Summary:
Zip code 01109 in Springfield contains two public middle schools — STEM Middle Academy and Springfield Middle School — both in the Springfield district, both serving grades 6–8, and both sharing the same district rating: 0 stars, ranked 322 of 351 statewide, or the 8th percentile. The two could hardly be more different in size: STEM Middle Academy enrolls 269 students, while Springfield Middle School enrolls just 18.
STEM Middle Academy is the larger and comparatively stronger of the two. Its English language arts proficiency of 22.67% edges the district's 22.09%, and ELA rose 5.21 points in a single year while the district stayed flat. Its 6th-grade ELA result, 25.33%, is the strongest single result in this zip code. Yet math (8.89%) and science (10.13%) fall below the district's 17.37% and 20.90% — a surprising inversion for a school named for STEM. Springfield Middle School reports 0.00% proficiency in the ELA years and the one math year it reports, spends $54,777 per pupil (roughly three times STEM's $18,263), and has a student-to-teacher ratio of 4.0 versus STEM's 11.1. With only 18 students, each child equals about 5.6 percentage points, so those figures are extremely volatile and more likely reflect a specialized program than a directly comparable instructional model.
Both schools sit in the bottom decile of the state. STEM Middle Academy's recent ranks have held near the 11th–14th percentile, while Springfield Middle School's ranking history stops in 2018–2019, when it ranged from the 0th to 11th percentile. Reporting is uneven: STEM shows 15 test-score records across two years; Springfield Middle shows only three. Free/reduced-lunch data is blank for both, so income context is missing. Treat any head-to-head comparison as directional at best.
Thank you for your feedback!