Summary:
ZIP code 46259 in the Franklin Township area is home to two schools listed as middle schools — Franklin Central Junior High, which serves grades 7–8 with 1,797 students, and Lillie Idella Kitley Intermediate, which serves grades 4–6 with 1,365 students — both part of the Franklin Township Com School Corp. Together they enroll 3,162 students at the grade levels shown, with Franklin Central making up 56.8% of that total and Kitley 43.2%. Because the two schools cover different grade spans, their test results are not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison.
Kitley generally performs above both its district and the state. In 2025–2026, its all-grade ELA proficiency was 46.78% (district: 40.87%) and all-grade Math was 48.12% (district: 42.28%). Its 5th Grade Social Studies result of 63.91% far exceeds the state's 47.2%, and it improved from 54.21% the prior year. Kitley also has lower chronic absenteeism at 12.4%, below the district's 15.3% and the state's 16.7%. Franklin Central, by contrast, trails its district in all-grade ELA (39.33% vs. 40.87%) and especially in all-grade Math (32.22% vs. 42.28%), with both 7th and 8th grade math below state averages. Its chronic absenteeism is 18.5%, above district and state.
One striking difference is cost: Franklin Central spends $10,832 per student with a student-teacher ratio of 19.7, while Kitley spends $7,677 with a ratio of 17.7 — yet Kitley shows stronger proficiency and better attendance, even though free/reduced lunch rates are nearly identical (51.64% vs. 50.70%). This does not prove cause and effect, particularly given the different grade levels. Franklin Central's statewide rank has also slipped, from 147 of 491 (70th percentile, 4 stars) in 2023–2024 to 207 of 486 (57th percentile, 3 stars) in 2025–2026. Kitley has no rank history in this data, so the two cannot be compared on that metric.
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