The top reported proficiency rate is 43% in English language arts. The lowest is 29% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Caldwell Secondary School
Caldwell Secondary School serves students from sixth through twelfth grade in a single building that houses both middle and high school grades. It is the only secondary school in the Caldwell school district, a small rural system in southwestern Sumner County. The town of Caldwell itself is a compact farming community with a historic downtown core, light manufacturing, and a few technology businesses anchored by a local fiber-optic internet provider. The population has been in slow decline for decades, though recent years have brought a new swimming pool, a coffee shop, and some new small businesses. Housing is affordable, with home values well below state and national medians. The school is integrated into the town's fabric; the building sits on Osage Street within walking distance of downtown.
Enrollment at the school is small. The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic population making up a substantial share and a smaller group of students who identify as two or more races. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic profile of a district where agriculture and small-town employment dominate. The school does not report counts for students with an individualized education plan or English learners, so a parent would want to ask the school directly about those supports.
State testing results from the Kansas Assessment Program are available for math, English language arts, and science in the middle school grades. The data shows a range in proficiency across grades and subjects. In math, proficiency rates are higher in sixth and seventh grade and lower in eighth grade. In English language arts, seventh grade shows the highest rate, followed by sixth, with eighth grade behind both. In eighth-grade science, proficiency is at a similar level to the lower end of the math outcomes. These figures place the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades slightly above the midpoint among the districts in Sumner County. Kansas changed its cut scores for these assessments, so a direct year-over-year comparison is not available. A parent considering the school should keep in mind that small enrollments can make single-year rates more sensitive to the performance of a few students. The school does not serve grades that are tested beyond eighth grade in these state assessments, and no high school end-of-course exam data was available in the provided records.
The school covers the full span from middle school through high school graduation, but the data did not include a four-year graduation rate. For a family looking at this school, that is a gap worth raising with the district. Similarly, there was no information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course offerings, or staffing. The district brief turned up no recent changes that met the four-year bar, which for a small stable district may simply reflect continuity rather than inactivity.
For a parent or resident trying to understand the academic pathway here, the school presents as a typical small rural combined secondary school where most families know one another and students go through middle and high school in the same building. The testing profile suggests that English language arts is a relative strength in seventh grade, while math and science in eighth grade show room for improvement. The housing market is affordable enough that a family moving to the area would find home costs well below national averages. The community is quiet, with basic amenities and a deliberate small-town pace. A family that values a setting where their child will be in a very small cohort and where the school and town are tightly connected would likely find this a good match. A family looking for wide Advanced Placement offerings, extensive dual-credit programs, or a high degree of student diversity would want to research further what the school provides beyond the data shown here.
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