The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in Science. The lowest is 8% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School
Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School serves grades 6 through 8 in New London, a small coastal city on the Thames River between Long Island Sound and the state's eastern interior. The school is part of Connecticut's first and only all-magnet school district, meaning enrollment is by application and lottery rather than neighborhood assignment, though city residents receive priority placement. The district draws students from over forty towns across twenty-five sending districts, creating a catchment that extends well beyond New London itself.
The school's student body is small by typical standards, with roughly equal numbers across the three grades. The overwhelming majority of students—nearly all—qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student population is predominantly Hispanic, with substantial representation from Black students and smaller numbers from other backgrounds. The school draws from a community facing real economic challenges and experiencing rapid residential growth driven by regional manufacturing employment, particularly in submarine building.
Academic performance on Connecticut's Smarter Balanced assessments in math and ELA shows persistent difficulty. In math, proficiency across all tested grades sits in the low range, with the seventh-grade cohort showing very low proficiency rates and eighth graders only marginally higher. ELA proficiency is also low across the grades, with results in the low to mid-range even in the highest-performing grade. Science proficiency, measured by NGSS assessments, is slightly stronger than math but remains modest overall. The school's proficiency index—a composite of performance across subjects and grade levels—places it in the bottom quartile among districts in the Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region. Test participation rates are strong and consistent across all grades, indicating that the low results reflect actual student performance rather than absenteeism or opt-outs.
The data available focuses on academic achievement. Information on programs, course offerings, special-education and English-learner services, attendance, school discipline, and staffing was not provided, so a reader cannot assess the breadth of course options, the strength of support services, or other operational details that shape daily school life.
New London itself is in active growth, with major residential development underway on the Fort Trumbull peninsula and downtown adaptive-reuse conversions adding housing stock to support an influx tied to regional employment. The city has Union Station as its transportation hub, connecting to Amtrak and commuter rail, and maintains a revitalized downtown with State Street as its spine, though much of the immediate area is car-dependent. Housing values in the zip code are modest relative to state benchmarks, and rental costs are low, reflecting the city's character as an urban center with older, smaller apartment buildings rather than a high-demand residential market.
The district is navigating significant structural change. In April 2026, facing a substantial budget gap, the Board of Education closed C.B. Jennings International Elementary Magnet School and restructured grade configurations district-wide to K-4 elementary, 5-7 middle, and 8-12 high school. This means grade 5 students will now feed into Bennie Dover Jackson, and the school's middle-grade configuration has shifted. Families affected by these closures have been offered placement choices among remaining magnet pathways or assignment to other district schools. For prospective families, this represents an active period of transition: the magnet system itself is working and stable, but the district's fiscal pressures and resulting school closures signal ongoing uncertainty about capacity and program availability.
A parent considering this school should recognize that it serves a high-need population in an economically stressed area, with academic results well below state and regional norms. The school's strengths lie in its role within the magnet system's three thematic pathways (STEM, Visual and Performing Arts, or International Education), which provide structure and purpose, and in its strong test participation. The soft spots are clear from the achievement data and warrant direct conversation with school leadership about what instructional support, intervention, and tutoring programs are in place to address the gaps revealed in state testing.
See more original research from School Decision →