Summary:
Shirley, Massachusetts, is served by two public schools — one elementary and one middle school — within the Ayer Shirley School District, together enrolling 767 students, with no high school or alternative school listed for the town in this data set. Lura A. White Elementary School serves grades K–5 with 357 students, and Ayer Shirley Regional Middle School serves grades 6–8 with 410 students. The district as a whole ranked 158 of 351 districts, at the 55th percentile with 3 stars, and its 2025–2026 proficiency rates were 39.39% in ELA, 40.78% in math, and 45.23% in science — slightly below the state in ELA and math, but notably above the state in science (40.98%).
The middle school is the stronger of the two. It ranked 180 of 478 Massachusetts schools — the 62nd percentile — with 3 stars, a rating it has held across all three reported years. Its clearest strengths are science, at 47.20% versus 40.98% statewide, and 8th-grade civics, at 46.77% versus 39.77% statewide. ELA is also above the state at 41.51%, while math trails at 38.64% versus 41.11%. The elementary school, by contrast, sits at the 41st percentile (527 of 899) with 2 stars, having slipped from the 54th percentile and 3 stars three years ago. Its ELA proficiency is 31.72% versus 40.03% statewide, and 4th-grade ELA is the sharpest weak point at 15.38% compared with 37.43% in the state.
Math is a shared weakness: both schools fall below state and district math averages. Both schools also declined in every reported subject from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026; the middle school's science fell from 62.60% to 47.20%, though it remains above the state. The elementary school spends more per student ($19,027 versus $17,653) and has a lower student/teacher ratio (11.5 versus 12.4) without higher results, but many factors are missing — including free/reduced lunch data, which is blank for both schools and limits any fuller equity analysis.
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