Van Buren County Community Middle & High School

Van Buren County Community Middle & High School, a compact four-year high school in Keosauqua, Iowa, one of the schools within Van Buren County Comm School District, serves 354 students, covering grades 7 through 12. Enrollment runs roughly 24% leaner than the state mean of about 468.

Van Buren County Community Middle & High School is one of 3 schools operated by Van Buren County Comm School District, a district that serves 821 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Van Buren County Community Middle & High School lists that 95% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Beyond that, the school records 2% Hispanic. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

Looking at the economic backdrop, On paper, Van Buren County Community Middle & High School has 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 12.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 17.3:1 average. About 60% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Van Buren County Community Middle & 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 61.9%; Van Buren County Community Middle & High School posts 74.5%, +12.6 points above that line.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Van Buren County shows the typical household earns roughly $61,161 per year, roughly 19% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 13%. In all, Van Buren County runs 3 public schools (combined enrollment of about 821 students), of which Van Buren County Community Middle & High School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Van Buren County Community School District Douds Center, around 9.5 miles off. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Van Buren County Community Middle & High School ranks 2nd on composite proficiency, higher than the local average of 68.3%.

Geographically, the school is in an outlying area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 6%: 376 students in 2018 compared to 354 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 15.7:1 in 2018 to 12.8:1 today.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.