Middle Schools in Banning Unified

Nicolet Middle is the only middle school listed in Banning Unified, serving grades 6–8 and enrolling 966 students. In 2025–2026, 25% of students met state proficiency standards in English language arts (ELA), 14% in mathematics, and 23% in science, compared with 49%, 38%, and 36% statewide, respectively. Results improved from the prior year in all three subjects, but they remained well below state levels; that persistent achievement gap is the most important finding for families.

There is no peer-school comparison here: Nicolet is automatically both the highest- and lowest-performing school in this one-school list. Against state results, its smallest gap was in science, at 13 percentage points below the state; ELA was 24 points below and mathematics was 25 points below. Within the school, grade 8 had the strongest reported results in both ELA and math: 31% and 17%, respectively, compared with 23% and 14% in grade 6 and 23% and 11% in grade 7. Even so, grade 8 remained below its same-grade state results in both subjects.

Scores rose year over year, and the gaps narrowed, though substantial differences remain: Nicolet’s ELA result increased by 7 percentage points, math by 5, and science by 8; the corresponding gaps with the state narrowed by 6, 4, and 5 points. Attendance is another notable concern: chronic absenteeism was 31% in 2025–2026, compared with 25% districtwide and 18% statewide. SchoolDigger ranked Nicolet 2,322 out of 2,703 schools, at the 14th percentile with 1 star in 2025–2026, an improvement from the 7th percentile and 0 stars the year before. The student–teacher ratio was 21.8 in 2024–2025, and 91% of students were reported as free/reduced lunch eligible that year; these figures describe the school’s context, not the cause of its results.