Bowling Green Independent

Bowling Green Independent includes 10 schools serving elementary, middle and high school grades, as well as alternative programs: five elementary schools, one middle school, three high schools and one alternative school. School-level state test results are available for seven schools; results are suppressed for two small high schools, and none are listed for the crisis stabilization unit. The most important finding is that elementary results vary sharply between schools, even in the same grade and subject.

Potter Gray Elementary and W R McNeill Elementary School are the clearest elementary standouts. Potter Gray led in reading across grades 3, 4 and 5, scoring 63%, 70% and 57%; its grade 4 reading result was 20 points above state. W R McNeill led in grade 4 math at 59%, 16 points above state. At the other end, Parker-Bennett-Curry School had 21% proficiency in grade 4 reading, while Dishman McGinnis Elementary School had 26% in grade 4 math. The grade 4 reading gap between Potter Gray and Parker-Bennett-Curry was 49 points. In the available results, elementary schools averaged 7 points below state, while the middle and high schools averaged 3 points above.

Recent changes were mixed, but matched results overall moved downward relative to state: the average school-to-state gap worsened by about 3 points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026. Potter Gray’s matched scores fell by an average of 5 points and W R McNeill’s by 7, while Parker-Bennett-Curry’s comparable results rose by about 1 point but remained low. Bowling Green High School had a 10-point reading gain but an 8-point decline in social studies; SchoolDigger placed it at the 66th percentile, compared with the 75th for Potter Gray and 68th for W R McNeill. As context, free/reduced lunch eligible shares in 2024–2025 were 33% at Potter Gray and 84% at Dishman McGinnis; these figures are observations, not explanations for outcomes. Student-teacher ratios also do not neatly track results: Potter Gray’s was 18.3 and Dishman McGinnis’s 14.6.