The top reported proficiency rate is 87% in English language arts. The lowest is 80% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Hazel Point Intermediate School
Hazel Point Intermediate School serves fifth and sixth graders as part of the Linn-Mar Community School District, a regular public school that opened in 2021 when the district reorganized its grade configuration. Students attend Hazel Point for grades five and six and then move on to middle school, a structure that shapes the experience of this school as a deliberate bridge from elementary to secondary grades.
The school sits in Marion, a community within Linn County that shows a housing market with home values above the statewide benchmark and rents that have risen noticeably. Mortgaging a home here is competitive with renting on a monthly cost basis, and the area’s unemployment rate sits near the national average. For families considering the district, the district’s property tax rate and approved budget are publicly reported facts worth weighing, as the tax burden is a sustained part of the local financial picture.
Academically, Hazel Point Intermediate School posts a strong record on Iowa’s state assessments. The school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects places it in the top quartile among its peers in Linn County, a comparison set that includes more than a dozen districts. In both math and English language arts, large majorities of students score at or above the proficiency threshold, and science proficiency is also high, though a bit lower than the other two subjects. These results come from a school where participation on test day is near universal, so the findings reflect nearly the entire student body.
The student population is predominantly white, with Asian students making up the next largest share, and smaller proportions of Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students. About a fifth of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school serves roughly six hundred students across two grades, a size that feels manageable for an intermediate building. Special education and English learner counts were not available in the data, so a parent wanting a full picture of support services would need to ask the school directly.
Because Hazel Point is a grades-five-through-six building, there is no graduation rate to report. That gap is a function of the grade span, not a missing metric. The school’s state assessment data covers only the 2024-25 school year, so there is no multi-year trend to examine yet. The school environment data, including discipline rates, course access, and staffing ratios, was not included in the available information.
The district itself has made several structural moves that matter for families. The opening of Hazel Point and its sibling school Boulder Peak Intermediate School in 2021 created a lasting change in feeder patterns across Marion, Cedar Rapids, and Robins. The district also offers junior kindergarten alongside preschool, expanding early entry points for young learners. For a family with a child entering fifth or sixth grade, Hazel Point offers a focused two-year program in a strong-performing academic setting, housed in a relatively new building within a district that has made intentional choices about how to organize its grade levels. The main open questions for a parent would be around specific student supports and the day-to-day school environment, as those details were not part of the public data this account draws from.
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