Tri-Center Middle School

Tri-Center Middle School is one of the micro-enrollment junior highs in Neola, Iowa, overseen by Tri-Center Comm School District, with 135 students on its rolls from grades 6 through 8. Enrollment runs roughly 66% leaner than the state mean of about 400.

Across the 3 schools in Tri-Center Comm School District (724 students total), Tri-Center Middle School accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

Looking at the student body, Tri-Center Middle School records that the student body is overwhelmingly White (90%). The remainder breaks down as 8% Hispanic. Compared to Pottawattamie County overall, the school's racial mix sits in roughly the same range.

On the resource side, On paper, Tri-Center Middle School has 7 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 19.4:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 15.2:1, putting Tri-Center Middle School higher than the state norm the norm. Roughly 36% of students at Tri-Center Middle School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

After controlling for student poverty, Tri-Center Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 74.2%, the actual is 75.5%, a residual of +1.3 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Pottawattamie County indicate the typical household earns roughly $73,602 per year, roughly 24% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 8%. Across Pottawattamie County's 35 public schools (combined enrollment of about 15,270 students), Tri-Center Middle School is one campus in the mix.

Tri-Center High School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.0 miles from this campus. Within five miles, there are 2 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Tri-Center Middle School comes 8th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 80.5%.

The campus sits in an outlying setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked up 3%: 131 students in 2018 compared to 135 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share expanded from 1% to 8%. The student-to-teacher ratio loosened from 16.4:1 in 2018 to 19.4:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the Tri-Center Middle School community share and discuss sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.