The top reported proficiency rate is 30% in Social studies. The lowest is 24% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Union Elementary School
Union Elementary School serves students from kindergarten through sixth grade in Modoc, a very small rural town in Randolph County, Indiana. The school is part of the Union School Corporation, a district that also operates a combined junior and senior high school elsewhere in the township. Modoc itself has no downtown, no public transit, and a population that has been essentially flat to slightly declining in recent years. Most housing units are clustered near the intersection of two state highways, and the surrounding area is agricultural. Families in the area typically commute to larger cities such as Muncie or Richmond for employment, as there are no major employers within the town limits.
The student body at Union Elementary is small for a full elementary grade band. The racial composition is almost entirely white, with very small numbers of Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not reported. The school is a regular public school with no charter or magnet status, and no Title I designation was available.
On state assessments administered through Indiana’s ILEARN, overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades fell below the midpoint when compared with other districts in Randolph County. In math and English language arts, fewer than one in three students scored at the proficient level or above. Science results showed a similar pattern, and on the fifth-grade social studies test, about three in ten students met the proficiency standard. The data reflects a single year of testing, without a multi-year trend available for context. The school did participate in testing at very high rates, so the results represent nearly all enrolled students in the tested grades.
At the district level, the Union School Corporation has made news for reasons that reach well beyond classroom performance. In 2025 the Indiana legislature passed a property tax bill that includes a provision to dissolve the district, effective 2027. The dissolution is reportedly tied to the district’s small in-person enrollment alongside a very large virtual education program. If the dissolution goes forward, families in Modoc and the surrounding township would be reassigned to neighboring school districts, a change that would affect both school options and local property tax obligations. This development is the most consequential fact about the district at this moment, and any family considering the area should be aware that the current school arrangement may not persist beyond the next couple of years.
The school’s physical setting offers little in the way of walkable amenities or civic infrastructure. Modoc has a municipal building and a post office, but no public parks or libraries within the town limits. Residents rely on county-level facilities and services. Housing values in the broader zip code area are noticeably lower than the state median, and the rent-to-income ratio suggests that homeownership is more expensive than renting on a monthly basis, though the local housing market is relatively affordable compared to national benchmarks.
For parents weighing Union Elementary as a school for their child, the low proficiency rates on state assessments are a clear area to investigate further with the school. The school may offer targeted support or intervention programs, but no such information is available in the public data. The bigger unknown, however, is the district’s pending dissolution. A parent moving to Modoc today would be enrolling in a school that could be reassigned to a different district within a year or two. That uncertainty makes it hard to evaluate the school purely on its own merits, because the institutional context is in flux.
No chronic absenteeism data, staffing ratios, course access information, or discipline records were reported for this school. The narrative here is necessarily shaped by the available evidence: a small rural elementary school with an overwhelmingly white student body, below-average test scores relative to other county districts, and a district facing a legislatively mandated dissolution. There is no graduation rate because the school does not serve high school grades. The school’s website was not included in the data, so any specific programming or enrichment offerings are not part of this account.
See more original research from School Decision →