Summary:
Families in this area have a single public high school option: Purdue Polytechnic High School South Bend, a grades 9–12 campus with 138 students in South Bend, Indiana, which also operates as its own district (Purdue Polytechnic High School South Bend), so school and district figures are identical for nearly every measure.
Compared with Indiana as a whole, the school trails on most reported measures. Chronic absenteeism stands at 58.3%, about 3.5 times the state rate of 16.7% and 41.6 percentage points higher. The 2024–2025 graduation rate is 80.0%, 9.7 points below the state's 89.7%. On SAT math, only 7.69% of 11th graders were proficient in 2025–2026, up from 3.85% the prior year, against state rates of 25.6% and 25.4%. SAT Evidence-based Reading and Writing proficiency is 46.15%, up sharply from 23.08% a year earlier and now within about 6 points of the state's 51.9%. In 2024–2025, 35.14% of students were proficient in Biology on ILEARN, compared with 45.6% statewide. The district ranked 271st of 374 in Indiana, at the 28th percentile with 1 star; rank history shows 283rd of 415 in 2025–2026, after 348th of 429 in 2024–2025 and 281st of 432 in 2023–2024 — a rebound rather than a steady climb.
The clearest bright spots are the near-doubling of SAT reading and writing proficiency and a low student-teacher ratio of 9.8, which often means smaller classes. Per-student spending was $12,394 in 2023–2024, and 61.59% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch in 2024–2025, indicating substantial economic need. With only 138 students, year-to-year percentages can shift on the strength of a few students, so single-year swings should be read with caution. Overall, the school's main challenges in this data are very high chronic absenteeism, very low SAT math proficiency, and graduation and test scores that sit below the state.
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