The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in Science. The lowest is 12% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Benjamin Swan Elementary
Benjamin Swan Elementary is a regular public school in Springfield, Massachusetts, serving students from pre-kindergarten through grade five. It is part of the Springfield district, the large urban system that anchors western Massachusetts. The school sits in a city that calls itself the City of Homes and the birthplace of basketball, a dense, mixed-use urban center with a Victorian residential stock and a downtown core anchored by the Basketball Hall of Fame, Symphony Hall, and the MGM casino. The neighborhood around Union Street is fully within the city’s fabric, not a suburban or rural setting.
The academic picture at Benjamin Swan is straightforward from the state assessment data. On the NextGen MCAS tests administered in the 2024-25 school year, proficiency rates across all three tested subjects fell well below the midpoint when the school is placed against districts in Hampden County overall. The school lands in the bottom quartile of that comparison set, a group of more than twenty districts. In math, the share of students scoring at proficient or above was roughly one in eight. In English language arts, it was roughly one in six. In science, it was just under one in five. These are not high marks by any measure. A parent looking at these results will see that the school serves a student population where most children are not yet meeting grade-level benchmarks on the state’s standard.
The longer trend data, available for both math and ELA going back several years, gives some context. In the years before the pandemic, ELA proficiency was around one in three or slightly higher. Math was about the same. There was a dip in the 2020-21 school year, then a partial recovery in math in 2021-22 before a sustained decline. In the most recent three years, proficiency in both subjects has been on a downward trajectory, and the current figures are the lowest in the available series. This is a pattern a family would want to discuss directly with the school, asking what interventions and supports are in place and whether the trend is being addressed.
The student body is diverse. The enrollment is a few hundred children, roughly split between pre-K and the five elementary grades in roughly equal class sizes. The largest ethnic group is Hispanic, making up the majority of the student population. Black students are the next largest group, and there are smaller numbers of white students, multiracial students, and Asian students. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not reported in this profile, nor was information on special education or English learner status. A parent would need to ask the school directly for those figures to fully understand the support profile of the peer environment.
Springfield itself presents a particular housing and economic context. Home values in the zip code area are well below the state median but slightly above the national benchmark, typical for an older industrial city that has seen revitalization efforts in recent years. The local housing market shows moderately priced homes, a relatively active listing pace, and homes selling fairly quickly. The city’s major employers include MassMutual, Baystate Health, and the MGM casino, and the broader region is known as the Knowledge Corridor for its concentration of universities. For a family considering living in the neighborhood and sending a child to Benjamin Swan, the practical question of after-school options and wraparound services would matter, but no program or staffing data was available in this profile to shed light on that.
The district itself, Springfield, has not had notable recent changes publicly reported in the information reviewed, so there is little to say about new district-wide initiatives that would specifically affect this school.
Benjamin Swan is a neighborhood elementary school in an urban district where academic attainment, as measured by state tests, is low and has been declining. It serves a diverse student body in a city with a rich cultural and institutional landscape. A family considering this school would want to learn more about the classroom experience, the specific supports available for students who are behind grade level, and the school climate, none of which the data here can speak to. The school has no graduation rate to report because it serves only elementary grades, and it offers no high school pathways or program specializations by design. It is fundamentally a neighborhood entry point into the Springfield public schools.
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