Summary:
ZIP code 46902 in the Kokomo area is served by two middle-level schools: Maple Crest Middle School, which serves grades 6–8 with 435 students in Kokomo School Corporation, and Taylor Middle School, which serves grades 5–8 with 368 students in Taylor Community School Corp. Both districts are rated 1 star and rank near the bottom of Indiana's 374 districts — Kokomo at 278th (26th percentile) and Taylor at 290th (22nd percentile). Both schools serve high-poverty populations, with free/reduced lunch rates of 65.06% at Maple Crest and 66.85% at Taylor.
The two schools have contrasting strengths rather than one clearly outperforming the other. Taylor is stronger in English language arts, with 30.22% of students proficient at All Grades levels versus Maple Crest's 23.19%; Taylor also does better in science relative to its own district and posts the highest single ELA grade result in the pair (5th grade at 37.33%). Maple Crest is the stronger math school, with 21.50% proficiency versus Taylor's 13.44%, and its 6th-grade math score of 25.36% is the best math result in the set. Maple Crest has also improved notably, with math rising from 13.72% to 21.50% and science jumping from 8.33% to 30.15%, lifting its rank percentile from 17 to 28. Taylor's rank peaked at the 30th percentile in 2024–25 before slipping to 24th, as math and science declined.
Both schools face a serious shared challenge in chronic absenteeism, near 26% at each — about 1.6 times the statewide rate of 16.7% — although both are below their own district rates. Notably, every tested grade and subject at both schools falls below state proficiency, sometimes by wide margins, such as Taylor's 7th-grade math at 9.89% against a state figure of 35.9%. Resource differences do not explain the pattern: Maple Crest spends $12,555 per student versus $10,761 at Taylor, yet each school leads in a different subject. Parents should see these as two similar schools, both with real room for growth and pockets of improving performance.
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