Thea Bowman Leadership Academy
Gary · IN · Thea Bowman Leadership Academy · Public charter · K-12 combined
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Most similar nearby schools
Gary Lighthouse Charter School → West Side Leadership Academy → 21st Century Charter Sch of Gary → Gary Middle College → Morton Senior High School → Steel City Academy → Excel Center - Hammond → Excel Center - Gary →📋 At a glance
- 📚 1 AP courses offered — Moderate
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 1 calculus classes · 6 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 44% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 49% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 87% (Bottom 39% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Thea Bowman Leadership Academy compares for families
Solid mid-tier academic profile.
- ▸ LocallyIN students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Gary Lighthouse Charter School, West Side Leadership Academy, 21st Century Charter Sch of Gary and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Moderate — some AP / advanced course access
Bottom 44% of US high schools
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 49% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 39% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -2.1%/year, projecting from 2024's 773 students:
≈ 79 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $10,954 per student in district revenue, the 79 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $865,366/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gary Lighthouse Charter School Gary |
Public · charter | 0.5 | 444 | -2.4% |
| West Side Leadership Academy Gary |
Public | 1.4 | 1,227 | +0.1% |
| 21st Century Charter Sch of Gary Gary |
Public · charter | 2.3 | 380 | -9.5% |
| Gary Middle College Gary |
Public · charter | 2.5 | 202 | +22.4% |
| Morton Senior High School Hammond |
Public | 3.1 | 1,446 | -16.4% |
| Steel City Academy Gary |
Public · charter | 3.1 | 91 | -49.7% |
| Excel Center - Hammond Hammond |
Public · charter | 3.3 | 205 | +23.5% |
| Excel Center - Gary Gary |
Public · charter | 3.6 | 125 | +4.2% |