Lake Ridge New Technical Schools

Lake Ridge New Technical Schools is a three-school district in Gary, Indiana, serving students in grades K–4 at Longfellow New Technical Elementary School, grades 5–8 at Lake Ridge New Technical Middle School, and grades 9–12 at Calumet New Technical High School. Across the three schools, enrollment is 1,550 students, and the district ranks 353rd of 374 Indiana districts (6th percentile, 0 stars). Poverty is nearly universal: free/reduced lunch is 90.65% at Calumet, 97.1% at Longfellow, and 97.54% at Lake Ridge Middle. Chronic absenteeism is also a system-wide issue: Calumet is highest at 40.9%, Lake Ridge Middle is 28.9%, and Longfellow is lowest at 23.7%, but all three exceed Indiana’s 16.7% rate.

Calumet New Technical High School has a bright spot: a 97.2% graduation rate, above Indiana’s 89.7%. But its SAT proficiency is low—28.47% in Evidence-based Reading and Writing and 4.38% in Mathematics, compared with state rates of 51.9% and 25.6%—and it has the district’s highest absenteeism. It also spends the most per student ($14,358) and has the smallest classes (14.9 student-teacher ratio). Longfellow New Technical Elementary School has the lowest absenteeism and a relative math strength: 11.94% proficient in all-grade math, above the district’s 9.08%. However, it has the weakest overall rank—992nd of 1,015 schools, the 2nd percentile, with 0 stars—and its all-grade ELA is 9.41%, below the district’s 14.57%; 3rd grade ELA is only 4.04% against the state’s 40.8%. It also has the highest student-teacher ratio at 19.3.

Lake Ridge New Technical Middle School is the clearest improver: its rank percentile rose from 4th in 2023–24 to 8th in 2024–25 to 11th in 2025–26, and it earned 1 star in 2025–26. It outperforms the district in all-grade ELA (17.11% vs. 14.57%) and science (17.12% vs. 15.02%), and its 8th grade ELA of 25.96% is the highest grade-level ELA result in the data. Still, math is weak: 7.65% proficient across all grades, and 8th grade math is 5.83% against the state’s 34.2%. Fifth grade social studies dropped from 17.53% to 8.89%, far below the state’s 47.2%. Overall, math is the clearest academic weakness across the upper grades, and spending or class size does not show a simple relationship with outcomes.