Summary:
ZIP code 47374 in Richmond, Indiana has two middle-level schools, both part of Richmond Community Schools: Test Intermediate School, which serves grades 5–6 with 621 students, and Dennis Middle School, which serves grades 7–8 with 649 students. Together they cover the full 5–8 middle pipeline for about 1,270 students, and because their grades do not overlap, families move from one school to the other as a child advances.
Test Intermediate is the stronger performer. Its all-grade English/language arts proficiency is 26.43% versus 19.27% at Dennis, and math is 22.59% versus 14.56% — gaps of 7.16 and 8.03 percentage points. Test also has lower chronic absenteeism (25.5% vs. 30.6%) and improving core results, up 4.61 points in ELA and 4.49 points in math over the prior year, while Dennis gained slightly in math (+1.38) but declined in ELA (-3.01). Notably, Test posts these results with a higher free/reduced-lunch rate (65.22% vs. 61.48%) and lower per-student spending ($10,735 vs. $11,126); student-teacher ratios are nearly identical (13.5 vs. 13.7).
Both schools, however, trail state averages in every reported grade-level test, and their district ranks 286th of 374 in Indiana (24th percentile, 1 star). Chronic absenteeism at both schools is above the state rate of 16.7%, though below the district rate of 33.1%. Test's 5th grade is the brightest spot, with 30.51% in ELA, 28.41% in math, and 36.90% in social studies — the highest figures in the pair — and its smallest gap to state is 5th grade social studies at -10.30 points. Dennis's 7th grade ELA shows the largest gap, -24.46 points.
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