The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in Math. The lowest is 19% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Henry Whittemore Elementary School
Henry Whittemore Elementary School serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Waltham public school district. Waltham is a mixed-use city that blends older residential neighborhoods with corporate research campuses. It is home to Brandeis University and Bentley University, and hosts major employers in life sciences, defense, and technology, including RTX Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Boston Dynamics. Much of the city's civic life centers on Waltham Common and Main Street downtown. The Charles River runs through Waltham, with bike and walking paths along much of the south bank.
For the 2024-25 school year, state testing results at Henry Whittemore showed that about one-third of students scored at the proficient level or above in math, while just over a quarter reached that level in English language arts. In science, about one in five students scored proficient or above. When compared against other school districts in Middlesex County, the school's overall proficiency falls in the bottom quartile.
Looking at multi-year trends, proficiency rates have fluctuated. In English language arts, the rate stood in the mid-to-high thirties in the years before the pandemic, then dropped sharply, and has been recovering more slowly, reaching about the same level in 2024-25 as it was in the earliest available data. Math followed a similar pattern, with pre-pandemic rates around the mid-thirties to low forties, a pandemic-era dip, and a recovery that has now brought rates back roughly to where they were at the start of the available trend window.
The student body is majority Hispanic, with white students making up the next-largest group, followed by smaller shares of Black and Asian students. The school does not publicly report the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, or the share of students with individualized education programs or English learner status, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about these aspects of the student population.
No data about program offerings, staffing levels, or disciplinary incidents was available for this school. Similarly, there were no recent publicly reported district-level changes or initiatives found in the web research conducted for Waltham.
The housing context is expensive. Home values and rents in the area are well above national averages, and typical rents consume a substantial share of area household income. The local housing market has many more pending listings than a year ago, and the typical home sells quickly, often in just a few weeks.
For a family considering Henry Whittemore, the academic picture shows a school whose students are scoring below the county median on state assessments. The multi-year trend suggests that recovery from pandemic-era learning disruptions has been modest. The school serves elementary grades only, so there is no high school graduation rate to consider here. The enrollment of the school makes it a mid-sized elementary school for the grade band it serves. The city of Waltham offers walkable neighborhoods, university anchors, and a concentration of employers in research and technology, but housing costs are high and competition for homes appears strong.
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