Polaris Charter School

Polaris Charter School is a small public charter elementary school in Manchester, NH, serving 119 students in grades K–5 in an urban area with several nearby Manchester School District elementary schools. The school ranks 96th out of 230 New Hampshire schools, placing it in the 58th percentile statewide and making it one of the stronger academic options in the immediate Manchester area. Its 2025–2026 proficiency rates were 55% in math and 62% in reading, well above most nearby Manchester schools. For comparison, reading proficiency was 34% at Parker-Varney School, 49% at Webster School, and 42% at Smyth Road School.

Recent momentum is one of Polaris’s most encouraging features. Its ranking improved from 150th and the 33rd percentile in 2024–2025 to 96th and the 58th percentile in 2025–2026. Math increased from 43% to 55%, while reading rose from 46% to 62%. Reading is a particular strength: results climbed from 56% in third grade to 69% in fifth grade, and Polaris slightly exceeded nearby Bartlett Elementary School in overall reading, 62% to 60%. Math was also above the state average, though fifth-grade math fell to 38%, below the statewide 43% and well behind third-grade math at 67%.

The biggest academic concern is science, where proficiency dropped to 19%, compared with 38% statewide and substantially below Polaris’s earlier results. This area deserves careful review along with fifth-grade math. The school’s small size may support close relationships and personalized attention, but it can also make year-to-year scores more volatile because a relatively small number of students can significantly affect percentages. Overall, Polaris appears to be a promising, improving school with especially strong literacy results and a clear academic advantage over most nearby schools, although families may want to ask how the school is addressing science and upper-elementary math.