Summary:
ZIP code 01985 — West Newbury, Massachusetts — has one public middle school, Pentucket Regional Middle, serving grades 7–8 with 335 students in the Pentucket district. Because it is the only middle school in the ZIP, there is no local peer school; the benchmarks are the district and state. The district ranks 131 of 351 (63rd percentile, 3 stars), and the school has 3 stars in each of three recent rank-history years. Its state percentile slipped from 65 in 2024–2025 to 60 in 2025–2026, when it ranked 193 of 478.
In 2025–2026 MCAS Next Generation results, performance was mixed. The school was above the state in all-grades ELA (40.79% proficient vs. 40.03%), grade 8 math (43.86% vs. 41.67%), and grade 8 science (39.41% vs. 38.93%). It trailed the state in all-grades math (39.89% vs. 41.11%), all-grades science (39.41% vs. 40.98%), grade 8 ELA (40.46% vs. 41.70%), grade 7 math (36.11% vs. 37.48%), and especially grade 8 civics (34.12% vs. 39.77%). At matching grade levels, the school was above the district in every listed subject/grade row; the district’s higher all-grades figures likely include other grade levels, so they are not a clean comparison for this grades 7–8 school.
Year over year, reported proficiency declined in every subject from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026: all-grades ELA fell 4.72 percentage points (45.51% to 40.79%), math fell 5.82 points (45.71% to 39.89%), science fell 1.65 points (41.06% to 39.41%), and grade 8 civics fell 6.01 points (40.13% to 34.12%). State math and civics rose slightly, so the school’s declines are not purely statewide movement. Civics is the clearest weakness versus the state, though the school is slightly above its own district there. Other context: per-student spending was $17,206 in 2020–2021, the student-teacher ratio was 12.4 in 2024–2025, and free/reduced lunch data is unavailable. Overall, this is a solid but mixed school that remains above the median and at 3 stars, with recent declines and limited data for socioeconomic context.
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