North Knox Intermediate

North Knox Intermediate is a 370-student public elementary school in rural Bruceville, Indiana, serving grades 3–6 as one of two schools in the North Knox School Corp. It ranks 578th of 1,015 Indiana elementary schools — 43rd percentile, 2 stars — and has hovered in the 40s for most of the past decade, with a high point of 54th percentile in 2021-22 before dipping to 38th in 2024-25 and recovering to 43rd in 2025-26. That 43rd percentile sits 11 points above its own district's 32nd percentile standing, so the intermediate school is outperforming the district it belongs to.

Reading is the school's strength and most improved area: 38.8% of students passed the state ELA test in 2025-26, up about 7 points from 31.8% a year earlier, and fifth-grade reading and social studies both beat state averages. Math is the reverse, and it is the single most distinctive thing about this school. At 34.0% proficiency, math is weaker than reading here — unusual, because every comparable nearby school, including South Knox Elementary School, Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, and James Whitcomb Riley Elementary School, scores higher in math than in reading. Math also falls steeply as students move up: from 46.1% in 3rd grade to 25.3% in 6th grade, a roughly 21-point slide, and North Knox 6th graders trail South Knox's by 16 points in math, while reading shows no such decline.

North Knox Intermediate spends less per student ($9,375) than any comparable school in the area — about 12% below the next-lowest and roughly 24% less than its own district's North Knox Primary School. Chronic absenteeism is 16.8%, essentially the state rate but 2.5 times South Knox's 6.7%, even though its free/reduced lunch rate (57.3%) is only modestly higher than South Knox's 43.2%. For families, the takeaway is that reading is a genuine bright spot worth protecting, while 4th- through 6th-grade math and attendance are where the school most needs to improve; the recent rank recovery rests mostly on the reading gains.