Summary:
Penacook, New Hampshire, has three listed schools serving about 825 students across Pre-K through grade 12: Penacook Elementary School, Merrimack Valley Middle School, and CSI Charter School. The elementary and middle schools are part of the Merrimack Valley School District, while CSI is a small, separately operated charter high school. Together, the schools offer a traditional public-school path from preschool through eighth grade and a charter option for grades 9–12.
Merrimack Valley Middle School is the strongest overall performer in the available data. It serves grades 6–8 and has 466 students, with 2025–2026 proficiency rates of 44% in math, 55% in reading, and 33% in science. Math and reading matched statewide results, and the school improved in all three subjects from the prior year. Its ranking also rose substantially, reaching the 53rd percentile in the latest year. Penacook Elementary School serves Pre-K through grade 5 and has 325 students. It has made progress in its rankings and showed especially large gains in reading and science, but its current math and reading proficiency rates remain below state levels. Results vary widely by grade: fifth-grade reading was a standout at 67%, while fourth-grade reading was 28%.
CSI Charter School is much smaller, with 34 students in grades 9–12. Its 2024–2025 graduation rate was 53.8%, below New Hampshire’s 87.0% rate, and its dropout rate was above the state comparison. Because the school and likely graduation cohorts are very small, families should review several years of results before drawing firm conclusions. Across the two district schools, mathematics is a more consistent challenge than reading, while science remains below state proficiency despite recent improvement. Parents comparing schools should also consider school size, grade level, available programs, and the substantial differences between a large middle school, an elementary school with uneven grade-level results, and a small charter high school.
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