Indian Hills Junior High School

Indian Hills Junior High School is a 6-8 campus of substantial scale in Clive, Iowa, run under West Des Moines Comm School District, enrolling 661 students in grades 7 through 8. That puts it 65% larger than the typical public school in Iowa, which averages around 400 students.

Indian Hills Junior High School is one of 13 schools operated by West Des Moines Comm School District, a district that works with 9,009 students overall.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Indian Hills Junior High School shows that the most-represented group is White (51%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. The remainder comes out to 24% Hispanic, 11% Black, 8% Asian, 7% multiracial. That is visibly less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 76%.

In terms of school funding signals, On paper, Indian Hills Junior High School has 52 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 12.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.2:1 average. Roughly 52% of students at Indian Hills Junior High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

With demographic context factored in, Indian Hills Junior High School ranks in the top 10% of Iowa public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 66.0%; Indian Hills Junior High School posts 78.2%, +12.2 points above that line.

Around the school, census data for Polk County shows median household income runs about $83,576, roughly 40% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 7%. In all, Polk County runs 137 public schools (combined enrollment of about 77,436 students), of which Indian Hills Junior High School is one.

The closest other public school is Crestview School of Inquiry, roughly 1.0 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Indian Hills Junior High School at 2nd of 9; the average score across the group is 69.9%.

Geographically, the school is in an outer-ring area.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count increased 5%: 631 students in 2018 compared to 661 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share declined from 63% to 51%.

Within the allk12 community for this school, recent activity here tends to focus on science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.