Summary:
Needham, Massachusetts has exactly one public high school — Needham High — serving grades 9 through 12 with 1,633 students at 609 Webster Street, and it operates within the Needham district. Because the city has a single high school, the district's results are essentially the school's results, and comparisons are best made against the school's own history and against Massachusetts averages.
Needham High is a top-tier Massachusetts school. In 2025–2026 it ranked 11th out of 353 high schools, placing it in the 97th percentile, and it has earned a 5-star rating in each of the last three school years. Outcomes are strong: a 99.0% graduation rate and a 0.5% dropout rate in 2024–2025. Proficiency is exceptionally high — 10th-grade Mathematics at 90.78% and English Language Arts at 87.89%, both roughly double the state rates of 43.73% and 45.48%. Biology came in at 74.03% and Science at 72.10%, still well above state averages. The student–teacher ratio is 11.8:1, and per-student spending is listed at $18,921, though that figure is from 2020–2021 and reflects historical context rather than current conditions.
The most notable trend is that the school's lead over the state widened in every subject, even as statewide proficiency fell — and Mathematics rose 6.12 points in a single year, from 84.66% to 90.78%, accompanying a 10-place rank climb. Science and Biology are the school's comparatively weaker subjects, trailing its own Math and ELA results by a consistent margin across both years, though different assessments aren't directly comparable. One important limitation: the free/reduced-price lunch percentage is not reported in this record, so it is not possible to assess how much of this performance reflects the school itself versus its student population. The blank should not be read as zero.
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