Masconomet High School (Boston, Lynn, Lexington: school districts, college, living in)

[4panthers]

Does anyone have experience with Masconomet high/middle school? How big is it, does it have a wide range of academic/art/sport offerings, is there a strong sense of community spanning the 3 towns, etc? how might it compare to Hamilton/Wenham high/middle school, or Manchester/essex? thanks.

[septimus]

if you can find it Boston magazine does rankings of the local schools and it is always one of the top if not top public schools... it is a very good system and people pay a lot of money to live in those towns.

[Jeanniep888]

Hello looking for some 2012 info about Masco
Anyone feel free to share thoughts.

[konfetka]

One of the best in the area, lots of sports and programs, because it gets resources from three affluent towns. Nice new facilities with middle and high school next to each other. In the rankings it's in the same league with Ham-Wen, Manchester and Marblehead.

[rochcali]

Masconomet has consistently ranked in the high 40s in the Boston Magazine rankings. Does anyone have practical experience of how it compares to the consistently top ranking schools in Weston, Lexington, Concord, Wayland, Dover, Wellesley, Acton, Bedford?
Would be interested to know how they campare on facilities, student experience, etc.

[konfetka]

You can do that on MCAS Performance Report - School and District Profiles: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education with easy sortable tables.

[konfetka]

Boxford, Middleton and Topsfield are very small (6-8 th. people each), affluent (mostly republican) towns right outside of Boston metro, I don't usually see anyone on this forum from those towns. All I know a family friend graduated from there and went Boston Architectural College, and driving by the high school and middle school campus, it looked impressive. Their teams play in the Cape Ann league and they win a lot.

[gf2020]

I live in Lynnfield, which neighbors the Masconomet regional towns to the southwest and previously lived in Newbury, which is part of the Triton Regional district to the north. We have good friends with children currently at Masconomet and who are recent graduates of Masco. Additionally, I am good friends with the recently retired vice-principal of Masconomet HS.

As mentioned above, the positive press behind Masconomet is easy to find. The physical campus is fairly new and impressive, the sports teams have considerable success and the students show favorable standardized test scores.

That said, when it came time to move a few towns south to be closer to aging parents, we dismissed the Masconomet towns because we did not want to be in a regional school district again.

From our years of living in the Triton regional district, we knew that the education proposition is always one of a compromise, in the case of Masconomet, or Triton or Pentucket, it's a compromise that must be brokered across and accepted by all 3 towns in the district. It is frequently a difficult situation to find unity or common ground even in affluent communities like Boxford, Middleton and Topsfield.

The smaller, individual school districts on the North Shore, like Newburyport, Georgetown, Ipswich, Lynnfield and Marblehead, control their own destiny. The voters in those towns don't need to seek compromise when it comes time to allocating costs with their sister communities or deciding to send Federal special education funds to one town in the district but not another. If you have never had students in a regional school district before then these are things to be aware of.

[rochcali]

Excellent points to consider from someone with first hand knowledge. Thankyou.