Holden, Massachusetts
The Wachusett District by the Numbers
Read the caption before the number. Holden’s schools are part of a five-town regional district, so every figure on this page belongs to the Wachusett Regional School District and covers Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland and Sterling together. Detailed figures come from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
District Snapshot, All Five Towns
Sources: Massachusetts DESE, school and district profiles.
High needs is a state count, not a score. It includes every student who is from a low income household, learning English, or receiving special education services, and counts each one only once. The median across all 396 Massachusetts districts is 46.7 percent.
The Six Schools Inside Holden
Thirteen schools serve the district. Six of them stand in Holden, and students from the other four towns come to some of them, most obviously the regional high school.
- Wachusett Regional High School, 1401 Main Street
- Mountview Middle School, 270 Shrewsbury Street
- Dawson Elementary School, 155 Salisbury Street
- Davis Hill Elementary School, 80 Jamieson Road
- Mayo Elementary School, 351 Bullard Street
- Early Childhood Center, 1745 Main Street, Jefferson
District Overview
| District | Wachusett Regional (Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, Sterling) |
| Enrollment, district-wide | 6,427 |
| Schools, district-wide | 13 |
| High school | Wachusett Regional High School |
| School Committee seats | 16, of which Holden elects 6 |
Student Population, District-Wide
For the precise current breakdown, see the DESE district profile. Each of these is a five-town figure.
| English learners | 2.0% |
| First language not English | 6.0% |
| Students with disabilities | 16.6% |
| Low income | 15.4% |
| High needs | 29.5% |
| Per-pupil spending (in-district) | $16,882.65 |
| Per-pupil spending (total) | $18,297.64 |
Academic Performance & Context
The district’s four-year graduation rate was 93.9%. MCAS results, graduation rates and accountability data are published and updated each year by DESE. Because these change annually, this guide links to the live state profile rather than reprinting numbers that quickly go stale.
One number here is a civics fact rather than an education one, and in a regional district it is the most important one on the page. Per-pupil spending is not set at Town Hall. The district builds its budget, votes it, and sends each town an assessment. In February 2026 Holden’s Town Manager told the Finance Committee that the coming assessment would be at least $3.5 million higher than the last one and called it the single largest dollar increase in the town’s budget by far, driven partly by Chapter 70 state education aid to the district falling from a $3.4 million annual increase in FY24 to about $500,000 in FY26. On May 11, 2026, Holden voters passed a $5.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override, 1,839 to 1,503, to cover it and to restore about $2 million of proposed town cuts. That is what a school assessment looks like when it reaches the ballot.
Sources
MA DESE, Wachusett Regional School District Student Profile (code 07750000). Accessed 2026. School locations: each school’s own site at wrsd.net. Override result: Town of Holden Annual Town Election official results, May 11, 2026. Assessment and aid figures: Town of Holden FY2027 Town Manager’s proposed budget, transmittal letter, February 13, 2026.