The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in Math. The lowest is 42% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Wabaunsee Junior High
Wabaunsee Junior High, tucked into the small rural town of Paxico in Wabaunsee County, serves students in sixth through eighth grade. The school is part of the consolidated Wabaunsee district, which was formed when the area’s small-town high schools closed, including Paxico’s own high school. The junior high itself sits on Elm Street in the middle of Paxico, a compact historic community of a few hundred residents that bills itself as a rural market town with a downtown strip of antique shops and an art gallery. For a parent or resident, this is a school that reflects the scale and character of the place: small, quiet, and deeply local.
The student body is small, with an enrollment that matches the town’s size. The school is overwhelmingly white, with a modest share of Hispanic students and a very small number of multiracial students. Roughly a quarter of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school does not report data on students with disabilities or English learners, so those numbers are not available to consider.
In terms of state assessment results, the KAP exams show a mixed picture across subjects and grade levels. In math, the seventh-grade cohort recorded a proficiency rate that was solidly higher than the sixth- or eighth-grade cohorts, both of which landed in a moderate range. English language arts results shifted a bit from grade to grade. The sixth-grade students posted a stronger proficiency rate than the seventh and eighth grades, which were more middling. In eighth-grade science, about two out of every five students met the proficiency benchmark. Overall, the school’s combined proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the small group of districts in Wabaunsee County that it is compared with, but this is a very narrow set of just two districts, so the comparison tells you more about local variety than statewide standing.
There is no graduation rate for this school because it serves only middle grades, so that metric does not apply.
Housing in the area is moderately priced relative to national benchmarks, and the local economy is modest. Paxico has seen a population decline in recent years, and the surrounding valley historically relied on farmland and cattle. Many residents commute elsewhere for work. The median home value in the immediate area is in line with or slightly above the state benchmark, but the cost of living remains manageable compared to metropolitan Kansas. A family moving here would find a quiet, car-dependent community with a small-town pace and limited everyday commercial activity.
The district itself had no major parent-relevant changes reported in recent years. The consolidation that brought Paxico’s students into this district happened long ago, so the current arrangement is stable. Parents should expect that the junior high feeds into Wabaunsee High School in Alma, about a ten-mile drive west. The school does not appear to offer a broad menu of specialized programs or extensive extracurricular pathways, but the data is thin on that front. For a family looking for a small, rural middle school environment where students know each other and classes are small, this school fits. For a family seeking a wide array of advanced coursework, many electives, or a more diverse student body, the school may feel limited. The state test results suggest a parent may want to ask the school directly about academic support, particularly in eighth-grade science and the lower-performing grade-level cohorts in math and English, to understand how the school addresses those gaps.
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