Summary:
ZIP code 01002 — Amherst, Massachusetts — contains a single public high school: Amherst Regional High, which serves grades 9–12 with 816 students and belongs to the Amherst-Pelham district. Because there is only one school here, there is no local school-to-school comparison to make; the useful comparison is how this school performs against its own district and against Massachusetts as a whole.
Academically, the school is a strong performer. It beats both its district and the state on all eight reported MCAS test records, with an average advantage of roughly 24 percentage points over the state. Its standout result is Biology (End of Course), where 79.69% of students scored proficient versus 37.68% statewide — more than double the state rate. Mathematics improved 6.19 points year over year while the state slipped slightly, widening the school's lead to 23.5 points. The main weak spot is 10th-grade English Language Arts, which fell 12.52 points to 58.65%, a steeper drop than the state's 5.18-point decline, narrowing the school's ELA advantage to 13.2 points. That decline is the metric most worth watching.
Outcomes and context are solid. The graduation rate is 92.5%, essentially level with the district's 92.6%, and the dropout rate is 2.5%, matching the district. The student-teacher ratio is a relatively low 11.3. The school's state ranking has climbed for three straight years, reaching 54th of 353 schools (85th percentile) with four stars in 2025-2026. Two limits on interpretation: per-student spending is listed at $23,640, but that figure is from 2020-2021 and should not be read alongside current test results; and the free/reduced-lunch percentage is blank in the data, so no socioeconomic context is available.
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