Elwood Community School Corp

Elwood Community School Corp is a small Indiana district serving roughly 1,462 students across three schools: Elwood Elementary School (PK–2, 412 students), Elwood Intermediate School (3–6, 400 students), and Elwood Junior-Senior High School (7–12, 650 students), which also houses grades 7–8 since there is no separate middle school. The district is rated 318th of 374 Indiana districts, at the 15th percentile with 1 star, and all three schools share that district-level rating.

Comparing the schools, Elwood Intermediate School is the relative bright spot: it has the district's best attendance (20.1% chronic absenteeism versus the district's 27.8% and the state's 16.7%), the highest math proficiency (26.2%), above-district ELA (19.9%), and the lowest student-teacher ratio (12.5) — even though it has the highest free/reduced lunch rate (73%) and the lowest per-student spending ($10,106). Elwood Junior-Senior High School has a graduation rate of 90.9%, above the state's 89.7%, plus SAT gains (EBRW 24.26% to 31.52%; Math 5.88% to 8.70%), but SAT Math remains far below the state's 25.6% and absenteeism is 28.9%. Elwood Elementary School has the lowest free/reduced lunch rate (56.07%) but the highest absenteeism (33.5%) and the highest student-teacher ratio (15.6); it has no current test scores because state testing generally begins in grade 3.

The most consistent challenge is chronic absenteeism, which is above the state rate at every Elwood school. Where state comparisons exist, proficiency runs roughly 14 to 28 points below state averages, and Biology EOC dropped from 43.48% to 30.26% year over year. Still, there are pockets of improvement, including intermediate social studies, intermediate ELA, and high school SAT results.