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Honest take: what's the hardest part about being a student at Gerald W Kirn Middle School?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
913
Middle
DISTRICT 884 · STATE 400
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·COUNCIL BLUFFS COMM SCHOOL DISTRICT·NCES 190822000419
Gerald W Kirn Middle School
100 North Ave, Council Bluffs, IA 51503 · (712) 328-6454 · Pottawattamie County
GRADES 06–08MIDDLE21-SUBURBTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL913 STUDENTS
C-
allk12 Grade
Scored higher than 20% of Iowa public middle schools
- C-Test scores Share of students meeting the state standard in reading, math, and other tested subjects, 2023-24 and 2024-25.
- CBeats expectations How far test scores land above or below what the share of low-income students predicts for a school in this state.
- ·Three-year trend Not available for this school, so the grade uses the other parts.
Grades compare a school only with schools in the same state, because every state gives its own test. How grades work · Top-graded Iowa public middle schools
Student : Teacher
15.5:1
59 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 14.7:1 · STATE 15.2:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
49%
443 students
DISTRICT 42% · STATE 41%
Community
5
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other middle schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 328 | 36% |
| Grade 7 | 300 | 33% |
| Grade 8 | 285 | 31% |
Student demographics
41%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 44% · STATE 48% · US 70%
Student head counts by race/ethnicity from federal NCES enrollment data. District, state, and US figures are each group's share of all public school students in that area (US excludes territories). Very small groups may be suppressed in the source, so categories do not always sum exactly to total enrollment.
Gender split
Test scores
ISASP 2024-25 . % ProficientEnglish Language Arts
66.5%
IA avg 73.6% . +0.3pp since 2023
Math
69.4%
IA avg 70.9% . +1.8pp since 2023
What this means: On the ISASP, Iowa's statewide test, about 67 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 69 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all Iowa schools, those numbers are about 74 and 71. Reading and writing scores have held steady since 2023, while math scores are up about 2 points.
ISASP results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 66.5% | 69.4% |
| 2023-24 | 66.2% | 67.6% |
% Proficient, all students and all tested grades.
Source: ISASP. All students, all grades. See all years and grades →
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
66.3%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
67.7%
based on IA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-1.3pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 66% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 68% typical for Iowa schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Iowa's top nor bottom 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
Schools most like Gerald W Kirn Middle School
Gerald W Kirn Middle School's state test result (66.3% proficient) is higher than 5 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gerald W Kirn Middle School this school | 913 | 48.5% | 66.3% |
| Fort Dodge Middle School Fort Dodge | 765 | 55.3% | 61.1% |
| Berg Middle School Newton | 790 | 53.4% | 61.0% |
| Clinton Middle School Clinton | 745 | 55.3% | 64.2% |
| Lincoln Intermediate Mason City | 485 | 53.2% | 65.6% |
| John Adams Middle School Mason City | 463 | 49.0% | 65.7% |
Matched among Iowa middle schools on enrollment, the share of students from low-income families (eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and racial and ethnic makeup. Proficient is the average share of students meeting the state standard across all of the school's state tests in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the same combined score our test-score rankings use. Online schools and schools serving specialized populations are not matched.
Where Gerald W Kirn Middle School ranks
Among middle schools| Measure | This school | In Iowa | In Pottawattamie County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 66.3% | #175 of 224 | #6 of 7 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 69.4% | #164 of 224 ▼ 1 | #6 of 7 no change |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 66.5% | #186 of 224 no change | #6 of 7 no change |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 913 | #14 of 246 | #1 of 7 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 15.5:1 | #138 of 180 | N/A |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 41.3% | #76 of 180 | N/A |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 48.5% | #73 of 237 | #2 of 7 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked steepest decline first | -9.1% | #69 of 103 | N/A |
Ranked against other public middle schools. Online schools are left out of every list, and test-score lists leave out schools that serve specialized populations. Each rank links to the full list. Arrows under a test-score rank show places moved since the prior test year, among schools tested both years.
4-year change
SY 2020-21 vs SY 2024-25Enrollment
913
-139 (-13%) vs 2020
+21% since 1990-91, when it was 757
Student : Teacher
15.5:1
was 16.2:1
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Enrollment and staffing by year
| School year | Students | Teachers (FTE) | Students per teacher | Free and reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 913 | 58.8 | 15.5:1 | 49% (443) |
| 2023-24 | 914 | 64.8 | 14.1:1 | 51% (470) |
| 2022-23 | 956 | 64.8 | 14.8:1 | 54% (519) |
| 2020-21 | 1,052 | 65 | 16.2:1 | 59% (619) |
| 2017-18 | 1,004 | 64 | 15.7:1 | 56% (559) |
| 2015-16 | 985 | 64 | 15.4:1 | 58% (576) |
| 2010-11 | 942 | 61 | 15.4:1 | 52% (493) |
| 2000-01 | 822 | 54 | 15.2:1 | 31% (257) |
| 1990-91 | 757 | 46 | 16.5:1 | N/A |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Gerald W Kirn Middle School.
