Summary
Mitchell Junior High School is a small, high-poverty middle school in Mitchell, Indiana, serving 336 students in grades 6–8 as part of Mitchell Community Schools, a district ranked 275 of 374 in Indiana (26th percentile, 1 star). The school's own 2025–26 rank is 370 of 486, or the 24th percentile with 1 star, placing it in the bottom quarter statewide, and 66.96% of students qualified for free/reduced lunch in 2024–25. Its history shows a long-term decline: from 2016–17 through 2018–19 it sat in the 42nd–44th percentile with 2 stars, but since then it has mostly stayed in the 22nd–33rd percentile, with the most recent years again bottom-quartile and 1-star.
Mitchell is closely matched to nearby Shoals Middle School: both are 1-star schools nearly tied at the 24th and 23rd percentiles. Mitchell reports higher all-grades ELA (24.53% vs. 18.18%) and math (17.70% vs. 15.38%), and far lower chronic absenteeism (14.9% vs. 31.1%), while Shoals is stronger in 6th-grade science (37.25% vs. 23.58%) and 8th-grade math (22.22% vs. 10.38%). About 8.7 miles away, Bedford Middle School is the stronger benchmark nearby, with 3 stars, a 50th-percentile rank, 32.15% ELA and 33.93% math. Mitchell still edges Bedford on chronic absenteeism (14.9% vs. 20.4%) and student-teacher ratio (12.0 vs. 16.0).
Math is Mitchell's largest and most persistent weakness. All-grades math proficiency is 17.70%, nearly 9 points below the district's 26.68%, and it trails state rates at every grade level: 6th math 27.36% vs. 40.2%, 7th math 15.45% vs. 35.9%, and 8th math 10.38% vs. 34.2%. Eighth grade is the weakest band overall, with ELA at 19.81% against the state's 44%. Sixth grade is comparatively strong at 27.36% in both ELA and math, though still below state. ELA has recovered slightly, from 21.54% to 24.53%, but remains below its 2022–23 peak of 31.38%. Chronic absenteeism, at 14.9%, is below the state's 16.7% yet above the district's 10.6%. Two figures deserve caution: 2023–24 spending of $39,480 per student is an extreme outlier, and that year's 4.1 student-teacher ratio is anomalous.
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