Summary:
The 50644 zip code is home to a single public high school, Independence Junior Senior High School, which serves grades 7-12. While the school has a relatively high enrollment of 724 students, its performance has declined in recent years, dropping from a ranking of 42nd out of 336 Iowa high schools in 2022-2023 to 183rd out of 340 in 2024-2025.
Academically, Independence Junior Senior High School has mixed results, with English Language Arts proficiency rates ranging from 64.7% to 75.7% across different grade levels, while Mathematics and Science proficiency rates are more variable, with some grades performing better than the state average and others performing worse. The school also faces challenges with a high chronic absenteeism rate of 21.6% in 2023-2024, which could be a contributing factor to its declining performance.
Socioeconomic factors may also play a role, as over a third of the student population (34.67%) received free or reduced-price lunch in 2023-2024. Despite relatively high spending per student of $15,700 in 2018-2019, the school's Independence Community School District is ranked 250th out of 313 districts in Iowa and rated 1 out of 5 stars by SchoolDigger, suggesting that the resources may not be effectively utilized to support student learning and achievement.
Thank you for your feedback!