The top reported proficiency rate is 71% in Science. The lowest is 26% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Union City Ms
Union City MS is a small middle school serving grades six through eight in the Union City Area School District, a rural district spanning Union City Borough and Union Township in Erie County, along with Bloomfield Township in Crawford County. The school enrolls a very small cohort of about students per grade level, nearly all of whom are white.
The school sits in a genuine economic-hardship setting. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, well above the typical school baseline and reflecting the borough's steady economic contraction since its industrial heyday as a furniture-manufacturing center. The town itself is a walkable but slow-growing small borough where most families own their homes and where manufacturing, health care, and retail remain the dominant employment sectors, with many workers commuting to larger regional employers.
In English language arts, about a majority of students tested met proficiency on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment in 2024-25. In mathematics, proficiency was lower, at roughly a quarter of tested students. Science results from 2022-23 showed stronger performance, with more than two-thirds of students meeting the standard, though the tested cohort was substantially smaller than in ELA and math. Across tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint among the county's school districts. The school is not required to report graduation rate, four-year graduation rate, or chronic absenteeism metrics because it serves only middle-grade students.
Data on special-education enrollment and English-learner status were not available. The school website information was not provided, so program offerings, course structure, counseling and support services, and staffing details are not documented here. A parent may want to look into those directly with the school.
The district itself has held property-tax millage flat for multiple consecutive years while funding significant renovations to the middle and high school building, which underwent major work in 2020. The district has also rolled out ConnectUC, a no-cost laptop lending program for families without reliable home computing, and has adopted new core instructional materials in elementary social studies and middle school science, alongside a refresh of interactive classroom boards. These are signs of deliberate instructional investment within a lean financial framework.
Union City is a place where housing is affordable, walkable downtown streets and civic anchors like the public library and park anchor daily life, and families with modest means are the population base. The school serves that population directly. Test results show uneven performance, strongest in science, mixed in reading, and notably weak in mathematics. For a family considering this community and school, the picture is of a small-town, economically stressed setting with active district-level efforts to modernize instruction, offset by state-level test results that warrant direct conversation with school leadership about math support, intervention systems, and student success pathways.
See more original research from School Decision →