The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in English language arts. The lowest is 10% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Stonybrook Intermediate & Middle
Stonybrook Intermediate & Middle is a regular public school serving fifth through eighth graders in the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township, located in the eastern part of Indianapolis. The school sits within a large urban county with dozens of other school districts, and most of the families who send their children here live in the surrounding neighborhoods of the township. The building itself enrolls a student body of roughly a thousand, with each grade level from five through eight holding a similar number of students, so class sizes tend to be steady across the intermediate and middle years.
Academically, the state testing picture is one a parent will want to examine directly with the school. On the ILEARN assessments, the share of students reaching proficiency in math was below one in eight, and in English language arts it was below one in five. Science and social studies results, where those subjects are tested at specific grade levels, were even lower. When the school’s overall proficiency index is placed next to other districts in Marion County, it lands below the midpoint of that large set. The participation rates on the math and ELA tests were very high, so the results reflect nearly the entire tested population. For science and social studies, participation data was not reported, though the school likely tested the relevant grades. Because Stonybrook ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to consider, and no chronic absenteeism data was available from the current civil rights records, so those common measures of high school readiness and attendance cannot be evaluated here.
The student population is diverse and predominantly economically disadvantaged. Roughly two-thirds of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a substantial share that points to a high level of support needs. Racially and ethnically, the school is majority Black, with a large Hispanic minority, a smaller White population, a notable group of students identifying as two or more races, and very small numbers of Asian and American Indian students. The available enrollment data did not include counts for students receiving special education services or those designated as English learners, so a family looking for information on those supports would need to ask the school directly.
The community context matters for families deciding whether this school fits. The zip code that feeds Stonybrook shows home values in the lower range for the Indianapolis metro, though rents have recently been rising modestly. A typical mortgage payment on a median-valued home is estimated to be lower than the typical rent, a gap that can favor homeownership for residents. Unemployment nationally has been stable at moderate levels, and median household income has held fairly steady in recent years. For a family moving into the area, the housing market offers more affordable entry points than many other parts of the county.
The district itself, MSD Warren Township, has had few publicly reported structural changes in the recent period that would shift a parent’s decision. A search for recent district announcements turned up little of lasting impact, so the school’s programming and staffing appear to be on a steady footing.
What a parent considering Stonybrook Intermediate & Middle should weigh is a school where academic proficiency on state tests is clearly below the county average, the student body is large and very diverse with high poverty, and the school is part of a stable district that has not undergone major recent upheaval. The absence of data on special education and English learner populations is a gap a family should try to close through a direct conversation with the school. For a family looking for a neighborhood public school in a modest-cost part of Indianapolis, Stonybrook offers the standard grade-five-through-eight structure, but the test results suggest that the school may be struggling to move a large share of students to grade-level benchmarks, and that is something worth exploring further.
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