The top reported proficiency rate is 46% in Science. The lowest is 27% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Cyrus Peirce
Cyrus Peirce is the public middle school on the island of Nantucket, serving sixth through eighth grade as part of the Nantucket Public Schools district. The school shares a campus with the elementary school and high school off Surfside Road, south of the island’s downtown core. Nantucket itself is a mix of a year-round residential community and a major summer tourist destination, with an economy driven by hospitality, retail, and service work. The island is both a town and a county, and over a substantial portion of its land is protected from development. Housing is extremely expensive, and the year-round population swells significantly in the summer, creating a tight housing market and a seasonal rhythm that families living here full-time navigate year after year. The island’s isolation, 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, means that the school system is the primary option for local families; there are no other public middle schools on the island.
Students at Cyrus Peirce take the NextGen MCAS assessments. In the most recent testing year, about a quarter of students scored proficient or above in math, and just over a third reached that bar in English language arts. Science proficiency was higher, with close to half of tested students meeting the standard. In social studies, tested only in eighth grade, about a third of students were proficient. Looking back over several years, math proficiency has fluctuated in a range that remained consistently below the level seen in the years just before the pandemic, while English proficiency followed a gradual downward trend before a modest uptick in the most recent year. A parent comparing these numbers to statewide benchmarks would find Cyrus Peirce’s performance noticeably below the average for Massachusetts public schools. The state as a whole typically sees a majority of students scoring proficient in both math and English at the middle school level, so the results here are a soft spot. A family considering the school will want to understand what academic supports are available and how the school is working to address these gaps, a question best taken up directly with the school.
The student body is split almost evenly between students who identify as white and those who identify as Hispanic, with a smaller but present share of Black students and a modest number of students who identify as two or more races. This is a school where a little over half of the students are students of color, a composition that reflects the island’s year-round population. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals was not provided, nor were counts of students with individualized education programs or English learner designations. Discipline and attendance data were also absent from the available records, so a parent looking for a full picture of school climate and support services would need to ask for that information directly. The school’s location on a shared campus means that middle schoolers are in close proximity to both the elementary and high school, which can be a plus for families with children at multiple grade levels.
For a parent living on Nantucket, Cyrus Peirce is the only public middle school option, and the decision is largely about whether the district’s academic pathway fits a child’s needs. The school itself is a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation. The island’s extremely high housing costs and limited rental market mean that families settling here full-time are typically doing so with a level of financial stability, but also facing a constrained set of choices in both schooling and housing. The school’s performance numbers suggest that a student who is already performing at grade level may need additional support to reach proficiency, and a student who is behind may find the climb steeper. There is no graduation rate to report because the school does not serve high school grades, and no comparison to other districts in Nantucket County is possible, as Cyrus Peirce is the only public middle school in a county that contains only this one school district. The district itself had no recent parent-relevant changes publicly reported. A family evaluating Cyrus Peirce should plan to visit, ask about intervention programs, and talk to current parents about how the school supports students who are not yet meeting state benchmarks.
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