains solid but is the lowest-ranked school, still sitting at the 84th percentile.
The most notable concern is at Cheshire High School, where chronic absenteeism is 14.7%—nearly double the district average and close to the state average—even though graduation rates are excellent at 97.1%. Across the district, absenteeism roughly triples from elementary to high school. Math scores also show some grade-to-grade inconsistency, especially in the elementary schools, though they remain above state levels. Spending and staffing favor secondary schools, with lower student-teacher ratios at the high school and middle school. Overall, this is a uniformly strong district; the main challenges are rising absenteeism at older grades and recent ranking slippage at Highland and Norton.
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