Indian Lake Central School, Indian Lake NY

Original Research by School Decision on Indian Lake Central School

Indian Lake Central School is a single PK-through-12 building sitting in the hamlet of Indian Lake, in Hamilton County's Adirondack interior. Every grade level, from pre-kindergarten through twelfth, shares one facility on Route 30 near the hamlet's compact Main Street. The enrollment is very small even by the standard of rural upstate New York, with only a handful of students in several grade levels and a senior class that is tiny enough that state testing data for grade eight was suppressed to protect student privacy. That scale shapes everything: peer groups are small and relatively stable, staff know students across years, and the building itself is the district.

The community around the school reflects Hamilton County broadly. Indian Lake is an Adirondack town built on four-season outdoor recreation and tourism, publicly marketed as the whitewater rafting capital of New York and the moose capital of the Northeast. Most residents own their homes, the population skews toward older adults, and a notable share of county housing sits empty year-round as second homes or vacation rentals. That dynamic has created a workforce-housing crunch, and the town is publicly reported to be developing an affordable housing project on a town-owned parcel, with a Main Street renovation also underway. Families considering a move here should understand they are entering a small, rural, Adirondack property market where home values sit well below the New York State median and have been roughly flat in recent data, making housing more accessible than much of the state but not without the pressures a second-home market creates.

On state assessments, the picture is mixed and warrants close attention. Proficiency rates in the tested elementary grades, third and fourth, ran above half in math and reading, with fourth grade ELA reaching the higher end of that range. Fifth grade math and ELA results were more modest, and the middle school grades tell a notably different story: sixth and seventh grade proficiency in both math and ELA dropped sharply, to very low levels. Fifth grade science came in above half. Grade eight results were suppressed due to small group size and cannot be interpreted. The grade band tested in high school is not part of the state's standard 3-through-8 testing, so no high school academic proficiency data appears here. Relative to the other districts in Hamilton County, the school's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile of that comparison set. A parent would be reasonable to ask the school directly about what is happening in the transition to middle school grades, what supports exist, and whether there are trend data across prior years. Multi-year trend data was not available in the data provided.

Graduation rate data was not available for this school in the data provided.

About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is predominantly white, which reflects the demographic composition of this part of the Adirondacks. Data on students with IEPs or English learners was not reported. Program details, AP or dual-credit course access, and extracurricular offerings were not in the data provided; a prospective family would want to ask the school directly about what academic pathways are available in the upper grades, given that the senior cohort is very small.

Two parent-relevant institutional changes are publicly reported. A capital project entered construction in July 2024, covering window replacement, roof resurfacing and truss repairs on the original building, and security film installation, financed in part through a bond to be repaid over time. Families should be aware this affects the district's debt service picture over the coming years. Separately, New York State's Universal School Meals Program, effective with the 2025-26 school year, provides free breakfast and lunch to all public school students regardless of income, which applies to all students here and removes meal costs from family budgets.

Indian Lake Central School is the only school option in a remote mountain town where the nearest neighboring districts are themselves small and rural. For a family already rooted in Indian Lake or drawn to that way of life, it offers the continuity of a single building from prekindergarten through graduation and a staff-to-student scale that is genuinely hard to find. The academic performance data, particularly in the middle grades, is something a family should explore with school leadership rather than read in isolation.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=50%Cohort of 9 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

1,253 schools plotted. 14 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

New York Regents Exams

3 courses reported · 2024-25

End-of-course exams required for a New York Regents diploma. Each row shows the cohort size and the share of students scoring at the proficient level or higher.

Course	Students tested	% proficient
Ela	7	100.0%
Social Studies	7	86.0%
Math	5	80.0%

Math

Grade 355%

School 55% · District 55%

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 460%

School 60% · District 60%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 33% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 11 pts below state median

Grade 610%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 35 pts below state median

Grade 717%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 36 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 336%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 16 pts below state median

Grade 460%

School 60% · District 60%

▲ 7 pts above state median

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 29% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 21 pts below state median

Grade 610%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 36 pts below state median

Grade 714%

School 14% · District 14%

▼ 33 pts below state median

Science

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 50% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 33 pts below state median

This schoolINDIAN LAKE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income33%Higher-income40%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income80%40 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income60%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income80%40 pp gap