Independence Junior Senior High School

Set in Independence, Iowa, Independence Junior Senior High School is a heavily attended 9-12 campus, overseen by Independence Comm School District. It hosts 712 students across grades 7 through 12. Enrollment runs roughly 52% above the state mean of about 468.

Within Independence Comm School District, which oversees 4 schools and 1,383 students, Independence Junior Senior High School is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, Independence Junior Senior High School reports that 90% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority; the rest breaks down as 4% Hispanic, 4% multiracial.

Looking at school resources, On paper, Independence Junior Senior High School has 45 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 15.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 17.3:1 average. An estimated 29% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Independence Junior Senior High School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 77.3%, the actual is 71.1%, a residual of -6.2 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Buchanan County indicate the typical household earns roughly $78,236 per year, about 22% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Independence Junior Senior High School is one of 18 public schools in Buchanan County (combined enrollment of about 3,231 students).

West Elementary School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 3 other public schools cluster around Independence Junior Senior High School. Among the 5 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Independence Junior Senior High School ranks 5th on composite proficiency, behind the local average of 78.8%.

The campus sits in a small-town setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Independence Junior Senior High School's enrollment has stayed largely flat since 2018, when it stood at 703 (now 712). Over the same period, the White share ticked down from 95% to 90%. The student-to-teacher ratio widened from 14.8:1 in 2018 to 15.8:1 today.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.