Ell-saline Elementary, Salina KS

Original Research by School Decision on Ell-saline Elementary

Ell-Saline Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and is part of the Ell-Saline school district, which is based in the Salina area. The school building sits north of the city proper on a rural two-lane road, and its student body of around two hundred twenty children makes it a small elementary school by Kansas standards. The student composition is overwhelmingly white, with a very small Hispanic population and even smaller Black and multiracial groups. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that places the school in a middle-income range relative to many other Kansas schools.

The academic picture comes from the Kansas Assessment Program, which tests students in grades three through six. The results vary noticeably from grade to grade. In third grade, proficiency rates in both math and English language arts land above the midpoint of where many schools in the state sit, while in fourth grade those same subjects show a sharp drop, with a much smaller share of students meeting the state’s Level 3 or 4 standard. Fifth-grade math proficiency is the lowest point in the data, while fifth-grade English language arts climbs back somewhat. By sixth grade, math rebounds to a stronger level, and English language arts remains at a moderate level. Science is tested only in fifth grade, and the results there are similar to the lower end of the school’s range. When all tested subjects and grades are combined into a single index, Ell-Saline Elementary sits below the middle of the pack among the five districts in Saline County. Readers should note that Kansas changed its cut scores for the assessments in this school year, so direct comparisons with prior years are not possible from this data alone.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. No data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing, or course access was available, and the school’s Title I status was not provided. Parents who want to understand how the school handles student support or classroom environment may need to inquire directly with the district office or visit the building.

The community context is the city of Salina, a regional trade and industrial hub for north-central Kansas that has a population in the lower tens of thousands. The local economy is anchored by manufacturing, health care, and higher education, with employers ranging from food production and battery manufacturing to insurance and bus manufacturing. Housing in the area is moderately priced, with typical home values and rents below national averages but showing some recent upward movement. The city’s population has remained fairly stable over time, with a modest decline recorded in the most recent census after earlier growth tied to military base activity and industrial expansion.

No recent changes in the Ell-Saline district that would directly affect families were found in publicly available sources, so the narrative here sticks to what the data shows.

For a family considering Ell-Saline Elementary, this is a small school in a rural setting on the edge of a mid-sized city, serving children through sixth grade before they would move to a separate middle or high school within the same district. The peer group is predominantly white and economically mixed, with a notable share of students who qualify for meal assistance. Academic performance on state tests is uneven by grade and subject, and the school’s overall proficiency index trails most of the other districts in the county. A parent may want to ask the school about how instruction and support are tailored across grade levels, especially given the variability in results.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 358%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 7 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 358%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 636%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 5 pts below state median

Science

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

This schoolEll-Saline, 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-income20%Higher-income81%61 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income25%Higher-income33%8 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income37%Higher-income33%3 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income38%Higher-income36%2 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income30%Higher-income75%45 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income33%Higher-income25%8 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income11%Higher-income20%10 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income56%Higher-income43%13 pp gap