The top reported proficiency rate is 52% in Social studies. The lowest is 29% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Brown Middle School
Brown Middle School serves grades five through eight in Ravenna, a small Portage County seat east of Akron with a walkable downtown, a mix of 19th-century and mid-century residential neighborhoods, and health care, manufacturing, and county government as economic anchors. The school sits within a district that has navigated significant financial strain, passing a five-year operating levy in May 2025 after four prior failures. That stabilization is recent and material to the district's outlook.
Academically, Brown's state test results reflect below-average proficiency across the board. In English language arts, about four in ten students score at proficient levels or above. Math proficiency stands at roughly three in ten students. Science performance is somewhat stronger, near four in ten, though still below the median across Portage County's other districts. The school's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile among county districts. Test participation rates are very high, near universal, so these results reflect actual performance rather than testing gaps. Only one year of data is available to examine, so trends cannot be assessed.
The enrollment is stable at about five hundred twenty students across grades five through eight, distributed fairly evenly across the grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful Black population representing roughly one in six students, a small Hispanic share, and a two-or-more-races cohort of about one in seven. Asian enrollment is negligible. Free-or-reduced-price-lunch eligibility and special education rates were not available in the data reported, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about poverty concentration and support services for students with documented disabilities.
The district has undergone consolidation, closing West Park Elementary at the end of the 2024-25 school year and centralizing primary grades at Willyard. Longer-term, Ravenna is planning a consolidated K-12 campus with a new elementary school adjacent to the high school, a facility transformation that could reshape the experience for elementary students. Brown itself, as a middle school, would remain in its current building under that plan, though building use and adjacency would shift once the new construction is complete.
Housing in the Ravenna area is moderately valued and affordable by national measures, with typical home values below state and national benchmarks. Mortgage costs are moderate, and rental affordability is reasonable relative to income, so the economic context for families is less strained than many school communities. However, the community's population has been essentially flat or slightly declining over recent decades, and the district's years of failed levies before the 2025 success reflected underlying demographic and economic pressure.
Parents considering Brown should recognize that academic proficiency is well below county medians and will want to understand what academic supports the school offers and how it approaches students who enter below grade level. The school's test participation is strong, so the reported results are genuine rather than skewed by opt-outs. The district's newfound financial stability after the levy passage is important context, as it means staffing and program continuity are now more secure than they were in prior years. For a family seeking a middle school within its neighborhood community, with an interest in the town itself, Brown serves that role in Ravenna's school system; for a family prioritizing high academic proficiency, the data suggests looking elsewhere in the county.
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