Summary:
ZIP code 45889 — the village of Van Buren, Ohio — is home to exactly one middle school: Van Buren Middle School, a 237-student school serving grades 6 through 8 as part of the Van Buren Local district. Because it is the only middle school in the area, there is no cross-school comparison to make; instead, this is a detailed look at how that single school performs against the state of Ohio.
The short answer is that it performs very well. Van Buren Middle School ranked 120th out of 1,046 Ohio middle schools in 2025-26, placing it in the 89th percentile, and it has earned four stars in each of the last three years, with its rank climbing from 148 to 130 to 120. Across the seven grade-level tests, the school averaged 77.5% proficiency versus 56.4% statewide. Math is its strongest relative area, running 25.2 points above the state average, followed by science (+21.5 points) and English language arts (+16.8 points). In Algebra I, the school posted 100% proficiency two years running, against state rates of 59.4% and 61.6%; that figure likely reflects a small accelerated class, so it should be read with some caution.
A few patterns are worth watching. Scores are highest in 6th grade and lowest in 8th — math goes 85.7% to 77.6% to 69.2%, and ELA 79.1% to 78.9% to 69.3% — though 8th grade science (82.7%) breaks that trend. The 8th grade slipped in all three subjects this year while 6th and 7th improved, but with roughly 79 students per grade, small swings can represent only a few students. Chronic absenteeism is 6.1%, low in absolute terms. The student-teacher ratio is 19.7, and the only spending figure available is $9,765 per student from 2018-19; free/reduced-lunch data is not reported, so the reasons behind these results cannot be determined from this record.
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