Oyster River.

Stratham’s elementary teachers are some of the highest paid in the state. Dover just built a new high school. Newmarket is in the middle of rehabbing it’s high school. I live in Newmarket but grew up in Stratham.

The SAU16 system is really top notch. I had a kid go to Exeter’s elementaries and stepchildren who went to Swasey in Brentwood and both took care of them very well. The middle school is starting an expansion this summer and the high school really took care of my kid’s learning disability with care and respect. We stayed in the area just for the schools.

It's easier to identify the ones to avoid than to pick the "best" for your kids.

Avoid property-poor districts if you want a range opportunities or have "special needs." (Languages, arts, after-school activities, learning disabilities...). Money spent on schools doesn't mean everything, but it sure helps. There are plenty of good places to grow up/go to school here, and only a few places that you might wish to have been somewhere else.

It really depends on how much money you have. The way we handle taxes in NH means that wealthier towns get nicer schools. Oyster River would be my first choice in the area.

1. MA

2. NJ

3. NH

Makes sense. I got into Rutgers off my 3.97 GPA, when their average incoming was 4.0. I would have gone there for Fall 2024 and been quite happy there instead of winding up suing assholes at UNH, if only NJ's fair housing act wasn't discriminatory against age. This does spread joy.

Had also gotten into URI but a lot of the folks there wound up being quite ignorant, so the 27) is no surprise. Same shows at UVM and UMaine, very ignorant cultures full of unconstitutional social rules.

Dover just built a new highschool, jr high is fairly new.

If diversity is your beef, NH is like 97%white. Manchester, nashua, concord probably have the greatest diversity.

In the Concord region Bow and Hopkinton are your best bets.

The problem in NH is that every town has the right to create their own school district, and most do. There are more school districts in NH than FL, despite vastly different sizes of population. So, each town supports their own school district, instead of having the costs spread out among a wider group of people. It makes it so that poorer areas have less funding because property tax revenue is lower there. Wealthier areas have better schools because property values are higher.

Look to places like Hopkinton to have better funding for education. If I had children, that’s where I would go. The real solution is to become like every other state, reduce the number of school districts, and spread the costs among a larger group of people.

Bedford is the best school district

It's not clear how far from Concord you can consider moving, but this list is probably pretty accurate: https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-school-districts/s/new-hampshire/

I think you will find that SAU70 is very well funded and has a significant Asian population as well.

Former teacher all over the Concord, Allenstown, Pittsfield, Barnstead area. No one school is better than the other. That is why I am a former teacher, the system is terrible. Get involved and read with your kids at home. Sorry to be a downer, just realistic. Every teacher is beaten down and trashed by the students and schools. Try to teach your kids life skills, because all they get in elementary school is the teaching system the schools buy and force the teachers to follow.

My wife and I are at a similar point in our lives and recently moved to Concord with some of the same concerns. The elementary schools are rated fairly high for the most part, the middle school is so-so and it’s really only the high school with a poor rating.

Everyone is different and only you can decide what’s best for your family but we felt that since we have at least 15 years before our future children will be in high school we have plenty of time to see how they are as students and can look into private schools or moving if we feel it’s needed at that point. I don’t think it will be an issue but we have plenty of time to decide if it is.

For what it’s worth, my impression is that Concord has a lot of educated people who care a lot about public education, but it also has diverse population compared to other nearby communities. The added challenges that brings (such as students and parents who don’t speak English as a first language) affect the ratings.

All that being said, if I absolutely had to leave Concord and move to a neighboring town it would be Hopkinton. It’s a beautiful area, has some of the best schools in the state, and still has some stuff to do in town too. Concord is a better fit for me but Hopkinton is my favorite of the immediate Concord suburbs.

Check out the Oyster River school distric, I had an amazing educational experience there. Everything but the sports teams are top notch.

Exeter

One thing to know is that relative to other states NH schools have very little state oversight and funding. Due to this NH has a very wide variation is education quality from town to town. There are rare exceptions, but generally the more expensive a town's real estate the better the school district. No surprise, good schools increase demand for homes in the town. So, great districts include Bedford, Londonderry, Exeter, Hanover, Hollis-Amherst, etc.

Large districts like Manchester and Nashua afford the students a lot of opportunities, but the parents and students have to be more active and manage their education to ensure they get the most out of those districts. Yes, this can be said of any district, but it is particularly true of Manchester and Nashua. The best districts will take more care that your children get the best for them, but smaller ones might just not have as much to offer.

