The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in Science. The lowest is 15% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Soule Elementary School
Soule Elementary School, a public school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in Dodge City, Kansas, sits in a community shaped by meatpacking, agriculture, and tourism. The city itself is a stable presence on the High Plains, with a population that has flattened in recent years and a local economy anchored by large employers like Cargill Meat Solutions and National Beef. Families moving to Dodge City for work in those industries or in the service sector will find Soule Elementary as one of the district's neighborhood schools.
The student body is just under four hundred children spread across grades K through five. The demographics reflect the broader Dodge City area: a large majority of students are Hispanic, with a smaller white population and very small shares of other racial and ethnic groups. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating that the school serves a community with significant economic need. Data on the share of students with disabilities or who are English learners was not available in the source material, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those supports.
On state assessments, Soule Elementary's proficiency rates were low across all tested subjects and grades. In math, the share of students reaching Levels 3 or 4 on the Kansas Assessment Program ranged from a small fraction of fourth graders to roughly a fifth of fifth graders. In English language arts, the pattern was similar, with the lowest rate in fourth grade and the highest in fifth grade. Science results, tested only in fifth grade, were higher than in math or ELA but still below what many families would consider a strong benchmark. When compared with other districts in Ford County, Soule Elementary's overall proficiency index placed it in the bottom quartile. A complicating factor is that Kansas shifted its cut scores for these assessments between school years, which means the current results may not be directly comparable to past years. A parent looking at these numbers should treat them as a snapshot of one year and consider asking the school about its academic interventions and how it measures progress over time.
The school building itself is located on Soule Street in Dodge City, a compact city where travel times tend to be short. The downtown area, with the county courthouse and civic functions, is nearby. The district had no recent major changes reported in publicly available sources, so there were no new initiatives or disruptions to note.
For a family considering Soule Elementary, the picture is one of a school with clear challenges on state-tested academics, serving a population that is predominantly low-income and Hispanic in a community where the local economy is stable but not rapidly growing. The absence of data on special education and English learner services is a gap worth filling with a direct inquiry. The school's role as a neighborhood elementary within a mid-sized district means it likely offers the standard elementary curriculum and may have some support programs, but the academic results suggest that a parent interested in a higher-performing option might explore other schools in the district or ask about supplemental tutoring and family engagement resources at Soule.
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