Where it's Working: Believe

BELIEVE Circle City Is Showing What's Possible

Walk into BELIEVE Circle City High School, and you'll find a school built around a clear belief: students should not have to wait until after graduation to begin building the life they want.

They should have access to college courses now. Career experiences now. Adults who know them, challenge them, and help them see what is possible now.

And the latest SAT results provide compelling evidence that BELIEVE's approach is working.

Across Indiana, just 17 high schools exceeded the statewide SAT proficiency rate for all of these five student groups: Black students, Hispanic students, low-income students, English learners, and students receiving special education services.

Sixteen are large, primarily suburban schools in traditional districts.

One is BELIEVE Circle City.

And the company it keeps is notable: Carmel, Hamilton Southeastern, Zionsville, Westfield, Brownsburg, Avon, Center Grove, Noblesville, Penn, Valparaiso, Columbus North, and other schools in some of Indiana's highest-performing school districts.

But BELIEVE's story is uniquely its own.

A school designed for the students it serves

BELIEVE serves a student body that is 83% low-income, 53% Black, and 38% Hispanic.

Those numbers matter, not because they define BELIEVE's students or predetermine what they can achieve, but because they provide important context for understanding the school's results and the community it serves.

Context matters. So does looking beyond a single average.

Schoolwide averages alone can obscure what is actually happening for students.

BELIEVE's overall SAT proficiency rate sits slightly below the statewide average. At first glance, that might not seem particularly remarkable. Look more closely, though, and a much more meaningful picture emerges: BELIEVE students are outperforming students in the same demographic groups statewide across every major student population represented in the school.

English learners: 20.0% compared with 2.4% statewide
Hispanic students: 36.0% compared with 13.2%
Low-income students: 21.8% compared with 11.9%
Black students: 8.6% compared with 8.2%
Students receiving Special Education services: 5.9% compared with 4.8%

For BELIEVE's English learners, the proficiency rate is more than eight times the statewide rate. Hispanic students are approaching three times the state rate. Low-income students at BELIEVE are nearly twice as likely to reach proficiency as their peers statewide.

A single schoolwide percentage misses all of that.

Disaggregate the data, and the story changes. BELIEVE is not simply producing strong results. It is producing them for student groups Indiana schools have historically struggled to serve well.

The growth shows up in AP classrooms, too

The SAT numbers aren't the only place BELIEVE's trajectory is visible. Advanced Placement results tell a similar story, and in some cases, an even more dramatic one.

During the 2025–2026 academic year, Circle City students completed 115 AP exams and passed at an overall rate of 50%, meaning half of all exams taken resulted in a score of 3 or higher. That threshold matters well beyond the exam itself; a passing score can translate directly into college credit, which means less time and money spent on a degree.

Two subjects in particular show what sustained investment in student growth can look like over time:

AP English Language pass rates climbed from 33.3% in 2024 to 75.0% in 2025, then reached 85.7% in 2026.
AP US History pass rates rose from 27.3% in 2022 to 83.3% in 2026.

Those aren't one-year spikes. They're multi-year trend lines, moving in the same direction as everything else at BELIEVE: up, and toward students walking out with more than a diploma.

More than a test score

Of course, the SAT is only one measure of what BELIEVE is working toward.

BELIEVE is a college and career preparatory high school built around agency, autonomy, and acceleration. The goal is not simply to prepare students to graduate. It is to help them leave high school already moving toward a future they have had the opportunity to explore and shape for themselves.

That means students can access college coursework, earn career credentials, participate in paid internships, and begin accumulating college credit before they ever receive their high school diploma.

For BELIEVE students, those opportunities are not extras reserved for a select few.

They are the design.

Building a village around every student

BELIEVE calls its approach the Village Model, and the name is intentional.

Academic preparation is paired with support for mindset and wellness, employability skills, financial literacy, and wealth building. Through the school's Purpose Pathway, students are encouraged to think beyond the next test or semester and begin connecting what they are learning today to the lives they want to build tomorrow.

The school's small environment also allows relationships to remain at the center.

Students are known, and adults notice when someone needs additional support, when someone is ready for a greater challenge, and when a student may not yet see in themselves what their teachers already see.

That individual attention matters for every student. But BELIEVE's results suggest it can be especially powerful for students who too often disappear inside broad averages and assumptions about who will—or will not—succeed.

English learners are demonstrating strong growth. SAT performance is improving across grade levels. And across multiple student groups, BELIEVE students are outperforming statewide peers.

The numbers are moving in the right direction because students are, too.

Belonging in the conversation about Indiana's strongest schools

There is something powerful about seeing BELIEVE Circle City on a list alongside schools like Carmel, Hamilton Southeastern, Zionsville, Westfield, and Brownsburg. These are very large districts in primarily affluent suburbs, the resources and infrastructure that come from decades of longevity and scale.

To be clear, BELIEVE is not trying to BE any of those schools. Nor should it.

BELIEVE serves a different community, has built a different model, and is creating something intentionally designed for its own students.

That is precisely what makes its place on the list so important.

When Indiana asks what strong schools can look like, BELIEVE deserves to be part of that conversation.

Its students are showing that excellence does not belong to one ZIP code, one type of school, or one demographic group.

Excellence is not the property of affluent suburbs. It is not reserved for students who arrive at school with every advantage. And it is not defined by whether the name on the building says "district," "charter," or anything else.

BELIEVE is showing what can happen when a school starts with the students in front of it, refuses to lower the ceiling on what they can accomplish, and builds intentionally around what they need to get there.

"At BELIEVE, we believe excellence should never be determined by a scholar's zip code, background, or past academic experience. Our scholars deserve rigorous opportunities, unwavering belief, and the support to rise to the highest expectations. These results are a reflection of what happens when we pair high expectations with strong relationships, scholar agency, and intentional systems designed around the students we serve. We are proud of our scholars—not simply because they are outperforming state averages, but because they are proving what is possible when we refuse to underestimate them." -Angel Jackson-Anderson

BELIEVE's results are worth celebrating.

But the bigger story may not be what sits underneath those results: a school that knows its students, believes deeply in what they can do, and has built a model designed to help them prove it. BELIEVE is succeeding because it chose to build a different kind of school around the students it has.

And those students are showing Indiana what is possible.

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