Highland Middle School

As a tiny middle school in Riverside, Iowa, Highland Middle School works with 119 students from grades 6 through 8, one of the schools within Highland Comm School District. That puts it 70% leaner than the typical public school in Iowa, which averages around 400 students.

Highland Comm School District comprises 3 schools with combined enrollment of 510 students; Highland Middle School is among them.

Looking at the student body, Highland Middle School records that the student body is overwhelmingly White (92%). Other groups include 6% Hispanic. Compared to Washington County overall, the school's racial mix sits in roughly the same range.

Looking at school resources, Highland Middle School reports 10 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 11.4:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.2:1 average. Roughly 20% of students at Highland Middle School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is lower than Washington County's rate of about 32%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Highland Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 81.9%, the actual is 73.3%, a residual of -8.5 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Washington County) reports that median household earnings sit near $75,647, about 26% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 6%. Across Washington County's 13 public schools (combined enrollment of about 3,820 students), Highland Middle School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Highland High School, roughly 0.0 miles away. 5 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. On composite proficiency, Highland Middle School comes 4th of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 65.7%.

The campus sits in a low-density setting.

Five-year trend. Highland Middle School's enrollment has contracted 17% since 2018, when it stood at 143 (now 119). The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 17.4:1 in 2018 to 11.4:1 today.

On allk12, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.