The top reported proficiency rate is 19% in Science. The lowest is 10% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Boswell
Boswell is a small PK-through-12 district in Choctaw County, deep in southeastern Oklahoma. The district serves around three hundred students drawn from the town of Boswell and the surrounding unincorporated area. The district’s three schools are an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. The community is rural and has a low median home value relative to the state, and the housing market shows signs of modest softening. For a family weighing this district, the arithmetic of scale is straightforward: small graduating classes, a tight-knit peer environment, and very limited local economic diversification.
The student body is diverse in a way that reflects the area’s population. White students and American Indian or Alaska Native students each make up roughly a third of enrollment, with smaller but visible populations of Hispanic students, Black students, and students identifying with two or more races. Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students are not represented in the enrollment data. The district did not report the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, nor the share of students receiving special education services or English learner support, so a parent cannot see the full picture of economic need or the scale of specialized instruction. Those are gaps worth asking the district about directly.
State test results for the 2024-25 school year paint a clear picture of overall low proficiency. In mathematics, the reported proficiency rates are in the single digits or the low teens across grades three through six. Results for grades seven and eight were suppressed, likely because the tested populations are small enough that privacy rules kick in. In English language arts, the same pattern holds: third grade and sixth grade show proficiency in the single digits or low teens, fifth grade is close to a fifth of students meeting the bar, and fourth and seventh grades were suppressed. Eighth grade ELA shows a very low proficiency rate. In science, fifth graders posted a proficiency rate under a quarter, and eighth graders under a sixth. When placed among Choctaw County’s four districts, Boswell’s overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint of that small set.
The chronic absenteeism rate is a bit above the midpoint among the county’s districts, which is worth noting as a signal of engagement challenges. The district’s per-pupil spending falls in the lower half of the county range. No graduation rate data was available in this profile, so a parent looking at the high school should specifically ask how many students are graduating on time.
The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes such as bond issues, curriculum updates, or enrollment shifts in the publicly available record. That absence is itself informative: there is no recent visible momentum from facility upgrades or program expansion. The district appears to be steady-state, with all the stability and all the constraint that implies.
The housing context shows that the majority of addresses tied to the district fall in the Boswell ZIP code, where the typical home value is the lowest in the area. A smaller share of addresses comes from the Soper area, where values are higher, and a negligible share comes from Bennington. The weighted district home value is well below the state benchmark and the national benchmark, and the year-over-year trend shows a slight decline. For a family moving into the district, the cost of entry is low, but resale value prospects and local economic growth look uncertain.
This is a district for a family who values a very small rural setting, who wants their child to be in a school where everybody knows everybody, and who is prepared to supplement academic instruction at home or through outside resources. The test results suggest that state-level academic benchmarks are not being met by the majority of students at any grade level measured. A parent should plan to be an active partner in their child’s learning and should ask the district directly about any interventions, tutoring, or accelerated programming that may be available, particularly at the high school level where the data runs thinnest.
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