Original Research by School Decision on Benjamin Bosse High School
Benjamin Bosse High School is a regular public school in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp, serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade under one roof. The vast majority of its enrollment is at the high school level, with about nine hundred students spread across grades nine through twelve, plus a small pre-kindergarten program. This is a school that covers the full span of a student’s career in a single building, a fact worth knowing for families who value continuity or who are considering the pre-K option.
Evansville itself is a mid-sized regional hub for southwestern Indiana and the surrounding tri-state area. Its economy is anchored by healthcare, manufacturing, and retail, and the city has a compact feel with a modest population decline in recent years. Housing in the school’s zip code is priced well below both state and national benchmarks, and rents are significantly lower than a typical mortgage payment in the area, giving the housing market an affordability advantage. The owner-occupied rate in the city is below the national average, and median household income sits at a figure that, paired with the area’s housing costs, makes this one of the more accessible markets for homebuyers in the region.
The student body at Bosse is diverse. Black students make up a substantial share of enrollment, followed by white and Hispanic students; there are also meaningful populations of students who identify as two or more races and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. About two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that positions the school as serving a predominantly lower-income community. This economic profile is an important layer for families to consider when assessing the peer environment.
A major gap in the available data is state testing results. No proficiency data was reported, so there is no way to compare academic performance against the state or against other schools in Vanderburgh County. Similarly, the graduation rate is missing from the data, despite Bosse serving a full high school grade span. Without these core outcome metrics, a parent or resident cannot draw conclusions about student achievement or how effectively the school prepares students for graduation. This is an area where a family would want to ask the school or district directly for its most recent state accountability report.
The comparison data, which positions the school relative to districts in Vanderburgh County, also came up empty on proficiency, graduation rate, and chronic absenteeism, again because the school’s own figures were not present in the dataset. There is no information on discipline, staffing, attendance, or course access, and special education and English learner counts were not reported. The school’s magnet status and Title I status are also unstated.
What is clear is that Benjamin Bosse High School is a regular public school that serves a diverse, lower-income population in an affordable mid-sized city with a stable regional economy. Anyone considering this school should treat the missing outcome data as a prompt to investigate further, and should reach out to the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp for the academic and graduation records that are not available in this profile.
See more original research from School Decision →