Best Public Schools in Zip Code 47581

ZIP code 47581 is home to three public schools serving roughly 603 students, all in the Shoals Community School Corp district in Indiana: Shoals Community Elementary School (PK–5, 276 students), Shoals Middle School (6–8, 126 students), and Shoals Community High School (9–12, 201 students). The district as a whole is rated 1 star, ranking 285th of 374 districts, or the 24th percentile.

Shoals Community Elementary School is the bright spot: its chronic absenteeism rate of 10.3% is below both the district's 28.6% and the state's 16.7%, and it rose from 1 star to 2 stars (34th percentile) in 2025–26. Its 4th-grade results beat the state (47.5% proficient in ELA vs. 42.2%, and 57.5% in Math vs. 52%), though 5th-grade ELA and Math both sit at 14.71%. Shoals Middle School posts science proficiency of 37.25%, above the district's 35.16%, but its ELA (18.18%) and Math (15.38%) fall below district levels, and it declined from 2 stars / 42nd percentile in 2023–24 to 1 star / 23rd percentile in 2025–26. Shoals Community High School has a 95.6% graduation rate, above the state's 89.7%, and the lowest student-teacher ratio at 9.5, but chronic absenteeism is 52.9% — more than triple the state rate — and SAT Math proficiency is just 5.17% versus the state's 25.6%.

Math is a shared weakness across the grades: 5th-grade math at 14.71%, 7th-grade math at 7.14%, and high school SAT Math at 5.17%. Per-student spending is nearly identical at all three schools, from $12,434 to $12,738, so money and staffing alone don't explain the differences in outcomes. Because the middle and high schools are small (126 and 201 students), grade-level percentages can swing widely from one year or class group to the next.