Best Public Schools in Zip Code 46711

ZIP code 46711, which covers Berne, Indiana, is served by three public schools in the South Adams Schools district — South Adams Elementary School (PK–5, 671 students), South Adams Middle School (6–8, 294 students), and South Adams High School (9–12, 347 students) — giving families a complete PK–12 pathway with 1,312 students and no alternative school. The district itself ranks 85 out of 374 Indiana districts (77th percentile) with a 4-star rating.

South Adams Middle School is the standout: its latest rank is 112 out of 486 schools (77th percentile, 4 stars), up from 161 out of 491, and it has the lowest chronic absenteeism in the group at 6.3%. Its math (55.63%) and science (56.44%) proficiency are strong, though ELA (38.95%) sits below the district’s 42.53%. South Adams High School posts a 100% graduation rate versus Indiana’s 89.7% and 8.3% absenteeism, but its test scores fell recently — Biology from 71.43% to 57.89%, and SAT Math from 30.56% to 17.86% against a state mark of 25.6% — and its rank slipped from the 87th to the 66th percentile. South Adams Elementary School has held steady at the 66th percentile with 3 stars for three years, led by math at 61.64%, but science is a weak point at 35.05%; it also has the highest absenteeism (10.6%) and student-teacher ratio (14.1) of the three.

All three schools beat Indiana’s 16.7% chronic absenteeism rate, though the elementary school is the only one above the district’s 9.1%. Spending does not track poverty here: the high school spends $14,584 per student — more than the elementary ($11,729) and middle ($11,182) — despite having the lowest free/reduced lunch rate (38.9%), while the middle school has the highest (52.38%) and the lowest spending. ELA is the common soft spot across grade levels, including 8th-grade ELA at 34.48% versus the state’s 44%.