Summary:
ZIP code 45648, covering Lucasville, Ohio, contains exactly one middle school: Valley Middle School, which is part of the Valley Local district. It serves grades 5 through 8 with 302 students — roughly 75 per grade — so there is no other middle school in the area to compare it against. The most useful comparisons are against its own district and against Ohio statewide averages.
On the 2025‑26 Ohio State Tests, the school outperformed the state in 7 of 10 assessments. Its biggest strengths were 8th grade math (70.4% proficient or above vs. 52.0% statewide, +18.4 points), 5th grade math (72.4% vs. 59.1%), and 8th grade ELA (69.0% vs. 58.3%). Its weak spots were 6th grade math (48.7% vs. 56.2%), 5th grade science (60.5% vs. 62.7%), and 8th grade science (60.6% vs. 61.2%). Science is the most notable change: it was the school's strongest subject in 2024‑25, and in 2025‑26 both science assessments slipped below the state average. Sixth grade math has been below the state in both years and is the lowest math grade both times, making the transition into 6th grade the most fragile point in the pipeline.
Averaged across all ten assessments, Valley Middle scored 63.7% in 2025‑26 versus 58.7% for Ohio — still ahead, but its advantage shrank from +10.0 points the year before to +5.0, because the school softened about 1.5 points while the state improved about 1.5. Its statewide rank has slipped from the 73rd percentile (4 stars) in 2023‑24 to the 63rd percentile (3 stars) in 2025‑26, though it remains above the state median and above its own district's 54th percentile. Chronic absenteeism in 2025‑26 was 18.0%, higher than the district's 16.1%. Two caveats matter for parents: with about 75 students per grade, a single student shifts a grade-level result by over a point, and the per-student spending figure of $8,067 dates from 2018‑19 and should not be used to judge current funding.
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