Summary
Needham High School is a grades 9–12 comprehensive high school serving 1,633 students in Needham, Massachusetts, an affluent suburb west of Boston. Its 2025-2026 statewide placement — 11th of 353 high schools (97th percentile, 5 stars) — is the best in its ten years on record, up from 21st the previous year and from the 35th–41st range a decade ago. The Needham district ranks 20th of 351 districts statewide, so the high school actually outranks its own district's standing.
On 10th-grade MCAS, Needham High posts 87.89% proficient in ELA and 90.78% in math, against statewide rates of 45.48% and 43.73%, and it leads Wellesley Senior High, Westwood High, Weston High, Newton North High and Newton South High in both subjects — including districts that outrank Needham at the district level. Science is the one soft spot at 72.10, behind Wellesley (81.41) and Newton North (76.89), though Needham reports a Biology end-of-course exam while those neighbors report Physics, making that comparison approximate; Needham's own Biology result is the highest in the comparison set. Graduation runs at 99.0% with a 0.5% dropout rate. Special education students rank 8th of 298 schools (97th percentile) and low-income students 24th of 340 (93rd percentile), up from the 81st two years earlier. Two subgroups sit below the school's otherwise elite baseline: Asian students at the 77th percentile, down from 97th, and African American students at the 77th percentile — both still 4-star results.
The distinctive fact is cost: Needham High spends $18,921 per pupil (2020-21), the least of any school in its peer set, while producing the top proficiency and the best statewide rank. Weston spends roughly 58% more per student and posts ELA proficiency 14.8 points lower. Needham's student-teacher ratio of 11.8 is also higher than those of Dedham, Wellesley, Newton North, Weston, Westwood and Newton South. Dedham High, about 4.5 miles away, posts 45.80% ELA proficiency — roughly half of Needham's — with a 91.9% graduation rate and 5.1% dropout. The remaining opportunities are narrow: lift 10th-grade science and steady the two subgroups that have slipped.
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