Middle Schools in Nantucket

Nantucket has exactly one middle school: Cyrus Peirce, serving grades 6–8 with 358 students at 10 Surfside Road. Its 10:1 student–teacher ratio works out to roughly 36 teachers, and per-student spending is $23,420 (2020-2021). Because it is the only middle school on the island, its grade-level results are essentially the Nantucket district's results, so there is no local school-to-school comparison to make — the meaningful benchmark is the state of Massachusetts. One important gap: the free/reduced-price lunch figure is not reported, so the economic context behind these scores cannot be assessed here.

Cyrus Peirce has climbed in the state rankings for three straight years, from 318th of 493 (35th percentile, 2 stars) in 2023-2024 to 236th of 478 (51st percentile, 3 stars) in 2025-2026 — an 82-position jump that pushed it past the state median and far above its own district, which is rated 1 star at the 28th percentile. Science is the standout: 8th-grade science at 46.28% proficient beats the state (38.93%) by 7.35 points, and it led the state the prior year as well. Eighth graders post the school's best results in every subject. The 7th grade is the clear trough, with math at 22.41% — 15.07 points below state.

Math is the deepest weakness overall, trailing the state by 11.82 points, though it did improve 2.50 points year over year. Civics gained 3.79 points and nearly closed its gap, while ELA slipped 0.89 points and sits about 5.5 points below state — a plateau rather than a climb. The ranking gain and the scorecard tell slightly different stories, since ranks are relative and the number of ranked schools shifts each year. Finally, the spending figure is several years older than the achievement data and should not be tied directly to these results.