The top reported proficiency rate is 54% in Science. The lowest is 45% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Penn Brook
Penn Brook, the sole elementary school in Georgetown, serves kindergarten through sixth grade. The town is a distant, mostly residential suburb on Boston’s North Shore, car-dependent with no mass transit, and a town center organized around the library, town hall, and the intersection of two state routes. The district operates its own municipal schools rather than belonging to a regional system, which is somewhat unusual among neighboring communities.
The school is large for an elementary building, with all seven grades housed on one campus. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small share of Hispanic students and even smaller shares of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, on students with disabilities, and on English learners was not available; a parent may want to ask the school for these figures directly.
State testing results place Penn Brook above the midpoint among districts in Essex County when measured by overall proficiency across tested subjects. In the most recent assessment year, proficiency rates in English language arts, math, and science all fell roughly in the middle to upper-middle range of the county. The school has a multi-year record of these results. In English language arts, the proficiency rate has declined gradually from levels that were roughly in line with many area schools several years ago to a lower level in the most recent years, with a slight uptick in the latest test. In math, the trend shows a similar pattern: rates were higher several years ago, dropped substantially during the pandemic period, and have since recovered somewhat but remain below pre-2020 levels. A parent considering the school may want to discuss how the school is addressing this trajectory and what academic supports are in place.
Because Penn Brook only serves through sixth grade, there is no high school graduation rate to report here; Georgetown students move to the district’s combined middle-high school for grades seven through twelve. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and its Title I status was not reported. Data on course access, staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, and discipline were not available, so those elements of the school environment cannot be characterized from this evidence.
Housing in Georgetown is expensive. Home values in the area are well above the national median and above the Massachusetts state benchmark, and the price-to-income ratio is high, meaning homeownership demands significant income. Rents have been rising consistently. The inventory of homes for sale is limited, and the market has been active. For a family considering a move to Georgetown for the school, the housing market is a meaningful factor.
Overall, Penn Brook is a large suburban elementary school serving a predominantly white student body in a town that is itself predominantly residential and car-dependent. Its state test scores sit around the middle of the pack in Essex County, though the trend in both English and math has been downward over the past several years. A parent may want to investigate what the school is doing to address that trend and to understand the student-support resources that are not reflected in the available data.
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