Summary:
ZIP code 01960 contains one public high school: Peabody Veterans Memorial High, located at 485 Lowell Street in Peabody and serving grades 9–12. It enrolls 1,333 students, has a student-teacher ratio of 10.2 (2024–2025), and spends $18,139 per student (2020–2021). Because it is the only high school in the area, the most meaningful local comparison is between this school and its Peabody district overall.
Academically, the school outperforms its district in every reported MCAS subject but trails the state in all of them. In 2025–2026, 10th-grade English Language Arts proficiency was 28.19% versus 25.60% for the district and 45.48% statewide; Mathematics was 24.42% versus 21.65% and 43.73%; Science was 25.97% versus 23.62% and 40.50%; and Biology was 22.52% versus 20.76% and 37.68%. Those district advantages are modest — generally between 1.3 and 2.8 percentage points — while the gaps to the state run from about 14.5 to 25.4 percentage points depending on subject and year. ELA and Math both improved year over year (ELA from 25.25% to 28.19%; Math from 22.52% to 24.42%), and Science declined while the state declined more. Graduation and dropout outcomes are a clear bright spot: the school's graduation rate is 90.7% versus the district's 83.7%, and its dropout rate is 4.1% versus 7.8%.
Rankings remain a concern. The district sits at 266th of 351 (24th percentile, 1 star), and the school's own rank history is similar: 270th of 353 in 2025–2026, 285th of 349 in 2024–2025, and 263rd of 348 in 2023–2024. That is bottom-quartile placement, though the most recent year shows a modest improvement over 2024–2025.
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