Summary:
Smith Center Elementary serves prekindergarten through grade 6, and Smith Center Junior Senior High serves grades 7–12; together, they enroll 436 students. In 2025–2026, the elementary school’s all-grades proficiency was higher in English language arts (ELA), math, and science, while the high school’s ELA and science results were also above state averages. Because the schools serve different grades, their all-grades scores are not a like-for-like grade comparison. The clearest concern is high-school math: its 30% proficiency was 11 percentage points below the state, while elementary math was 11 points above.
Smith Center Elementary stands out at the top of the current results, scoring 70% in ELA, 52% in math, and 69% in science—about 25, 11, and 31 points above state results, respectively. Smith Center Junior Senior High scored 56% in ELA and 42% in science, both above state, but its 30% math result was the weakest subject result among the schools. SchoolDigger rates the elementary school 4 stars and places it at the 79th percentile statewide (137 of 657); it rates the high school 3 stars, at the 50th percentile (169 of 340). Grade results add nuance: elementary fifth-grade math was 27 points above state, but its third- and fourth-grade math were slightly below; high-school tenth-grade ELA was 3 points below state.
Recent changes especially highlight the high school’s math decline: its score fell 22 points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while elementary math was essentially unchanged. As a result, the equal-weight average of the two schools’ math scores fell from 52% to 41%, just below the current state result. Other subjects moved in contrasting directions: elementary science rose 19 points while high-school science fell 18, and their combined average changed little. The schools have similar reported free/reduced-lunch rates—52% at the elementary school and 51% at the high school—while their student–teacher ratios are 12 and 9.7, respectively; these figures provide context, not an explanation for score differences.
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