West Side Leadership Academy

Located at 9th & Gerry St, in Gary, Indiana, West Side Leadership Academy is a substantial 9-12 campus that hosts 1,232 students (grades 9 through 12), overseen by Gary Community School Corp. By comparison, Indiana's public schools average about 816 students each, so West Side Leadership Academy sits 51% above that benchmark.

West Side Leadership Academy is one of 10 schools operated by Gary Community School Corp, a district that enrolls 4,383 students overall.

For racial and ethnic makeup, West Side Leadership Academy logs that 89% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority; the rest consists of 6% Hispanic, 4% multiracial. That is considerably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 23%.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 69 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 18.0:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 16.6:1, putting West Side Leadership Academy higher than the state norm the norm. Around 63% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Lake County runs at roughly 47%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

In the area at large, census data for Lake County shows median household earnings sit near $71,493, about 26% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 11%. Across Lake County's 121 public schools (combined enrollment of about 74,661 students), West Side Leadership Academy is one campus in the mix.

Aspire Charter Academy is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.7 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around West Side Leadership Academy.

Geographically, the school is in a suburban area.

Over the past 7-year window. West Side Leadership Academy's enrollment has grew 63% since 2018, when it stood at 755 (now 1,232). The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 39.9:1 in 2018 to 18.0:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, members of the West Side Leadership Academy community share and discuss science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.