Summary:
Zip code 67114 has two middle schools in Newton: Santa Fe 5/6 Center serves grades 5–6 and enrolls 440 students, while Chisholm Middle School serves grades 7–8 and enrolls 422. The area’s most important finding is a sharp divide between the schools: Santa Fe is above the state in science, while Chisholm is below it in all three subjects.
Santa Fe leads the pair in every 2025–26 all-grades subject, with 36% proficient in ELA, 35% in math and 48% in science, compared with 25%, 15% and 26% at Chisholm. Those are school-to-school gaps of 11 points in ELA, 20 in math and 22 in science. Santa Fe’s science result is 9 points above the state’s 38%; its ELA and math results are 10 and 6 points below state results. Chisholm trails the state by 21 points in ELA, 26 in math and 12 in science. By grade, Santa Fe’s fifth-grade science result is 2 points above its grade’s state result, while Chisholm’s eighth-grade math is 25 points below. Because the schools serve different grades, their all-grades results are broad comparisons, not same-grade matchups.
The schools’ recent paths also diverged: from 2024–25 to 2025–26, Santa Fe gained 7 points in ELA, 10 in math and 9 in science, while Chisholm fell 4, 7 and 8 points, respectively. SchoolDigger ranks Chisholm 337th of 368 schools, at the 8th percentile with zero stars, versus 293rd of 363 and one star the prior year. Context measures do not match the test-score ordering: Chisholm had a lower student-teacher ratio (11.6 versus 13.1) and similar free/reduced-lunch rates (63% versus 65%). Chronic absenteeism was 31% at Chisholm and 17.7% at Santa Fe; the state rate was 17.8%. These figures describe differences, not their causes.
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