Cornish School District

Cornish School District has one small school, Cornish Elementary School, serving about 137 students from pre-K through eighth grade in the rural community of Cornish, New Hampshire. Although labeled an elementary school, it serves students through middle-school grades, making it a small PK–8 school. The student-teacher ratio is 10.6 to 1, which may allow for small classes and individual attention. The reported free- and reduced-price lunch rate is 16.79%.

Because this is the district’s only school, there are no schools to compare within the area. The strongest academic results in 2025–2026 were in mathematics, especially third grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade, where proficiency exceeded the New Hampshire average. Overall mathematics proficiency was 40%, close to the statewide 44%. However, results varied considerably by grade: fifth-grade math proficiency was 27%, and seventh-grade proficiency was 23%. Reading is the clearest schoolwide challenge. Proficiency was below the state average in every reported grade, with an overall rate of 43% compared with 55% statewide. Science proficiency was 33%, five points below the state average.

Recent trends suggest that families should pay attention to the school’s changing performance. From 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, reading declined by 8 percentage points and science by 10 points, while mathematics declined by 1 point. The school’s ranking also fell from 76th of 234 schools in 2023–2024 to 160th of 230 in 2025–2026, and its rating decreased from three stars to two. These results point to reading across grades, fifth- and seventh-grade mathematics, and science as the most important improvement areas. Since the school is small, percentages can shift noticeably when only a few students change performance; parents may therefore want to consider multi-year results, student growth, class sizes, and available reading or math support alongside the headline rankings.