Summary:
Waltham is a mid-sized Massachusetts district serving about 5,777 students across 11 schools — seven elementary, two middle, and two high schools — and the district overall ranks 231st out of 351 in the state, placing it in the 34th percentile with 2 stars. Performance varies widely from building to building, so parents should look closely at individual schools rather than relying on the district average alone.
John F Kennedy Middle is the clearest high performer, ranking at the 72nd percentile with 4 stars and outperforming John W. McDevitt Middle School by roughly 14 to 16 points in ELA, math, and science — even though the two schools are similar in size, spending, and student-teacher ratio. Among elementary schools, James Fitzgerald Elementary School leads in math and science, while Douglas MacArthur Elementary School posts the highest all-grade ELA score in the list. Henry Whittemore Elementary School is the lowest-ranked school with history, at the 25th percentile with 1 star.
At the high school level, Waltham Senior High has climbed from the 27th to the 37th percentile over two years and beats the district on graduation (79.3% vs 74.5%) and dropout (15.5% vs 16.8%), though its 10th-grade ELA, math, science, and physics scores remain below state averages. Waltham Valor High School, with only 49 students, reports a 30.0% graduation rate and 35.0% dropout rate — a stark contrast, but small cohorts make these figures volatile. Science is the weakest subject across Waltham, and free/reduced-lunch data is blank for every school, with spending figures dating to 2020–2021.
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