Summary:
ZIP code 47581 covers Shoals, Indiana, and contains exactly one middle school: Shoals Middle School, serving grades 6–8 with 126 students. It is the only middle-grade provider in the Shoals Community School Corp, which means the school's results are also the district's middle-grade results. There is no second school in the area to compare against, so this is a detailed look at one school.
On state testing, the school trails Indiana averages in the core subjects. All-grades ELA proficiency was 18.18% and math 15.38%, with 7th grade the clear low point — ELA at 10.71% and math at 7.14%, roughly 31 and 29 points below the state. Science is the exception: 37.25% proficiency, above the district figure and within about 4 points of the state. The school currently ranks at the 23rd percentile statewide and holds a 1-star rating, down from 2 stars in 2023-24, and its ELA scores have slipped year over year.
The most striking issue is attendance. Chronic absenteeism is 31.1%, above the district's 28.6% and nearly double Indiana's 16.7% — about one in three students. Resources, by contrast, look reasonable: $12,738 spent per student and a 14.8-to-1 student-teacher ratio. Only 2.38% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, an unusually low figure worth verifying with the school. With grade cohorts of roughly 28 to 51 students, single-year percentages can swing sharply, so families should focus on the steady patterns — persistent attendance concerns and wide ELA and math gaps — rather than any one year's number.
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