Summary:
ZIP code 47201 is served by two middle schools — Northside Middle School and Central Middle School — both in the Bartholomew Con School Corp, and both teaching grades 7–8 to a combined 1,698 students, with Northside the larger at 908 and Central at 790. The district overall ranks 162 of 374 schools, at the 57th percentile with 3 stars.
For 2025–26, Central is the stronger school on core academics. It ranks 142 of 486 (71st percentile, 4 stars), while Northside ranks 205 of 486 (58th percentile, 3 stars). Central improved from 199 of 480 the year before, and it posts higher proficiency in every reported ELA and math category — most strikingly in 8th grade ELA, where Central scores 50.39 versus Northside's 35.29, a 15.10-point gap. Central's 8th grade ELA is well above the state (44.00); Northside's is well below. Northside's year-over-year core results were essentially flat, moving from 37.33 to 37.17 in ELA and 35.09 to 34.81 in math. Both schools fall below the district's all-grade math figure of 42.98.
Several other measures look similar at the two schools. Free/reduced lunch is 45.04% at Northside and 45.44% at Central, per-student spending is $11,987 versus $12,099, and student-teacher ratios are 15.7 and 15.2. Chronic absenteeism is 17.2% at Northside and 17.7% at Central, both above the district (15.9%) and state (16.7%). Both report very high Biology end-of-course proficiency — Northside at 100% and Central at 98.15% — far above district and state figures, though as an end-of-course exam this likely reflects a smaller or more selective group and shouldn't be read the same way as the all-grade ELA and math rates.
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