Summary:
ZIP code 47243 in Hanover, Indiana is served by a single public high school, Southwestern High School, which enrolls 350 students in grades 9–12 and belongs to the Southwestern-Jefferson County Con district. Because it is the only high school in the area, all comparisons below are against district and Indiana state benchmarks rather than against other local schools.
The clearest bright spot is completion: Southwestern High School posted a 98.7% graduation rate in 2024–2025, well above Indiana's 89.7% and identical to the district rate. Chronic absenteeism is 15.5%, slightly better than the state's 16.7% but notably higher than the district's 10.7%. By overall state ranking, the school sits in the middle: 221 of 374 schools, at the 41st percentile with 2 stars. That position has been stable across three years — 251 of 415 (40th percentile) in 2025–2026, 246 of 429 (43rd percentile) in 2024–2025, and 253 of 432 (41st percentile) in 2023–2024 — all at 2 stars, indicating neither sharp improvement nor decline.
Academic proficiency is mixed. SAT Math is the weakest area: 11.36% in 2024–2025 and 9.59% in 2025–2026, roughly 16 percentage points below the state rates of 25.4% and 25.6%. SAT Evidence-based Reading and Writing fell from 53.41% in 2024–2025 (near the state's 54.5%) to 42.47% in 2025–2026, about 9.4 points below the state's 51.9%. By contrast, ILEARN Biology rose from 38.55% to 51.39%, improving from below the state's 45.6% to a stronger result. Contextually, the school has a 13.7 student-teacher ratio, 53.14% of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch, and per-student spending of $13,707 in 2023–2024 — a small school with a majority economically disadvantaged population by that measure.
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