Summary:
Zip code 01603 has just one public high school: South High Community, a large comprehensive school in the Worcester district serving grades 9–12 with 1,800 students. Its student-to-teacher ratio was 14.6 to 1 in 2024–2025, and per-student spending was $16,772 in 2020–2021. Because it is the only high school here, the most useful comparisons are the school against its own past results, its district, and the state.
On MCAS Next Generation tests, the school scored above the Worcester district average but below the Massachusetts average in every reported subject. In 2025–2026, 10th-grade proficiency was 27.27% in ELA, 21.60% in math, and 20.79% in science — roughly 1.4 to 1.6 points above the district, but 18.21, 22.13, and 19.71 points below the state. These were steep declines from 2024–2025, when ELA was 43.39%, math 33.08%, and science 33.13%, and the school's district advantage was much wider (+10.24, +8.61, and +6.53 points). Those drops were larger than the district's and the state's, though they cover different school years and student cohorts, so caution is warranted. Biology proficiency was comparatively steady: 20.29% in 2024–2025 and 20.51% in 2025–2026.
Completion outcomes point a different direction. In 2024–2025, the graduation rate was 83.8% versus the district's 85.5%, and the dropout rate was 9.7% versus 8.5%. Rankings have been volatile: 1 star in 2023–2024, 2 stars in 2024–2025 (34th percentile), and back to 1 star in 2025–2026 (19th percentile). The free/reduced lunch percentage is not available in this record, which limits context on economic disadvantage.
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