Since 2017-18: students down 9% (1,004 to 913); teachers down 8% (64 to 58.8).
About Gerald W Kirn Middle School
Gerald W Kirn Middle School is a large middle-grades school in Council Bluffs, Iowa, one of the schools in Council Bluffs Comm School District. The school runs grades 6 through 8 and enrolls 913 students. By comparison, middle schools in Iowa enroll about 400 students on average.
In Council Bluffs Comm School District, 15 schools enroll a combined 8,299 students.
White students are 75% of those enrolled at Gerald W Kirn Middle School. The rest of enrollment is 15% Hispanic, 4% Black, and 4% multiracial. Census estimates put the White share of Pottawattamie County's population at about 88%. On a 0 to 100 scale, the school's diversity index is 41, compared with 70 nationally.
With 58.8 full-time-equivalent teachers, the student-to-teacher ratio is about 15.5:1. The average for middle schools in Iowa is about 15.2:1. Student poverty is often measured by lunch eligibility; at Gerald W Kirn Middle School, 49% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. That rate is above the 40% average among public schools in Pottawattamie County.
Gerald W Kirn Middle School earns a C- on the allk12 Grade, which blends test scores, results against poverty-based expectations, and the three-year trend. It scored higher than 20% of Iowa public middle schools.
A school with Gerald W Kirn Middle School's lunch-eligibility share in Iowa is predicted to score 67.7%. Gerald W Kirn Middle School scores 66.3%, 1.3 points below that line.
In Pottawattamie County, where the school is located, the median household earns about $73,602 a year, 24% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and about 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Public schools in Pottawattamie County number 35, with about 15,270 students.
Hoover Elementary School, about 0.2 miles away, is the closest public school. Within five miles of Gerald W Kirn Middle School, there are at least 8 other public schools. Compared with its nearest neighbors, Gerald W Kirn Middle School ranks 4th of 8 on average proficiency.
The school's setting, by NCES definition, is Suburb: Large: in a suburban area outside a principal city, within an urbanized area with a population of 250,000 or more.
The school shrank from 1,052 students in 2020-21 to 913 in 2024-25.
You can use this page to share news and ask questions about fundraisers, report cards, and school supplies. You can also rate the school on this page.
Pottawattamie County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
93,424
Census ACS
Median income
$73,602
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
24%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
8%
Below federal line
Schools in county
35
15,270 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in Council Bluffs Comm School District
- Abraham Lincoln High SchoolHigh · 1,333 students
- Thomas Jefferson High SchoolHigh · 1,146 students
- Woodrow Wilson Middle SchoolMiddle · 855 students
- College View ElementaryElementary · 488 students
- Roosevelt Elementary SchoolElementary · 455 students
- Longfellow Elementary SchoolElementary · 431 students
Other schools in Council Bluffs
- Abraham Lincoln High SchoolHigh · 1,333 students
- Thomas Jefferson High SchoolHigh · 1,146 students
- Lewis Central Senior High SchoolHigh · 1,020 students
- Titan Hill Intermediate SchoolElementary · 901 students
- Woodrow Wilson Middle SchoolMiddle · 855 students
- Lewis Central Middle SchoolMiddle · 720 students
Nearby schools
- Hoover Elementary School0.2 mi · 401
- Lewis & Clark Elementary School1.0 mi · 271
- Abraham Lincoln High School1.2 mi · 1,333
- Anne E. Nelson Early Learning Center1.3 mi · 119
- Bloomer Elementary School1.5 mi · 396
- College View Elementary1.5 mi · 488
Frequently asked questions
About Gerald W Kirn Middle SchoolHow many students attend Gerald W Kirn Middle School?
Gerald W Kirn Middle School enrolls approximately 913 students in grades 06-08.
Is Gerald W Kirn Middle School an elementary, middle, or high school?
Gerald W Kirn Middle School is a middle school covering grades 06-08.
How many teachers does Gerald W Kirn Middle School have?
Gerald W Kirn Middle School employs 59 FTE teachers, for a student-to-teacher ratio of 15.5:1.
How diverse is Gerald W Kirn Middle School?
Gerald W Kirn Middle School reports a student body of 75% White, 15% Hispanic, 4% Black, 1% Asian, 4% Two or more.
Is Gerald W Kirn Middle School public or private?
Gerald W Kirn Middle School is a public K-12 school, overseen by Council Bluffs Comm School District.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.