Palmer

The Palmer district includes two schools: Old Mill Pond, an elementary school serving grades PK–6 with 677 students, and Palmer High, which serves grades 7–12 with 416 students, for a combined enrollment of 1,093. There is no standalone middle school or alternative school here, so middle-grade students attend Palmer High. District-wide, Palmer ranks 296 of 351 Massachusetts districts, at the 16th percentile with 1 star.

Old Mill Pond's clearest strength is science: 45.71% of students were proficient in all-grade science in 2025–2026, above the state's 40.98% and well above the district's 33.80%, and its 5th grade science result also edges past both. By contrast, its ELA (22.67%) and Math (27.41%) trail state levels of 40.03% and 41.11%, with 5th and 6th grade ELA the weakest at 16.19% and 18.31%. Palmer High stands out for completion rather than test scores: a 96.1% graduation rate and 0.0% dropout rate, plus a much lower student-teacher ratio of 8.8 versus 12.9 at Old Mill Pond. Its relative academic strength is Math at 32.46%, but 10th grade science is only 12.00% against the state's 40.50%.

Trends point in different directions. Palmer High's results fell from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, with ELA dropping from 32.63% to 22.40% and science from 27.71% to 21.90%, after briefly reaching the 44th percentile and 2 stars. Old Mill Pond's science rose sharply from 30.16% to 45.71% while its ELA and Math dipped slightly. Per-student spending is nearly identical ($17,518 versus $17,532, from 2020–2021), so it does not explain the differences, and free/reduced-lunch data is blank for both schools, so economic context cannot be compared. The main warning signs are low state-relative ELA and Math proficiency at both schools, weak 5th and 6th grade ELA, and 10th grade science.