The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in Math. The lowest is 33% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Silver Lake Regional Middle School
Silver Lake Regional Middle School serves seventh and eighth graders from the towns of Kingston, Halifax, and Plympton, with the school building itself located in Kingston. This is a public middle school of moderate size that functions as the sole middle school for the Silver Lake Regional School District. Because it serves only two grade levels, all of its academic data comes from those grades.
The middle school's performance on the state's NextGen MCAS assessments presents a mixed picture. In math, roughly half of all students reached the proficient level. In English language arts, the share of students scoring proficient was slightly lower. Science results, which are reported for eighth graders only, showed about a third of students at proficiency. In social studies, also tested in eighth grade, just under two out of every five students scored proficient. When placed alongside other districts in Plymouth County, the school's overall proficiency across all tested subjects falls below the midpoint of the county. For a parent trying to gauge academic strength, the data suggests that while a substantial minority of students meet state standards, a majority do not, and this is particularly the case in science and social studies.
Looking at trends over time, the school's proficiency rates have settled into a notably different range than they held before the pandemic. In the years leading up to 2019, roughly three-fifths of students in both math and English language arts were scoring proficient. After 2021, those rates have generally stayed in the low-to-mid forties, a meaningful drop that the school has not recovered from in the years since. A parent may want to ask the school about what academic supports and interventions are in place for students who are not yet meeting grade-level benchmarks.
The student body is overwhelmingly white, reflecting the demographics of the three towns it serves. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, receive special education services, or are English learners was not available for this school. Without those figures, it is difficult to assess the level of economic diversity or the intensity of specialized support that the school provides.
The school itself sits in Kingston, a coastal commuter town about thirty-five miles south of Boston. Kingston grew substantially in the 1990s after the commuter rail line was reopened, and it retains a suburban and rural residential feel. The town has a historic center along Route 3A, but civic and school functions are spread across separate campuses. The Silver Lake Regional High School is also located in Kingston, so a student moving from this middle school to the high school would remain on a familiar campus. A new high school building was completed in the recent past, though no comparable facilities information for the middle school was provided.
Housing in the area is expensive. Home values in the zip code covering the school are well above the national average and sit at a premium compared to the state median as well. Rents are also high relative to typical household incomes. The Kingston commuter rail station, which is the terminus of the Kingston Line, makes Boston accessible for daily commuters, and this likely contributes to the upward pressure on local housing costs. For a family considering a move into the district, the cost of housing is a significant factor to weigh.
No information on programs, course access, staffing ratios, or discipline was available for this school. The district brief turned up little in the way of recent changes that would affect a family's day-to-day experience, such as budget overrides or major curriculum shifts. Given the available evidence, Silver Lake Regional Middle School is a reasonably sized regional school whose current academic performance on state tests sits below where it was half a decade ago and below the middle of the pack among Plymouth County districts, set in a high-cost commuter town where housing has grown increasingly expensive.
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