Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Pathfinder Vocational Technical → Monson High School → St Thomas Aquinas School → Ware Junior/Senior High School → Wilbraham & Monson Academy → Ludlow Senior High → Belchertown High → Minnechaug Regional High →📋 At a glance
- 📚 8 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 5 physics · 2 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 76th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 13% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 92% (60th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Palmer High compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 24% nationally with 8 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyMA students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+14 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Pathfinder Vocational Technical, Monson High School, St Thomas Aquinas School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
76th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 13% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
60th percentile nationally
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -9.7%/year, projecting from 2024's 416 students:
≈ 166 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $19,890 per student in district revenue, the 166 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $3,301,740/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pathfinder Vocational Technical Palmer |
Public | 0.6 | 660 | +4.9% |
| Monson High School Monson |
Public | 4.9 | 142 | -21.5% |
| St Thomas Aquinas School Warren |
Private | 5.5 | 14 | — |
| Ware Junior/Senior High School Ware |
Public | 5.9 | 263 | -10.2% |
| Wilbraham & Monson Academy Wilbraham |
Private | 6.3 | 361 | -4.7% |
| Ludlow Senior High Ludlow |
Public | 6.5 | 732 | -11.5% |
| Belchertown High Belchertown |
Public | 6.6 | 565 | -12.9% |
| Minnechaug Regional High Wilbraham |
Public | 7.5 | 983 | -3.3% |