The top reported proficiency rate is 67% in English language arts. The lowest is 38% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ellsworth Elementary-middle School
Ellsworth Elementary-Middle School sits in the city of Ellsworth, Maine, serving students from kindergarten through eighth grade. It is part of Ellsworth Public Schools, a public district, and is not a charter or magnet school. The enrollment is mid-sized for a Pre-K-through-8 band, with fairly even distribution across the grade levels, which gives the school a continuous pathway from early elementary through middle school under one roof.
On state assessments, the most recent results show a mixed academic picture. English language arts stands out as a clear strength, with a solid majority of tested students in grades three through eight reaching proficiency. That is a encouraging result and suggests the school's literacy instruction is working well for many students. Mathematics tells a different story, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficiency. Science results, tested in a narrower grade band, were also on the lower side, with roughly four in ten proficient. Both math and science are areas where a parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking what interventions or curricular shifts are underway to lift those numbers. Participation rates across all three subjects were high, which means the results reflect nearly the full student body rather than a skewed subset.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. That gap reflects the grade band, not a missing metric. We also did not find trend data for prior years, so there is no way to characterize whether these proficiency levels are improving, declining, or holding steady over time.
Demographically, the student body is predominantly white, with smaller representation across other racial and ethnic groups. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, pointing to a working- and middle-class community with real economic diversity. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so those populations cannot be characterized here. This is a gap in the publicly available data rather than an indication that these students are not served.
Ellsworth itself is a small city that functions as a commercial and service hub for the surrounding Hancock County area. Publicly reported information identifies major employers such as Northern Light Health and the Jackson Laboratory, both of which anchor the local economy with health care and bioscience jobs. That employment base gives the community a degree of stability that pure bedroom-community towns may lack. Housing in the area is moderately priced relative to the state benchmark, with typical home values sitting below the statewide figure. The price-to-income ratio is above four, which means buying a home here requires a meaningful share of a typical household's income, though it is not as stretched as some markets. Rental data was not available. Mortgage rates in the broader economy remain elevated, which affects affordability for families looking to move into the district.
We looked for recent district-level changes that might affect families, such as facility investments, redistricting, or program launches meeting a lasting-impact threshold, but the search returned only directory and fiscal data. Nothing rose to that level, so rather than guess, we left it out.
The school's setting is a small-city environment with access to regional employers and services, which some families will see as a practical plus. The academic pathway runs from kindergarten straight through eighth grade, offering continuity during the years when transitions can be disruptive. The literacy results are the strongest signal here. For a family weighing this school, the questions worth asking are about math and science instruction and what the school is doing to close those gaps.
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