Ross Elementary School, Dodge City KS

Original Research by School Decision on Ross Elementary School

Ross Elementary School is a public elementary school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in Dodge City, Kansas. It is one of several elementary schools within the Dodge City school district, which is the sole public school district covering the city. Dodge City is a High Plains community where meatpacking dominates the local economy, with large facilities operated by Cargill and National Beef, alongside farm implement manufacturing and a tourism sector built on the city’s Old West heritage. The population has been essentially flat in recent years, and housing values are below both the Kansas and national averages, making the area relatively affordable for homebuyers and renters.

Academically, state assessment results from the Kansas Assessment Program (KAP) paint a clear picture of a school where many students are still developing foundational skills. In math, proficiency rates across the tested grades were in the low range, with the lowest performance in third and fourth grade and a modest uptick in fifth grade. English language arts results followed a similar pattern, with third and fifth graders showing somewhat stronger performance than fourth graders, though rates at all three grade levels remained modest. Science is assessed only at fifth grade, and results there tracked close to the math and ELA rates for that grade. The overall proficiency index, which averages all tested subjects and grades, placed Ross Elementary below the midpoint when compared with other elementary schools across Ford County. It is worth noting that Kansas made changes to its cut scores starting with this assessment cycle, which means the results are not directly comparable to prior years; a parent may want to ask the school how these scores align with classroom progress and local benchmarks.

The student body is diverse and economically challenged. A substantial share of students qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker that often correlates with additional needs for academic support and wraparound services. Racially and ethnically, the largest groups are Hispanic and white, with smaller numbers of students identifying as two or more races, Black, Asian, or other categories. The school serves a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade population, so there is no graduation rate to report, and data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, and staffing ratios were not available for this profile.

Located in Dodge City, the school sits in a community that is compact and car-dependent in character, with wide streets and a downtown centered on the county courthouse and civic functions. The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes such as boundary adjustments, program launches, or leadership turnover, so the school appears to be operating under long-standing arrangements.

For a family considering Ross Elementary, the central takeaway is an elementary school serving a high-poverty population where state test scores are below the Ford County average. The school’s role within the Dodge City district and the broader community is as a neighborhood elementary option, with a student composition that reflects the city’s working-class economic base. A parent interested in specific instructional supports, class sizes, or early literacy and math interventions would likely benefit from a direct conversation with the school’s principal or teaching staff, as the available data do not cover those details. The academic profile suggests that many children here are still working toward grade-level proficiency, and the school’s capacity to accelerate that progress is an open question that local inquiry can help answer.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 323%

School 23% · District 26% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 420%

School 20% · District 18% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 20 pts below state median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 24% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 338%

School 38% · District 33% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 22% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 19 pts below state median

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 29% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 12 pts below state median

Science

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 32% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 11 pts below state median

This schoolDodge City, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income32%Higher-income47%15 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income22%Higher-income42%20 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income30%Higher-income56%26 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income13%Higher-income41%28 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income10%Higher-income38%28 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income21%Higher-income56%34 pp gap