Summary:
ZIP code 43315 in Cardington, Ohio has just one public middle school — Cardington-Lincoln Middle School, which serves grades 5 through 8 and enrolls 283 students as part of the Cardington-Lincoln Local district. Because there is only one school, families in this ZIP have no public middle-school choice inside the area boundary. By composite rank the school sits at 640 of 1,046 statewide (39th percentile, 2 stars), which is noticeably stronger than its own district's 559 of 773 (28th percentile, 1 star). That gap suggests the middle school is outperforming the wider district it belongs to.
The school's standout strength is its advanced math pipeline. Algebra I End-of-Course proficiency was 100% in both 2025-26 and 2024-25, compared with 61.6% statewide and 40.5% in the district — roughly 38 points above the state in the latest year. This likely reflects a small, selected group of accelerated 8th graders, so it signals a strong advanced track rather than schoolwide achievement. Fifth grade is the other bright spot: ELA 5 at 71.4% edges the state's 70.4%, and Science 5 at 65.7% beats the state's 62.7%. Math 8 (60.9%) and ELA 7 (67.8%) also top state averages, and six of ten comparable tests improved year over year, including three double-digit gains — ELA 7 rose 22.9 points and Math 8 rose 14.6.
The clearest vulnerability is 6th-grade ELA, where proficiency is 30.0% against a state figure of 56.0% — the largest negative gap in the data — and it slipped from the prior year. Results otherwise split by grade rather than subject: grade 7 is strong in ELA but falling in math, while grade 8 is strong in math but below state in ELA and science. Chronic absenteeism is 14.8%, slightly below the district's 15.5%, though only one year is available. Note also that per-student spending of $7,887 dates to 2018-19 and the free/reduced-lunch figure is not reported, so equity comparisons are limited. Overall, this is an improving school with real strengths and one clear area to watch.
Thank you for your feedback!