Coleytown Middle School has now been hailed as the best public middle school in Connecticut according to the recent 2026 Niche school rankings released in early October. Out of the 296 middle schools in Connecticut Niche ranked, Coleytown was able to score first in best school and best teachers and was ranked as the 83rd best middle school out of the 25,606 schools Niche ranked in the entire United States.
Coleytown scored an A+ in academics, one of three standards that Niche grades their scores after. Niche calculates these numbers based on student proficiency in state assessments and from survey responses from students and parents. Coleytown got a 77% proficiency in both math and English, the two things that are tested for in Connecticut’s state test for middle schoolers, the Smarter Balanced test.
“The teachers were supportive, and the school felt new and fresh after the renovation after the mold,” Eli Abrams ’28 said. “But it didn’t really feel like it excelled in comparison to other schools like Bedford.”
Coleytown also scored first in 2025 and second in both 2016 and 2017. While the school suffers from a low diversity score, only a B as a result of a large white student population, it makes up for that with an A+ in the teachers category. The school is reported to have a student to teacher ratio of 10:1, better than Staples’ 11:1 ratio. The high teaching score may also be a result of good teacher wages, where according to Niche the average teacher salary in Coleytown is $97,374.
“The teachers were good and, you know, all the classes were good and stuff,” Alistair Mukhtar ’27 said. “The support you had from people at school [was] helpful.”
Westport Public Schools are often ranked highly on the Niche scores, not only with Bedford Middle School trailing behind Coletown in sixth place for Connecticut, but Staples also achieving the number one public high school for Connecticut this same year. Westport itself as a town ranks at an A+ with some of the highest scores possible for public schooling, nightlife, and family appeal.
“Westport Public Schools are really great schools,” Hosna Nazeran ’27 said. “We’ve got a really great school system.”
