Winchendon
1 high school and 1 elementary school in our rankings · serves Winchendon
Ranks #285 of 328 Massachusetts school districts.
MCAS is the share of students meeting or exceeding expectations in 2026, grades 3–10 combined. Spending is total per-pupil expenditure in FY2024.
Winchendon is a town in north-central Massachusetts, located in Worcester County near the New Hampshire border and roughly 20 miles north of Fitchburg. The Winchendon Public Schools serve the town, with Murdock High School as its public high school. The town is known as a long-running center of toy manufacturing, earning it the nickname "Toy Town" and a history tied to the wooden toy industry in New England. Average single-family assessed values in Winchendon are moderate relative to the state, and the town's rural-to-small-town character includes forests, lakes, and the Millers River corridor.
How it compares
- Best of its categories: Graduation rate, in the bottom 27% of districts. 89.8% of high school students graduate in four years, vs 92.4% for the average MA district.
- Area to watch: Attendance ranks in the bottom 7% of districts.
- Trend: Chronic absence has fallen from 39.9% in 2022 to 29.8% in 2025.
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 Winchendon
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 (Murdock High School). "MA avg" is the average of all Massachusetts districts with high school data.
Students & classrooms
46.2% female · 53.5% male · 0.3% 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 91 full-time-equivalent teachers.
Attendance
16.5 days absent per student (MA avg 11) · 11.3% missed 20% or more of school days
About Winchendon
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 Winchendon with nearby districts
Side by side: test scores, spending, class size, home values and taxes. Distance is between district centers. Compare with any district