The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Math. The lowest is 43% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Elizabeth S Brown
Elizabeth S Brown is one of four elementary schools in Swansea, a town that mixes suburban residential streets with highway-oriented retail and stretches of farmland that remain rural. The school serves grades three through five only, so it is a small, focused upper-elementary building rather than a full K-5 or K-8 program. Because it does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and because the district’s own data did not include chronic absenteeism figures for this school, that measure is also absent from the picture.
The academic story at Elizabeth S Brown is grounded in the NextGen MCAS, Massachusetts’s state assessment. On the most recent testing year, the share of students scoring proficient or above in math, English language arts, and science all fell in a moderate band, with science slightly lower than the other two. The school’s overall proficiency index—a combined measure across tested subjects—sits above the midpoint when compared with districts across Bristol County. That is a genuine strength: among the more than twenty districts in the county, Brown’s performance ranks ahead of many peers. Looking at multi-year trends, ELA proficiency has moved up and down, reaching a higher point several years ago before settling closer to the current level. Math proficiency has also varied year to year, with no steady upward or downward trajectory. A parent may want to ask the school about the factors behind these fluctuations and how the school supports students who are not yet meeting the proficiency bar.
Enrollment is small, with a student body that is predominantly white, reflecting the broader demographics of Swansea itself. Data on economic disadvantage, special education identification, and English learner status were not available in the provided sources, so a family interested in those dimensions of student support would need to inquire directly at the school or check the district’s public reporting. The grade-three-through-five configuration means Brown is not a neighborhood K-4 feeder in the traditional sense; it is a standalone intermediate building, and children likely arrive from multiple primary-grade schools within the district.
Swansea is a car-dependent town with no dense walkable downtown. Its retail and commercial activity lines the highway corridors, while the school itself is located near the town center, not far from Joseph Case Junior High and High School. Housing values in the area are above the national benchmark but sit below the state average, a pattern that positions Swansea as a relatively more affordable option within eastern Massachusetts. The local housing market shows a moderate number of active listings and a median list price that has softened slightly over the past year, with homes going under contract quickly. The town’s population has been roughly stable, with a modest dip noted in recent annual census counts, and there is little publicly available information about new housing developments or major commercial redevelopment projects beyond the former Swansea Mall site.
The district itself reported no recent changes of lasting impact in the public record, so a family researching Brown should expect continuity in the basic structure of the school system. For a household looking at a mid-sized, suburban-rural town with an elementary school that performs respectably relative to its county peers, Elizabeth S Brown offers a conventional public school pathway through grades three to five. The student body is largely homogenous, the academic results are solid without being top-tier, and the absence of data on free lunch, special education, and English learner populations leaves some questions unanswered. A parent considering this school would be well served to visit, ask about support for the share of students below proficiency, and confirm the feeder pattern from Brown into the district’s middle school.
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