Best Middle Schools in Union, IA

The city of Union, Iowa is home to a single middle school, BCLUW Middle School, which serves students in grades 5-8 within the BCLUW Community School District. While the school has seen a decline in its statewide ranking in recent years, it has a mix of academic strengths and challenges that parents should be aware of.

BCLUW Middle School's performance on the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) tests has been uneven, with 7th-grade students performing well above the state average in both English Language Arts and Mathematics, but 5th-grade students scoring significantly below the state average in these subjects. In Science, 5th-grade students scored below the state average, while 8th-grade students scored slightly above. The school's per-student spending is higher than the state average, but it faces a concerning issue with chronic absenteeism, which was 21.6% for the 2023-2024 school year, significantly higher than the state average.

Despite the school's challenges, it also has some strengths, such as a relatively low student-teacher ratio of 11.1, which may indicate smaller class sizes. However, the overall trend of declining statewide ranking suggests that the school may need to focus on improving its curriculum, instructional strategies, and addressing the root causes of its high chronic absenteeism rate to ensure the success of all its students.