Summary:
New Salem-Wendell is served by a single public school, Swift River, an elementary school for grades PK–6 located at 201 Wendell Rd in New Salem. It enrolls 134 students, with a student-teacher ratio of 9.1 in 2024–2025 and per-student spending of $24,376 in 2020–2021. Because the New Salem-Wendell district contains only this one school, school-level and district-level test results are identical. The free/reduced lunch percentage is blank for 2024–2025 and should be treated as unknown, not zero, so socioeconomic context is unavailable.
Academically, science is Swift River's clear bright spot. In 2025–2026, 55% of students were proficient in science overall and in 5th grade, compared with state rates of about 41% and 43%. In 2024–2025, science proficiency was 52.63% versus 41.51% statewide, so the school beats the state by double digits in the most recent year. English Language Arts and Mathematics, however, trail the state. ELA was 28% proficient in 2025–2026 against 40.03% statewide, and Mathematics was 29.33% against 41.11%. Grade-level results show the largest gap in 6th grade math, at 17.65% versus 42.59% statewide, followed by 6th grade ELA (23.53% vs. 40.26%) and 4th grade ELA (21.74% vs. 37.43%).
Rank history shows a steady lower-middle position: Swift River has held 2 stars for three consecutive years, with percentile ranks between 30 and 34 for 2023–2024 through 2025–2026. The district rank is lower — 276 of 351, or the 21st percentile with 1 star — which likely reflects a different ranking method or time period. Year over year, math improved from 25.97% to 29.33% and science from 52.63% to 55%, while ELA slipped slightly from 28.95% to 28%. A 134-student school has small grade cohorts, so a few students can shift a grade-level percentage considerably, and per-student spending and lunch data are either outdated or unreported, limiting comparisons.
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