Summary:
Gloucester has just one middle school serving grades 6 through 8: Ralph B O'Maley Middle, located at 32 Cherry Street with 619 students in the Gloucester district. Because it is the only middle school in the city, there are no in-city school-to-school comparisons; the most useful benchmarks for parents are how the school compares with its district and with Massachusetts as a whole.
Academically, Ralph B O'Maley Middle generally outperforms the Gloucester district in English Language Arts and in recent Mathematics results, but trails the state in most tested subjects. Its clearest strength is 7th grade ELA, where 40.63% of students were proficient — 0.83 points above the district and 0.72 points above the state, making it the only reported assessment where the school exceeds the state average. Mathematics is the biggest challenge: the school is 10.57 points below the state in all-grade Math, and the 8th grade Math gap is even wider at 13.10 points. Eighth grade is the weakest grade level overall, falling below the state in ELA (-6.83), Math (-13.10), Science (-6.30), and Civics (-12.20). Science is below both the district and the state, and Science and Civics remain weaker than ELA.
The school's trajectory is encouraging. Its rank improved from 291st out of 493 schools (41st percentile) in 2023-2024 to 254th out of 478 (47th percentile) in 2025-2026, a 37-position gain while holding a 2-star rating. All-grade Math rose 3.41 points year over year, lifting the school above the district average. ELA was essentially flat, but the state average fell, narrowing the gap. The district's own profile (1 star, 26th percentile) is lower than the school's, making this a relative bright spot. For context, the student-teacher ratio is 11.3:1 and per-student spending was $19,239 in 2020-2021; the free/reduced-lunch figure is not available.
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