Middle Schools in Northampton

Northampton, Massachusetts has a single public middle school — John F Kennedy Middle School, located at 100 Bridge Rd in Florence — serving about 577 students in grades 6 through 8 as part of the Northampton district, which ranks 139th of 351 districts statewide (60th percentile, 3 stars) with a student–teacher ratio of 10.1. Because it is the only middle school in the area, there is no in-district peer comparison; the useful benchmarks are the district and the state.

Academically, the school performs well above the Massachusetts state average in most subjects. In 2025–2026, ELA proficiency was 52.13% (about 12 points above state) and science was 53.9% (nearly 13 points above), with 8th-grade science 15 points above state — the largest margin in the record. Civics, tested in 8th grade, came in at 43.4%, roughly 3.6 points above state. ELA was above state at every grade level tested (6th, 7th and 8th), and science improved 9.57 points year over year — double the district's gain — flipping from below the district to above it. The school's rank has climbed steadily, from 207th of 493 (58th percentile) to 151st of 478 (68th percentile) over three years, though its star rating has held at 3 stars, suggesting the rating is tied to absolute thresholds rather than relative rank.

Mathematics is the clear priority: at 38.1% proficient overall, it runs about 3 points below the state and is the only subject below state level. The weakness is uneven — 7th-grade math is 4 points above state, while 6th (−4.4 points) and especially 8th (−7.3 points) lag. The school's ELA-to-math spread of 14 points is wider than the district's 9.9 points, and math is the one subject where the school slipped slightly relative to its district. Two caveats for families: free/reduced-lunch data is not reported, so economic context cannot be assessed, and the $18,318 per-student spending figure dates from 2020–2021, roughly five years older than the achievement data.