Trimble County

Trimble County has three schools serving PK–12: Bedford Elementary School and Milton Elementary School serve PK–6, and Trimble County Junior/Senior High School serves grades 7–12; there is no separate middle school. Together, the schools enroll 1,194 students. The central finding is that every reported 2025–2026 proficiency result was below its matching state result, though the size of the gaps varied widely.

Bedford had the closest result to the state: 32% proficiency in fifth-grade writing, 3 points below the state’s 35%; its fourth-grade reading result was the furthest behind, at 18% versus 50%, a 32-point gap. The elementary schools’ strengths differ: Milton led Bedford by 16 points in fifth-grade editing and 9 points in fourth-grade reading, while Bedford led by 15 points in fifth-grade writing. The high school’s strongest reported results were eighth-grade editing and mechanics (34%) and seventh-grade reading (32%), both below state results of 42% and 50%. SchoolDigger placed the high school at the 13th percentile statewide in 2025–2026, compared with Bedford at the 11th and Milton at the 9th.

Matched results mostly moved closer to state levels from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026: 11 of 18 gaps narrowed, four widened and three were unchanged. Bedford improved in all five of its comparable results, including fifth-grade writing, which rose from 21% to 32%; the high school’s changes were mixed, with tenth-grade reading falling from 40% to 25% while eighth-grade reading rose from 18% to 24%. SchoolDigger’s percentile rankings also diverged over time: Bedford rose from 9 to 11 and Milton from 6 to 9, while the high school fell from 28 to 13. For context, 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 58% at Bedford, 54% at Milton and 51% at the high school; student–teacher ratios were 22.4, 18.4 and 18.2, respectively. Some test scores were suppressed and are not treated as zero.