Matchbook Learning

Matchbook Learning is the only school in the Matchbook Learning district, an elementary school serving grades K–8 at 1163 Belmont Avenue in Indianapolis with 707 students. Because the district contains just this one school, district-level numbers and school-level numbers are the same wherever both are reported, so there are no other schools in this area to compare it against.

Two contextual facts stand out. First, 96.32% of students qualified for free/reduced lunch in 2024–2025, indicating very high economic need. Second, chronic absenteeism was 40.8%, compared with 16.7% statewide — roughly 2.44 times the state rate, a gap of 24.1 percentage points. On academics, ILEARN all-grades proficiency in 2025–2026 was 8.17% in ELA, 9.72% in Math, and 14.19% in Science, with 5th grade Social Studies at 9.21%. Grade-level results are mostly in the single digits to mid-teens, while state comparisons for the same grades generally fall in the 34%–52% range, leaving gaps that are often 20–40 percentage points. 5th grade is the weakest area (ELA 2.6%, Math 7.79%), and 7th grade Math is also 2.6%. The strongest results, such as 8th grade ELA at 16.05% and 6th grade Science at 18.75%, still sit well below state benchmarks.

Rankings reflect these outcomes: the district is 362 of 374 in Indiana at the 3rd percentile with 0 stars, and the school ranked 980 of 1,015 in 2025–2026, 996 of 1,005 in 2024–2025, and 1,003 of 1,011 in 2023–2024 — a slight improvement in position, but still the 3rd percentile. Year over year, Science all grades rose from 3.23% to 14.19%, Math all grades rose 3.89 points to 9.72%, while ELA all grades fell 2.85 points to 8.17%. 5th grade Social Studies improved from 7.59% to 9.21%, but the state rose from 38.5% to 47.2%, widening the gap to about −38 points. Per-student spending was $17,477 in 2023–2024 and the student-teacher ratio was 15.3 in 2024–2025; no state or peer benchmarks were provided, so these cannot be judged as high or low on their own.