Excelsior Middle School

Excelsior Middle School, a reasonably sized middle school in Marion, Iowa, one of the schools within Linn-Mar Comm School District, serves 594 students, covering grades 7 through 8. By comparison, Iowa's public schools average about 400 students each, so Excelsior Middle School sits 49% bigger than that benchmark.

Within Linn-Mar Comm School District, which oversees 12 schools and 7,361 students, Excelsior Middle School is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Excelsior Middle School lists that White students make up the majority at 79%. Other groups include 6% multiracial, 6% Hispanic, 6% Black, 3% Asian.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 45 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.2:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.2:1 average. Around 28% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Linn County runs at roughly 40%, so the school's eligibility rate is below the surrounding baseline.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Excelsior Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 77.7%, the actual is 81.1%, a residual of +3.4 points.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Linn County shows the typical household earns roughly $77,649 per year, 35% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. Across Linn County's 83 public schools (combined enrollment of about 36,480 students), Excelsior Middle School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Linn-Mar High School, roughly 0.4 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Excelsior Middle School comes 5th of 9 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 79.5%.

The school occupies a commuter-belt site.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Excelsior Middle School has declined 37%, going from 948 students in 2018 to 594 in 2025. The White share of enrollment edged down from 85% to 79% over that span.

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