Summary:
Somerville, MA has eight public elementary schools serving about 3,475 students, and they vary widely in both structure and results: six are PK–8 schools, Benjamin G Brown is K–5, and Capuano Early Childhood Center serves PK–1 only. The Somerville district as a whole ranks 198th of 351 Massachusetts districts (44th percentile, 2 stars), but that single district label hides enormous differences from school to school.
Two schools stand far above the rest. Benjamin G Brown ranks 6th of 899 schools statewide (99th percentile, 5 stars), with proficiency near 80% in ELA and math and 85% in science — roughly double the state. John F Kennedy ranks 134th (85th percentile, 4 stars), about 25 points above district and state. In the middle, West Somerville Neighborhood and Albert F. Argenziano School at Lincoln Park are near-twins — both rank near the mid-50s percentile and slightly beat district and state averages. At the other end, Arthur D Healey (730th), Winter Hill Community (660th), and E Somerville Community (640th) sit in the bottom third statewide. Capuano has no MCAS scores because testing begins in grade 3, so it cannot be ranked.
Across the district, math is the weakest subject — about 4 points behind the state — while science is a relative strength, and 8th-grade civics ranges from 17.86% to 71.43% between schools. Grade 3 is a bright spot and grade 4 a steep drop-off at most schools. Notably, the three highest-ranked schools also have the largest classes, and the lowest-spending school outperforms the highest-spending PK–8 schools, so neither spending nor class size predicts results here. Encouragingly, all seven tested schools improved their state percentile in 2025‑26.
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