Original Research by School Decision on North Montgomery High School
North Montgomery High School is a regular public high school serving grades nine through twelve, located on a rural stretch of highway north of Crawfordsville, Indiana. It is part of the North Montgomery Community School Corporation, one of three school districts in Montgomery County. The school’s enrollment is moderate for a single high school, with roughly the same number of students in each grade, indicating a stable cohort through the high school years. A substantial share of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which gives a sense of the economic diversity in the community. Racially and ethnically, the student population is overwhelmingly white, with a small Hispanic representation and very small numbers of other groups. The district does not report the share of students with disabilities or English learners in this data, so those aspects are not available to describe.
State testing results were not available for this school, so there is no public measure of overall academic proficiency, nor is there a reported four-year graduation rate. That means a parent looking for a clear academic performance benchmark will not find one in the data the school submits. The same gap applies to chronic absenteeism. Without these standard indicators, the best way to learn about classroom outcomes is to ask the school directly for its own results or to talk with current families. The school’s course offerings were also not listed in the available data, so it is not possible to describe whether Advanced Placement, dual credit, or career-technical programs are part of the pathway.
The district itself has taken steps to support school quality in a tangible way. In May 2023, voters approved an operating referendum renewal that continues a dedicated property tax levy for teacher salaries, classroom resources, and student programs. That vote signals a community willing to invest in its schools, and it means property owners in the district pay a specific rate tied to that decision. The revenue is intended to maintain competitive pay and instructional materials, which can matter for the daily experience a student has.
Crawfordsville, the county seat, sits near the school. It is a town with a compact historic downtown, a Carnegie Library, and several properties on the National Register of Historic Places. The city hosts Wabash College, a private men’s liberal arts college, and a branch of Ivy Tech Community College, which means there are higher education institutions nearby. Major employers include Nucor Steel, Lakeside Book Company, and Pace Dairy Foods, giving the area an industrial and manufacturing base. The population has grown in recent years, and median home values and household incomes have risen modestly, though housing remains priced lower than the national benchmark. Rents are also moderate. That combination makes the area relatively affordable compared to many parts of Indiana and the country.
The school itself is located outside the city center, on a highway that connects to the broader county. The campus setting is typical of a rural-suburban high school, with the district’s other schools likely arranged in a similar pattern. The student body is large enough to offer a typical range of extracurriculars and sports, but not so large that a student would be anonymous. The absence of test scores and a graduation rate is a significant gap for any high school. A parent assessing this school will want to investigate those figures directly from the district office or the school’s administration, since the state and federal reporting systems do not capture them in this dataset. The district’s recent referendum suggests an effort to maintain or improve what the school offers, but the lack of public academic data means that the school’s effectiveness is not easily compared to other options in the county.
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