GreatSchools.org does a good job measuring the more quantifiable aspects of a district, which until you are there is all one can really go by. The rest is opinion and hearsay. Of course, there is always great pride in districts, so even about crappy districts you will hear great things from those with a vested interest or history with the district.

Know that the powerful forces working 24/7 and spending enormous amounts of money dismantling public education in the US are in force and making great headway in NH. This is not a surprise considering the percentages of libertarians or libertarian minded in New Hampshirites. Many people unwittingly are involved in this dismantling, usually by working for or against a particular issue or another, not realizing the issue is one of thousands of efforts that put together are slowly, but methodically dismantling US public education. Yes, yes, some people think this sounds nutty, but I have researched it thoroughly. Dismantling is slowly but surely happening, generally discretely (because it is not popular publicly), but it is happening.

There are lots of tremendous private high schools in New England. You really need to narrow your search, boarding or day, school ideology, etc. What price range can your family afford... if you know, what do you want to do for college? Many private schools are feeders to specific universities/ military academies.. I attended NMH in the early 1980s, great education, not cheap. You meet some great people who stay with you for life

I’m sure someone has already suggested it but Phillips Exeter academy is a great school, I’ve known a lot of students there and while it can get a little claustrophobic even among day students, the amenities they offer students are pretty sweet. It’s definitely pricy, and if you can’t afford it or don’t get in I wouldn’t be too upset because although it’s nice you can get a similar quality education at all kinds of schools even some public ones. PEA will brag a lot about the harkness method and the quality of their teachers, but those things only work about half the time, and I’ve been in a summer math class taught that way and let me tell you it is pretty much nonsensical except for English or history classes. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Derryfield school these past couple years, I don’t know a lot about it but people from my high school have started transferring over which is notable considering we are one of the top high schools in the state. Governors school must be expensive because the people I’ve met from there were very well off, but generally nice although not always the top academically. If you are willing to drive to South Berwick in Maine I think Berwick Academy is excellent as well, they have a fantastic campus, nice faculty, and a very nice vibe that is a little less claustrophobic than Phillips Exeter.

Again I think it’s important to remember that private and public schools can provide very similar educations, but at hugely different costs. My family discouraged me from attending a private high school because the cost would put my ability to pay for college in jeopardy but soon into my time at my public high school I realized that many of my old friends at PEA and Derryfield and Berwick were getting very similar levels of education. It’s what you make out of it. If you go to a fancy private school you might have more elective options or sat prep or sports opportunities but ultimately all these schools offer similar core classes and opportunities and people from all the schools can get accepted to high level colleges, and the high school you go to is not something that colleges use against you. Still, I completely get the appeal of private schools, and if you find one you love go for it!

I can highly recommend Bishop Guertin, and you don’t have to be Catholic to go there (only about 25% of the students there are Catholic, and people go there for the high quality academics).

My daughter went there, and she was very well prepared for college, so much so that she thought college was a breeze. And now she’s working on her PhD.

Do you want to be a boarding student or a day student? What programs are you interested in and what extracurriculars are important to you? What is your budget? It's kind of hard to answer your question based on the information you've given.

Not sure what your local high school is, but I know plenty of people that have been highly successful going through NH public high school and simply pursuing honors/AP track courses.

I am not really sure what the value proposition is of a private high school.

I would be more inclined to prioritize college education and that experience, dollar for dollar, especially considering current cost climate of college.

Maybe consider a Montessori school? There is a public one in Manchester-Mill Falls Charter School.

https://www.woodlandcommunityschool.org/

https://www.lafayetteregional.org/

https://www.heartwoodeducation.org/

To my knowledge screens are pretty much in kindergarten/ grade 1 for a lot of schools in southern NH now.

Top Ranked New Hampshire Schools

#1 Academy for Science and Design (ASD) 486 Amherst Street, Nashua, New Hampshire 03063

#2 Hanover High School 41 Lebanon St. Suite 1, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755

#3 Windham High School 64 London Bridge Rd., Windham, New Hampshire 03087

#4 Lebanon High School 195 Hanover St., Lebanon, New Hampshire 03766

#5 Oyster River High School 55 Coe Dr., Durham, New Hampshire 03824

#6 Hollis-Brookline High School 24 Cavalier Ct., Hollis, New Hampshire 03049

#7 Bedford High School 47b Nashua Rd., Bedford, New Hampshire 03110

#8 Hopkinton High School 297 Park Ave., Contoocook, New Hampshire 03229

#9 Profile Senior High School 691 Profile Rd., Bethlehem, New Hampshire 03574

#10 Souhegan High School 412 Boston Post Rd., Amherst, New Hampshire 03031

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-hampshire

https://www.highmowing.org/ checks all your boxes.

