Summary:
ZIP code 47342 in Gaston, Indiana, is served by two schools within Wes-Del Community Schools: Wes-Del Elementary School, serving grades K–5 with 427 students, and Wes-Del Middle/Senior High School, serving grades 6–12 with 435 students — 862 students in total. Both schools serve relatively high-poverty populations, with free or reduced lunch rates near 58–59%.
Each school stands out in different areas. The elementary school is the clear math leader: 54.31% of students are proficient in math across all grades, compared with 24.40% at the high school, and 3rd grade math reaches 75.76%, far above the state's 51.9%. Its chronic absenteeism rate of 14.4% also beats the district's 18.0% and the state's 16.7%. The high school's standout is its 98.0% graduation rate, well above Indiana's 89.7%, paired with an improving accountability rating of 3 stars and the 59th percentile. Yet the high school's chronic absenteeism is 21.7% — 7.3 percentage points worse than the elementary — and its SAT proficiency is low, at 36.36% in reading and writing and 20.45% in math.
English language arts is the shared weak spot, with 4th grade ELA at the elementary at 24.29% and 6th grade ELA at the high school at 21.31%, both well below their state benchmarks. Accountability ratings are mixed: the high school's 3 stars and 59th percentile versus the elementary's stable 2 stars and 47th percentile, even though the elementary posts the ZIP's strongest single subject result. The high school also spends more per student ($13,656 vs. $12,836) and has a smaller student/teacher ratio (13.5 vs. 15.8), yet its math and college-readiness scores trail the elementary's math results.
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