Summary
William F. Stanley Elementary School is a PK–5 school in Waltham, MA, serving 381 students just west of Boston and bordering Newton and Weston. In 2025–2026, it ranked 574th of 899 Massachusetts elementary schools (36th percentile, 2 stars), while the Waltham district ranked 231st of 351 (34th percentile, 2 stars). The school has improved over the long term—from 1-star, bottom-quartile results in the mid-2010s to 2-star, mid-30s-to-low-40s percentile results recently—but it peaked at 42nd percentile in 2022–2023 and has slipped to 36th. It has not yet reached 3-star status.
All-grade MCAS proficiency in 2025–2026 was below the Waltham district and state averages: ELA 31.82, math 35.06, and science 32.76. Within nearby Waltham schools, the school is roughly in the middle—second in each subject among Dual Language School, Thomas R Plympton Elementary School, and Henry Whittemore Elementary School. The gap to neighboring Newton and Weston schools is much larger: the lowest nearby other-district ELA score, Franklin’s 53.89, is still 22.07 points above the school; the lowest math score, Franklin’s 48.21, is 13.15 points above; and the lowest science score, Williams’s 58.82, is 26.06 points above. Grade-level results are uneven. Third- and fourth-grade math are above district and state, but fifth-grade math is a severe weakness at 18.97, far below the district (35.07) and state (39.50). Science also fell to 32.76 after being 47.27 in 2024–2025.
The school has notable resources: its student–teacher ratio of 8.4 is the lowest among nearby schools, and per-student spending was $27,565 in 2020–2021, higher than nearby Waltham and Newton schools and close to Weston. Those advantages have not yet translated into proficiency above district or state. Student-group results also vary: low-income students are at the 26th percentile (1 star), while English language learners improved to 37th and special education students to 35th, though both remain below the school’s overall percentile. Free/reduced lunch data are unavailable, and spending data are older, so these should be interpreted with caution. Overall, the school has improved from its past but still faces clear challenges in fifth-grade math, science, and some student groups.
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