The top reported proficiency rate is 13% in English language arts. The lowest is 0% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Vanguard Collegiate of Indy
Vanguard Collegiate of Indy is a school district in Indiana that no longer operates a school. The district’s sole entity was a charter middle school serving grades five through eight on Indianapolis’s west side, and that school closed in the middle of the 2023-24 school year. Publicly reported news accounts and state records confirm the closure was driven by declining enrollment. The school’s enrollment had peaked a couple of years earlier and then dropped sharply, reaching about half its target student count just before the shutdown. Families were directed to the city’s unified enrollment system to find new placements. This closure eliminated a public school option in the Hawthorne neighborhood and forced mid-year transitions for the students who were still enrolled.
Because the district is effectively closed, much of the data one would expect for an active school system is absent. There are no current enrollment figures, no demographic breakdowns, no information on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, and no data on special education or English learner populations. The district’s grade span is listed as middle school only, so there is no high school graduation rate to report. State testing results are available from the 2022-23 school year, the last full year before the closure, and they offer a snapshot of academic performance when the school was still operating.
On the state’s ILEARN assessments for grades three through eight, the district’s proficiency rates were very low across all tested subjects. In math, a small fraction of tested students scored at the proficient or above level. In English language arts, the rate was somewhat higher but still well under a quarter of students. In science, no student among the tested group reached the proficient threshold. For social studies, the test-taker count was very small, and the results were suppressed, meaning the state did not report a proficiency rate because of privacy rules. These are the only academic performance data available; there is no information about multi-year trends, because the district did not have enough consecutive comparable assessments to compute change.
The comparison fact-set that would place this district among its county’s peers is missing entirely, so there is no way to position Vanguard Collegiate of Indy relative to neighboring districts. The program offerings, course access, and discipline data are also absent. The civil rights and outcomes section is blank. In short, the available academic picture is limited to one year of state test results from a school that soon after shut down.
For a parent or resident reading this, the most important takeaway is that Vanguard Collegiate of Indy is no longer an active option. The school closed mid-year in October 2023. Any family that would have considered this district must look elsewhere. The academic performance data, though from the school’s final full year, showed very low proficiency rates, and the enrollment decline that led to the closure suggests that the school was not attracting a sustainable number of families. The district’s thin data set means there is little else to characterize about its academic pathway, peer environment, or student supports. Because the entity no longer exists, this narrative serves primarily as a record of what was and a confirmation that it is gone.
See more original research from School Decision →