Best Public Schools in Hanover, NH

Hanover, New Hampshire, has three highly rated public schools serving grades K–12: Bernice A. Ray School for grades K–5, Frances C. Richmond School for grades 6–8, and Hanover High School for grades 9–12. Together, they enroll about 1,506 students in a small, high-performing community, with Ray in the Hanover School District and the two secondary schools in the Dresden School District.

All three schools rank among New Hampshire’s best, earning five-star ratings and placing between the 97th and 99th percentiles statewide. Richmond is the strongest overall by recent ranking, placing second among middle schools after ranking first for the prior two years. It also has the lowest student-teacher ratio, at 8.8 students per teacher, and strong proficiency in math, reading, and science. Ray offers a balanced elementary foundation, with 79% math, 81% reading, and 78% science proficiency; its science score improved by 12 points year over year. Hanover High has the largest enrollment and stands out for postsecondary outcomes, including a 98.1% graduation rate, a 0.6% dropout rate, and especially strong reading performance.

For parents comparing schools, the main differences are specific areas of strength rather than broad quality gaps. Ray leads the three schools in science proficiency, Richmond leads in overall average proficiency and mathematics, and Hanover High leads in reading and graduation-related measures. Richmond’s eighth-grade math result of 68% is lower than its sixth- and seventh-grade results, while Ray’s fifth-grade math score of 73% trails its earlier grades. Hanover High’s main area to watch is science, which fell from 76% to 56% in the latest year, although it remains above the state result. Overall, Hanover provides a consistently strong K–12 pathway with stable rankings and targeted opportunities for improvement.