Greenwood Sarah K-8 School

Greenwood Sarah K-8 School is a small PK–8 school at 189 Glenway Street in Dorchester, part of Boston Public Schools, serving 357 students in a neighborhood with several other elementary and K–8 options. On 2025–26 MCAS Next Generation tests, it ranked 876th of 899 Massachusetts elementary schools (3rd percentile, 0 stars), and it has stayed in the 0th–3rd percentile most years over the past decade, never rising above the 11th percentile.

Compared with nearby schools, Greenwood’s results are much lower. Holmes Elementary School is only 0.23 miles away and has about 27% ELA proficiency vs Greenwood’s 8%; UP Academy Holland, 0.74 miles away and in the same district, has about 27% ELA and 33% math. Lee K-8 School (0.33 mi) and UP Academy Charter School of Dorchester (0.51 mi) also post higher proficiency. Between 2023–24 and 2025–26, UP Academy Holland and Lee K-8 made large percentile gains, while Greenwood stayed flat.

Its clearest strengths are narrow: science has the smallest gap to the district (about 15% vs. 25%) and improved year over year; grade 8 math is its best grade-level result (22.73% vs. 30.2% district); and English Language Learners are the only subgroup well above the school’s overall standing (20th–22nd percentile, 1 star). The biggest holes are grades 4 and 7 math and ELA, where proficiency is at or near 0% against district rates above 25%. The school has small classes (9.3 students per teacher) and mid-to-high per-pupil spending ($27,481 in 2020–21), so resources do not appear to be the main constraint. Free/reduced-price lunch data are not reported, and some subgroup and spending data are stale.