The top reported proficiency rate is 28% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Holyoke Elementary School
Holyoke Elementary School serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the rural Phillips County seat of Holyoke. It is a regular public school within the Holyoke School District Re-1J, and the only elementary in the district. The town itself is a small agricultural center laid out on a grid, with grain elevators rising over the main street, Interocean Avenue (U.S. Highway 385). Population has been essentially flat to slightly declining, and the housing market is modest compared to the rest of Colorado. The town is notably diverse for rural Colorado, with roughly half of residents speaking Spanish at home, and that diversity is reflected in the school’s student body, which is about evenly split between Hispanic and White students, with small numbers of Asian and multiracial children.
The school enrolls around the typical size for an elementary serving these grades. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, which places the school in a higher-poverty context. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not available in the provided records, so a parent may want to check directly with the school about those support services.
State testing results for the most recent year show that proficiency rates across math, English language arts, and science are below what many families would hope to see. In math, about 15 percent of students scored at the proficient or advanced level; in ELA, the figure was about 28 percent; and in fifth-grade science, about 19 percent. These are soft spots that warrant a conversation with the school about academic interventions and how it supports students who are not yet meeting grade-level benchmarks. The school’s participation rate on state tests was very high, above 95 percent, which means the results reflect nearly all enrolled students. Compared to other districts in Phillips County, Holyoke Elementary’s overall proficiency index lands above the midpoint, but the county is small—only two schools had testing data to compare—so that position carries limited weight when thinking about state-level performance.
The school does not have a graduation rate, since it ends at sixth grade, and no chronic absenteeism data were reported. No information was available on course access, staffing ratios, or program offerings such as gifted education, music, or afterschool activities. That does not mean those are absent—many rural elementary schools provide them—but the absence in the data means a parent should inquire.
Holyoke’s built environment is low-density and car-dependent, with single-family homes on residential streets and civic buildings concentrated along the main corridor. The county courthouse and city offices are downtown. The school building itself sits on East Kellogg Street, integrated into the town grid like most institutions in a community of this size. No major new housing developments were identified, and the district’s most recent publicly reported changes were not found, suggesting a stable local context without recent disruption from referendums or major curriculum shifts.
This is a small-town elementary serving a diverse, high-poverty student body in a slowly shrinking agricultural community. Its test scores are low, and families considering the school should examine what academic supports and enrichment opportunities are actually in place. The school’s size and rural setting mean it likely offers a close-knit environment where children are known by name, but the academic numbers suggest room for improvement.
See more original research from School Decision →