Middle Schools in Worcester

Four middle schools serve Worcester students: Sullivan Middle and Worcester East Middle (grades 6–8) and Forest Grove Middle and Burncoat Middle School (grades 7–8), enrolling 3,230 students combined, or roughly 808 per school. All four sit within the Worcester district, which ranks 304 out of 351 Massachusetts districts, at the 13th percentile with 1 star. Per-student spending is nearly identical across the schools, from $17,632 to $18,124 in 2020–21, and free/reduced-lunch percentages are blank for all four, so economic context cannot be compared here.

Sullivan Middle stands out for the strongest overall rank — 315 out of 478, 34th percentile, 2 stars — and the highest ELA (32.44%) and Math (30.70%) scores in the group; its 6th-grade ELA and Math results of 84% and 94% are extreme outliers that should be read cautiously. Burncoat Middle School is the most balanced performer and the only school above the district average in all four reported subjects, with the top Science score at 28.57%. Forest Grove Middle has the highest Civics score (26.25%) and the lowest student-to-teacher ratio (11.4), but its Math and Science fall below district averages. Worcester East Middle ranks lowest (399 of 478, 17th percentile, 1 star) and posts the lowest score in every subject, though its Science gain of +6.73 points was the largest single-subject improvement in the data set.

All four schools score below the state average in every subject; even Sullivan, the strongest by rank, sits at the 34th percentile statewide. The smallest gap is Sullivan’s ELA score, 7.59 points below the state, and the largest is Worcester East’s Math score, 27.79 points below. Sullivan has been the most stable in rank over three years, Burncoat peaked in 2024–2025 before slipping, Forest Grove has been the most volatile, and Worcester East has stayed in the lowest quartile. Because spending is similar and older, it does not explain these differences. Families should weigh Sullivan’s uneven but high ELA and Math results against Burncoat’s balanced above-district performance, Forest Grove’s Civics strength, and Worcester East’s across-the-board challenges.