Summary
Cannelton Elementary & High School is a 216-student alternative public school serving grades PK–12 in Cannelton, Indiana, a small river town where the whole district — Cannelton City Schools — operates just this one building, and no other school sits within 20 miles. Roughly 59.72% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student–teacher ratio is 11.3 to 1, far smaller than a typical Indiana school.
The biggest concern is attendance. In 2024-25, 36.9% of students were chronically absent — about 2.2 times the state rate of 16.7%, meaning more than one in three students missed roughly 10% or more of school days. That is an improvement from 53.1% in 2021-22, but still far above the state. The graduation rate was 81.4% in 2024-25 versus 89.7% statewide, after beating the state (91.6% vs. 88.4%) the year before. Test results are also well below state: in 2025-26 ILEARN, ELA was 15.07%, Math 13.7% and Science 4%, compared with state averages of roughly 41–44%, 34–52% and 41–44%. SAT results are the weakest area — no students met the Math benchmark in two of the last four years, and EBRW was 11.76%. Because there are no nearby schools to compare with, the state figures are the best available benchmark.
There are real bright spots. Grade 5 ELA reached 40%, essentially at the state's 42.2%, and Biology end-of-course scores have been stable and briefly above state (30.77% in 2022-23 vs. 29%). Grade 8 results were suppressed by the state for privacy, so they are unknown rather than zero. One important caveat: classes here are tiny — often about 7 to 17 students — so a "0%" may mean only a handful of children, and results can swing year to year without any change in teaching. Notably, the school spends $12,386 per student, up 27.8% since 2020-21, so low scores are not simply a funding story. For parents, attendance and early reading are the areas where the school's own data show both the largest gaps and the clearest signs that improvement is possible.
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