Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School

Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School is one of the intimate 9-12 campuss in Northwood, Iowa, operated by Northwood-Kensett Comm School District, with 265 students on its rolls from grades 6 through 12. Compared to the state average of about 468 students per school, that is 43% below typical.

Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School is one of 2 schools operated by Northwood-Kensett Comm School District, a district that instructs 552 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School logs that 87% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. The remainder comes out to 8% Hispanic, 3% Black, 2% multiracial.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 12.9:1. The state averages around 17.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Around 30% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, often used as a Title I proxy.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 76.8%, the actual is 72.3%, a residual of -4.6 points.

Zooming out to the county, community-level numbers for Worth County indicate the typical household earns roughly $78,008 per year, about 19% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 5%. Across Worth County's 4 public schools (combined enrollment of about 931 students), Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School is one campus in the mix.

Northwood-Kensett Elementary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.6 miles from this campus. Within ten miles, there are 5 other public schools, a sparser pattern than typical urban areas. On composite proficiency, Northwood-Kensett Middle/High School comes 3rd of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 54.2%.

The school occupies a low-density site.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked up 15%: 231 students in 2018 compared to 265 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.