North Middlesex
1 high school and 2 elementary schools in our rankings
Students from Ashby, Pepperell and Townsend attend North Middlesex schools, including North Middlesex Regional.
Ranks #129 of 328 Massachusetts school districts — top 40%.
MCAS is the share of students meeting or exceeding expectations in 2026, grades 3–10 combined. Spending is total per-pupil expenditure in FY2024.
North Middlesex Regional School District serves the towns of Ashby, Pepperell, and Townsend in north-central Massachusetts, located in the Nashoba Valley region near the New Hampshire border. The district's high school, North Middlesex Regional High School, is located in Townsend and serves students from all three communities. Pepperell, the most populous of the three, lies along the Nashua River and is known for its historic mill village and the Nashua River Rail Trail, which runs through the area. Ashby and Townsend are rural-leaning towns characterized by farmland, forests, and village centers, with Townsend's historic common and colonial-era architecture reflecting its roots as an early New England settlement. Among the three communities, Pepperell has the highest single-family assessed values and per capita income.
How it compares
- Strongest area: Math MCAS, in the top 41% of districts. 36% of students in grades 3–10 met or exceeded expectations in 2026, vs 41% statewide in the same grades.
- Area to watch: AP results rank in the bottom 36% of districts.
- Trend: Chronic absence has fallen from 25.6% in 2022 to 16.1% in 2025.
- Trend: ELA MCAS is down 10.8 points since 2023 (47.4878% to 36.6397%); statewide it fell 4 points.
A district's overall rank is the average statewide percentile of its ranked schools, with a 10% discount for single-school districts. Category standings compare the average of each district's ranked schools and count only districts with data. How we rank
Schools in North Middlesex
We rank high schools that report SAT results and elementary schools with grade 3 MCAS results, so some of the district's schools (middle schools, for example) aren't listed. Elementary ELA and Math are 2024–2026 averages of grade 3 results.
MCAS results
Share of students meeting or exceeding expectations, compared with the state. Statewide 10th-grade results dropped after 2024, when passing the MCAS stopped being a graduation requirement. There was no test in 2020.
High school results
Averages of the district's ranked high schools (North Middlesex Regional). "MA avg" is the average of all Massachusetts districts with high school data.
Students & classrooms
49.3% female · 50.6% male · 0.1% nonbinary
Spending & teachers
Spending is total per-pupil expenditure from all sources. Dollar figures aren't adjusted for inflation. "MA median" is the middle district in each year; small districts can spend far more per student, so the median is a fairer yardstick than the average. Salary is the average across 240 full-time-equivalent teachers.
Attendance
10.8 days absent per student (MA avg 11) · 3.1% missed 20% or more of school days
About the towns
What could you afford here? · All towns A–Z
Town figures are FY2026 averages for single-family homes from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Assessed values usually run below recent sale prices. "MA median" is the median of the state's 351 towns.
Compare North Middlesex with nearby districts
Side by side: test scores, spending, class size, home values and taxes. Distance is between district centers. Compare with any district