HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL

As a mid-sized middle-grades school in OCALA, Florida, HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL teaches 917 students from grades 6 through 8, run under MARION.

MARION runs 62 schools in total, collectively educating 46,349 students. HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL is one of those campuses.

Looking at the student body, HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL reports that the largest single group is Black at 36%, but no single group is in the majority. Other groups include 27% White, 25% Hispanic, 7% Asian, 5% multiracial. By comparison, Marion County as a whole is about 12% Black, so the school skews considerably more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL lists 49 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 18.7:1. The state averages around 19.6:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 54% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 54.3%; this one delivers 50.7%.

In the surrounding community, Marion County reports that median household income runs about $61,010, 23% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Marion County runs 68 public schools (combined enrollment of about 46,349 students), of which HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL is one.

MADISON STREET ACADEMY OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.6 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL. On composite proficiency, HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL comes 4th of 5 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 66.7%.

HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL operates from an urban location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at HOWARD MIDDLE SCHOOL has contracted 15%, going from 1,085 students in 2018 to 917 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 35% to 27% across the same window.

On this page, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.