Andover Elementary School, Andover NH

Original Research by School Decision on Andover Elementary School

Andover Elementary School is a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade public school sitting on School Street in the center of Andover, a small rural town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire. It is the town's only public school building, and it shares its street with Town Hall, placing civic and educational life in the same compact area. The school is small for its grade span, with roughly two dozen students in most grades, which means children grow up alongside the same classmates from year to year. The student body is almost entirely white, and about a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on special education enrollment and English learners was not available, so those dimensions of the school's support picture remain unstated here.

The academic results from the most recent state assessments paint a mixed portrait, and the small cohorts matter when reading them. A few tested students moving in or out of proficiency can shift a grade's results sharply. In math, proficiency ranges from very low in third grade to middling in the upper elementary and middle grades. Sixth grade stands out as the strongest math year, with half of tested students reaching proficiency. Third grade math is the weakest, with only a sliver of students proficient, though that reflects just a handful of children. In English language arts, the school is clearly stronger, particularly in the middle grades. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade all show a clear majority of students proficient, which is a genuine strength. Fourth grade ELA is also solid. The lowest ELA result is third grade, where no tested student reached proficiency, again in a very small group. Science, tested only in fifth and eighth grade, is low in both. A parent looking at these results would want to understand how the school supports early-grade literacy and numeracy, since the third-grade numbers, small as the groups are, point to an area worth asking about directly.

No graduation rate applies here because the school ends at eighth grade. Students then move on to Merrimack Valley Regional for high school, with tuition handled by the district. No program offerings, course access, discipline, staffing, or attendance data was provided, so this account cannot speak to enrichment, extracurriculars, or school climate beyond what the assessment and enrollment figures suggest.

Andover itself is a quiet, dispersed residential town organized around several villages, including Cilleyville, Potter Place, East Andover, and West Andover. There is no public transportation, and most residents drive to work, many commuting out of town into the Concord micropolitan area. The town's largest employer is Proctor Academy, a private boarding and day preparatory school serving grades nine through twelve, which operates as a separate institution from the public school. Other major employers are small businesses, including a machine shop and a building-supply dealer. Ragged Mountain State Forest and the northern slopes of Mount Kearsarge give residents access to outdoor recreation. The town has grown modestly over time, with a housing stock dominated by single-family homes. Home values in the area sit below the state benchmark but above the national one, and values have been climbing. At current mortgage rates, the estimated monthly cost of ownership is substantial relative to typical incomes, which a family considering a move into the district should weigh carefully.

The district, Andover School District, is a single-school district. A search for recent district-level changes or strategic initiatives turned up little of note, so that thread is left out rather than guessed at. No neighbor comparison fact-set was available for this entity, so this account does not position the school against nearby districts.

What emerges is a picture of a small, community-rooted school in a rural town where families choose a quiet life and a known peer group. The middle-grade ELA results are a real bright spot. The math and science results, and the early-grade numbers in particular, are softer spots a parent may want to look into further with the school. For families drawn to a small, stable environment with outdoor access and willing to accept the trade-offs of rural isolation and a tight housing market, this is a setting worth understanding on its own terms.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 314%

School 14% · District 14%

▼ 40 pts below state median · ▼ 40 pts below county median

Grade 445%

School 45% · District 45%

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 48% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 737%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 30%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 50 pts below state median · ▼ 54 pts below county median

Grade 455%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 41%

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 665%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Science

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 41%

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

This schoolAndover School District, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.