Eli Terry Jr. Middle School, Terryville CT

Original Research by School Decision on Eli Terry Jr. Middle School

Eli Terry Jr. Middle School is a public middle school serving grades 6 through 8 in Terryville, a village within the town of Plymouth in southeastern Connecticut. The school's enrollment is small, with a student body of mixed backgrounds. Roughly half of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting a moderate-income community. The racial and ethnic makeup is predominantly white, with smaller shares of Hispanic, multiracial, Asian, and Black students.

The school's academic performance shows variability across grade levels and subjects. In English language arts, proficiency improves with grade progression. Sixth graders show entry-level proficiency, while seventh graders reach above-average performance for the school, and eighth graders hold steady. Math proficiency follows a similar upward trajectory across the three grades, starting below the school average in sixth grade and climbing to a more solid level by eighth grade. Science, tested only in eighth grade, shows the school's strongest performance. Student participation rates are high across all assessments, exceeding expectations for the state testing program.

Compared to other districts in the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region, Eli Terry Jr.'s overall proficiency index falls below the midpoint. This means the school's blended performance across tested subjects and grades lags the typical district in its county region, though specific rank-order placement within that set is not available.

The school sits in downtown Terryville along Main Street, near Baldwin Park and the Terryville Public Library, placing it within the village's civic core rather than on a separated campus. The community is suburban in density, built largely of small-to-medium single-family homes and small apartment buildings, much of it from the mid-20th century onward. The village traces its name and early economy to clockmaker Eli Terry Jr. and retains a commercial spine along U.S. Route 6, though the broader job market and commute patterns pull toward neighboring Bristol and Waterbury. Housing values in the area sit somewhat below the state benchmark, and the municipal property-tax mill rate in Plymouth has increased over recent years and has been stable at a higher level, a factor that affects the cost of homeownership for families in the district.

The district does not report special-education enrollment rates or English learner counts for the school, so the scope of those support populations cannot be assessed from available data. No program offerings, staffing details, or attendance data were available to characterize the school's extracurricular or instructional breadth. A parent considering this school may want to reach out to the district directly to learn about course pathways, student support services, and specific academic interventions aimed at strengthening proficiency outcomes.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 737%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 637%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 755%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 51%

even with state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Science

Grade 862%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

This schoolPlymouth School District, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income33%Higher-income42%9 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 8Lower-income34%Higher-income51%17 pp gap