NCES CCD 2024-25 8 schools MA

Best-Resourced Schools in Needham, MA

Compiled from official source data by .

8 public K-12 schools in Needham from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.

PlainSchools home → About this data
8
Schools
5,493
Students
51.3/100
Avg Resource Index
12.9:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Broad resource and staffing advantage

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Needham has more public-school enrollment than 59% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Needham lands in the upper national tier on both the average Resource Investment Index and teacher staffing intensity. Those measures come from different inputs: the index combines reported counselors, gifted access, attendance, and staffing, while the staffing percentile compares the city's student-teacher ratio directly. Agreement across both measures is stronger evidence of broad reported capacity than either score alone, though neither is a test-score rating or a guarantee about an individual classroom.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

4 of Needham's 8 listed schools are elementary campuses. That composition means citywide enrollment and staffing averages are influenced more by early-grade operating patterns than by the city's 2 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

One district, but meaningful resource variation

Needham's schools share one district authority while their average Resource Investment Index ranks at the 90th percentile among listed cities. Shared governance removes one source of policy variation, but it does not erase campus differences by grade span or enrollment. The 14-point gap between High Rock School and Needham High measures the remaining local spread. Use the district-level picture for common budget context, then compare the school components to see whether staffing, counseling, gifted-program reporting, or attendance accounts for each campus's position.

City enrollment
Top 41%
School count
Top 54%
Resource Index average
90th percentile
Teacher staffing
80th percentile

Needham High accounts for 29.7% of all Needham public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Needham-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: High. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how districts allocate programs, capital, or staff. Enrollment-weighted aggregates give this entity more weight than any smaller peer, while an unweighted entity average treats every record equally.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Needham school enrollment varies 4.1× across entities

Needham school enrollment ranges from 397 students (lowest) to 1,633 students (highest), a spread of 1,236 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous school portfolio for a city this size. Per-school staffing and program breadth can differ sharply at opposite ends of that enrollment range, so the city average should not be treated as a typical campus.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Needham operates one school district — a single-district system

Needham's listed schools share one district boundary, budget authority, and reporting chain. That makes citywide and districtwide governance easier to compare, but it does not make individual campuses uniform: grade configuration, staffing, programs, and student need can still vary materially within the same school district.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Needham student-teacher ratio is 12.9:1 — low (typically associated with smaller schools or per-school staffing investment that often correlates with stronger per-student supports)

student-teacher ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE classroom teachers against total enrollment, push-in specialists, English-language aides, special-education co-teachers, and counselors are not included in most reporting Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. High Rock School 58
2. Pollard Middle 57
3. William Mitchell 54
4. Newman Elementary 51
5. Broadmeadow 49
6. John Eliot 49
7. Sunita L. Williams Elementary 48
8. Needham High 44

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Needham

Ranked by the Simpson student-body diversity index (0-100) from NCES race and ethnicity data, where higher means a more evenly mixed student body. It measures mix, not quality.

  1. 1 John Eliot 62.6/100
  2. 2 High Rock School 48.6/100
  3. 3 Broadmeadow 48.0/100
  4. 4 Sunita L. Williams Elementary 47.9/100
  5. 5 Newman Elementary 46.7/100

What do families ask about schools in Needham?

Which Needham school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

High Rock School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Needham schools in this federal-data comparison at 58/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Needham, MA? ▼

Needham has 8 public schools with a total enrollment of 5,493 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 12.9:1.

Other Cities in Massachusetts

Springfield
71 schools
Worcester
49 schools
Dorchester
29 schools
Lawrence
29 schools
Lowell
29 schools
Lynn
28 schools

Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Massachusetts →

Data from NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 and Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) 2021-22. The Resource Investment Index uses reported student-teacher ratio, counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance; it is not an academic rating. Cities must include at least five schools to be listed. This public-data comparison is for informational purposes: verify current enrollment, attendance boundaries, and programs with the school district before acting. See the guide to understanding NCES data.