Summary:
The Ottumwa Community School District in Iowa has only one middle school, Evans Middle School, which serves students in grades 6-8. The school's academic performance has been declining in recent years, with a statewide ranking that has dropped from 293 out of 334 Iowa middle schools in 2022-2023 to 326 out of 344 in 2024-2025, and a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger.
Evans Middle School's proficiency rates on the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) tests are significantly lower than the state averages across all subjects and grade levels. For example, in 8th grade English Language Arts, the school's proficiency rate is 63%, compared to the state average of 80.2%. The school also serves a high percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, at 52.1% in the 2023-2024 school year, indicating that the school population faces significant socioeconomic challenges.
Despite the school's relatively high per-student spending of $12,177 for the 2018-2019 school year and a low student-teacher ratio of 13:1 for the 2023-2024 school year, these investments do not appear to be translating into improved academic outcomes. The data suggests that Evans Middle School is struggling to meet the needs of its students and may require additional support and resources to address the underlying factors contributing to its academic performance issues.
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