Summary:
ZIP code 47302 has one middle school, Southside Middle School, serving grades 6–8 with 469 students as part of Muncie Community Schools in Muncie, Indiana. The district is ranked 307th of 374 in Indiana, at the 18th percentile with 1 star, while Southside itself has ranked at roughly the 5th–6th percentile with 0 stars in each of the last three reported years. Enrollment is 469, the student-teacher ratio is 10.6, and per-student spending is $17,651 for 2023–2024. About 85.71% of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch in 2024–2025, indicating high economic need.
Core academic proficiency is very low. In 2025–2026, all-grades proficiency was 8.79% in ELA, 9.05% in math, and 9.29% in science, compared with district scores in the low-to-mid 20s. Grade-level state comparisons were far higher, with Southside roughly 26 to 36 percentage points below the state in ELA, math, and science. Biology End-of-Course is the clear bright spot: 35.48% proficient in 2025–2026 and 38.46% in 2024–2025, above the district both years. However, this test likely covers a different, smaller, or more advanced group of students than the grade-level ILEARN tests, so it should not be read as overall school performance.
Chronic absenteeism is a major concern: 46.3% in 2024–2025, compared with 35.0% for the district and 16.7% for Indiana. That is nearly three times the state rate and 11.3 percentage points above the district. Year-over-year results are mixed but remain very low: math all-grades proficiency improved from 6.41% to 9.05%, while ELA fell from 12.85% to 8.79%, science fell from 11.11% to 9.29%, and Biology EOC fell from 38.46% to 35.48%. Overall, Southside Middle School faces severe challenges, including very low core proficiency, high absenteeism, and bottom-percentile state rankings, despite a relatively low student-teacher ratio and substantial per-student spending.
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