The top reported proficiency rate is 45% in Science. The lowest is 25% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Bell Intermediate Academy
Bell Intermediate Academy serves fifth and sixth graders in the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, a small city in Morgan County about a half-hour southwest of Indianapolis. As a stand-alone intermediate school, it bridges the district’s elementary schools and its middle school, a structure worth noting because it means students spend two years in a building separate from the primary grades and from the older middle-school grades, then move on to John R. Wooden Middle School for seventh and eighth.
The student body is predominantly white, with a modest share of students who identify as Hispanic and a small number who identify as Asian, Black, or multiracial. Roughly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker that families should be aware of when considering the socioeconomic mix of the peer environment. Enrollment is closely balanced between the two grades, with slightly more sixth graders than fifth graders.
State testing results from Indiana’s ILEARN assessments offer a mixed picture. On the mathematics portion, about three in ten students scored at the proficient level or above. On the English language arts assessment, the figure was closer to one in four. Science scores were higher, with roughly four in ten students meeting proficiency, while social studies results landed near four in ten as well. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the four school districts in Morgan County, meaning it performs in the upper half of this local set but not at the top. The pattern suggests that a majority of students are not yet meeting state proficiency benchmarks in math and ELA, which is a soft spot a parent may want to explore further with the school to understand what academic support is in place.
No chronic absenteeism rate was available, nor was there data on special education or English learner populations, discipline, or course access. Those gaps are common for a school that serves only two grade levels and may not report every category in the same way a comprehensive high school would, but they leave a family without a full picture of the student support environment.
Martinsville itself is a county-seat small city with a traditional courthouse square and locally owned downtown businesses, set within a predominantly auto-oriented community. The city has grown slowly in recent years, and a significant annexation extended its boundary to the I-69 corridor, which was completed through this area in the recent past. That interstate connection links Martinsville to Indianapolis and Bloomington, and the commute times suggest many residents work outside the city. The housing market is relatively affordable compared to national benchmarks, and the area is predominantly owner-occupied. Schools in the district are distributed across separate campuses rather than clustered downtown, so Bell Intermediate Academy sits on its own site, not within walking distance of the downtown core.
The district itself showed no major parent-relevant changes such as new referenda, boundary shifts, or curriculum overhauls in the recent period searched. For a family weighing this school, the key takeaways are its role as a dedicated intermediate school, the above-midpoint but still modest proficiency results in the local county context, and the community setting of a small, growing city with a commuter orientation. A parent may want to ask about the curriculum and support structures for the substantial number of students who are not yet proficient in reading and math, and about what transition programs exist for students moving from this school into middle school the following year.
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