Brownsburg HS & Crown Point HS are the two best in Indiana.

Virginia- Great Bridge [22 State Titles, Numerous Collegiate AA]

Grundy [27 State Titles]

Christiansburg [18 State Titles]

Granby [22 State Titles]

I wrestled in NH about 15 years ago. Timberlane at the time had multiple full teams and their B-team would go and win large tournaments. They start the kids wrestling in 1st grade or sooner.

New England:

NH - Timberlane, comfortably

VT - Mt. Anthony, comfortably

CT - Danbury, comfortably

RI - Ponagansett, who has passed LaSalle

MA - Lowell, who is in danger of being passed by St. John's, Shawsheen, and others

ME - Noble, Massabessic, Marshwood have had sustained success, peaking at different points

+gilroy, they finished 3rd last year above Clovis

Arlington Martin is the only other possible choice here.

For those who are unfamiliar with Texas sports, Allen is a suburb north of Dallas. Unlike most really large Texas suburbs or cities, Allen has only one high school. So their total enrollment is ~6950 kids. That’s 7000 kids to pull from for all varsity sports. And they recruit in almost every sport.

The next most populous school is Plano East with about 5500 kids. There isn’t another school in that state with more than 5000 kids. And most in the highest sports classification (6A) have between 2500 and 3500 kids.

Needless to say, Allen does very very well in all sports, not just wrestling. But wrestling definitely gets some unique advantages with such a large student population. There’s one wrestler needed per variety weight class. Finding one good heavy from 7000 kids is much much more likely than doing so from 3000 kids

Some/many people in Allen resent the large school population issue. They think it waters down education and they think there are less opportunities for each kid.

If there were three high schools in Allen, for example, they could have 36 varsity basketball player slots across the 3 schools. Instead, they have 12. So the 13th best kid at basketball from among 7000 is just out of luck.

They’re still solid, but not even close to how they used to dominate. Brownsburg is doing that now.

I grew up in NH. I started to type my rave review of Wolfeboro, but then plugged it into google maps and it is somehow 2 hours from Hanover :(

With that being said I would go for somewhere like Hillsborough or Sunapee in NH, or Woodstock in VT

Where are you looking that 'most houses' in Hanover are 1.5 and up? You can definitely find a suitable house for 800k in the area. If that's where you want to be close to, then just look at neighboring towns. They're all pretty similar in the region.

Hanover or Lebanon, NH. Norwich, VT is nice too.

Have you looked at Brattleboro? In any case, I'm jelly, this is my dream lifestyle tbh.

Check out Orford, NH. Rivendell is a great school, and it’s like a 5-10 min drive from Hanover. Plus you’re across the river from Fairlee which is cute as hell and has a fantastic coffee shop and some good restaurants. Also Lake Morey.

I have a friend in Norwich and it’s great, he loves it, but it’s not cheap and taxes just went up. I love the Upper Valley area and there are some great schools and opportunities due to proximity to Dartmouth.

That said the lifestyle you’re after is available in a lot of places. I’d also suggest looking at the Plymouth, NH area. I live in Eaton, NH and we have a fantastic town lake, plus we’re like 5-10 minutes from mountain Washington valley for a town.

Wolfeboro isn’t a bad choice either. Lake Winnie can be kind of intense during the summer though, but it’s a great town with great schools.

Absolute humiliation for NH to go from FOURTH in education to 16th! Republicans are (literally!) failing our children and young people.

GOP sucks and NH will never be any better until we stop thinking we need to split the ticket. Aka we vote dem president then we must vote gop governor and vice versa. No, no, no

They don’t care about those things. They care about not massing up the state, owning the libs and being able to say the hard R…. You know, the important things

Isn't it strange that Ed Commissioner Edelblut got away with a 12 rank drop in education rankings by blaming it all on the schools that he was responsible for? As a business person, I find it amazing that an executive could get away with such a thing! I would have fired him long ago!

Actually, I've run three. The last was an international intelligent robotics firm.