Baumgardner Middle School

Baumgardner Middle School is a grades 6–8 school serving 541 students at 3665 Monticello Blvd in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, part of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City district, and it ranked 736th of 1,046 Ohio middle schools (30th percentile, 1 star) for 2025-26.

That ranking sits in the same narrow band the school has occupied for a decade, but the underlying numbers are moving in the right direction. Baumgardner improved in eight of nine tested areas over three years. The standout is 8th grade math, which climbed from 14.9% to 43.4% proficiency — now above the district average and within about 9 points of the state — while Algebra I has held above 90% for two straight years and Geometry reached 78.9%, well above state and district norms. Reading is the clear soft spot: English language arts trails the district at all three grade levels, with the largest gap in 7th grade. Chronic absenteeism has also improved substantially, down 10.6 points over five years to 35.3%, now slightly better than the district's rate. Special education and lower-income students have moved up as well.

Compared with neighbors, Baumgardner outperforms Euclid Middle School, Richmond Heights Middle School and W.H. Kirk Middle School, while Beachwood Middle School, Mayfield Middle School and Shaker Hts Middle School sit in a higher performance tier. The most instructive comparison is Roxboro Middle School, the district's other middle school, which has nearly identical enrollment, class size and spending but ranks higher overall — its edge comes from reading and grades 6–7 math, while Baumgardner is the stronger 8th grade math performer. Notably, Baumgardner's student-teacher ratio of 12.1 is among the lowest in the area, so class size does not appear to be the limiting factor.