Best Public Schools in Zip Code 46303

Zip code 46303 (Cedar Lake, Indiana) is home to six schools — four elementary, one middle, and one high school — serving 3,297 students, divided between the Hanover Community School Corp (five schools) and the Crown Point Community School Corp (one school); both districts rank in the top 10% of Indiana districts in the provided data.

Douglas MacArthur Elementary School is the clearest standout: it is the only 5-star school in the zip, ranked 84 of 1,015 elementary schools (92nd percentile) in 2025–26, up from the 79th percentile in 2023–24, and it leads tested schools in all-grade ELA (66.52) and Math (70.98) even though it has the highest free/reduced lunch rate (30.69%). Hanover Central Middle School is the most improved, climbing from the 75th to the 82nd to the 87th percentile, with all-grade Science at 55.56%. Red Cedars Elementary is a stable high performer (81st percentile, Math 67.81%), while Hanover Central High School posts a 96.9% graduation rate and strong SAT Evidence-based Reading and Writing (66.38%), though its rank has been volatile.

Every school in the zip has chronic absenteeism below Indiana's 16.7%: Lincoln Elementary School is lowest at 4.5%, followed by Red Cedars (6.2%), MacArthur (7.5%), Jane Ball Elementary School (7.7%), and the middle and high schools (15.9% and 14.4%). Tested elementary and middle schools exceed state proficiency in every comparable grade-level test; science is the main relative watch point, with Red Cedars below its district in science both years. Jane Ball (PK–2) and Lincoln (K–2) have no recent test scores or rankings for structural grade-level reasons — not a performance weakness — and Lincoln pairs the lowest absenteeism with the lowest free/reduced lunch (11.8%), lowest student–teacher ratio (14.2), and highest per-student spending ($13,699).