Middle Schools in Black River Local

Black River Local is a one-school district in rural Sullivan, Ohio, and its only middle school is Black River Education Center Middle School, serving grades 6 through 8 to about 153 students — roughly 51 students per grade. Nearly every student (98.04%) qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, and the school's student-to-teacher ratio is 10.9 to 1, or about 14 teachers. The Black River Local district as a whole ranks 369 of 773 Ohio districts (52nd percentile, 3 stars), noticeably lower than the middle school's own standing — the district's profile is pulled down by other buildings or grade levels.

Academically, the school's standout results are concentrated in grade 8. There, students scored 86.6% in science versus 61.2% statewide, 74.6% in math versus 52.0%, and 83.1% in English language arts versus 58.3% — roughly 22 to 25 points above the state on all three. The school also reports 100% proficient on the Algebra I end-of-course exam, against 61.6% statewide; because that is almost certainly a small, self-selected group of accelerated 8th graders, it should be read as "every student who took Algebra I passed," not a whole-grade result. The soft spots are math in the lower grades: grade 6 math came in at 48.4% (state 56.2%) and grade 7 math at 45.0% (state 48.6%). Reading scores at grades 6 and 7 sit essentially at the state average. Notably, the strong grade-8 results trace to one talented cohort moving up through the building rather than a school-wide pattern, so the next two years of grade-6 math data will show whether the gains are durable.

Two things for parents to watch. First, chronic absenteeism is 17.0% at the school, above the district's 15.5% — roughly 26 students missing enough school to be flagged, and a plausible contributor to the weaker grade 6–7 math. Second, the school ranks 345 of 1,046 Ohio middle schools (67th percentile, 3 stars) in 2025-26, up from 371 the prior year but below its 2023-24 peak of 243 (77th percentile, 4 stars). The 3-star label understates how far above state the grade-8, science, and Algebra I results actually run. Note also that the per-student spending figure ($11,953) dates to 2018-19 and should not be compared to current performance.