Middle Schools in Central Berkshire

Middle schools in Central Berkshire serve grades 6–8, and this area summary contains exactly one school: Nessacus Regional Middle School in Dalton, MA, part of the Central Berkshire district. With 353 students and a student-teacher ratio of 11.6 in 2024–2025, it is a modest-sized middle school; per-student spending was $16,499 in 2020–2021. The district overall ranks 140th of 351 districts, at the 60th percentile with 3 stars. The free/reduced lunch percentage is not reported for 2024–2025, so socioeconomic context cannot be assessed from this data set. Because there is only one middle school here, "standout" means standout relative to the district and state rather than to other Central Berkshire middle schools.

Science is this school's clearest strength. In 2025–2026, all-grade science reached 51.69%, above the district's 48.26% and 10.71 points above the state's 40.98%; 8th-grade science was 51.69% against a state figure of 38.93%, a 12.76-point advantage. Science also improved year over year, from 50.43% to 51.69%. English Language Arts is strong as well: 48.04% all grades versus 45.56% for the district and 40.03% for the state, an 8.01-point edge. Sixth-grade ELA (52.38%) and 7th-grade ELA (48.67%) are both well above their state comparatives, though 8th-grade ELA sits only 1.16 points above the state. Notably, ELA slipped 4.47 points from the prior year.

Mathematics is the main relative weakness. All-grade math was 38.10%, which is 6.13 points below the district (44.23%) and 3.01 points below the state (41.11%), and every grade level trails the state — 6th grade 41.60% vs. 42.59%, 7th grade 35.40% vs. 37.48%, and 8th grade 36.97% vs. 41.67%. Math also fell 4.25 points year over year. Eighth-grade civics at 38.79% is above the district's 37.50% but slightly below the state's 39.77%, and it improved slightly. The school's rank percentile moved from 57 to 69 to 65 across the last three years while holding 3 stars, keeping it above the median.