Jennie Barker Elem, Garden City KS

Original Research by School Decision on Jennie Barker Elem

Jennie Barker Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the Garden City school district, on the northern edge of town along a road that runs through open agricultural land. The school is small, with a student body that reflects the changing demographics of Garden City itself, a High Plains meatpacking and agricultural hub where a majority of residents are Hispanic and immigrant communities from Myanmar, Somalia, Vietnam, and Latin America have settled over recent decades. About two in five students at Jennie Barker qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a level that signals a substantial share of families working in the area’s dominant Tyson Fresh Meats plant, feedlots, and related industries.

The school’s academic picture is uneven when you look across grade levels. In third-grade reading, a clear majority of students met state proficiency standards on the Kansas Assessment Program (KAP), a result that stands as a strength for that cohort. Fifth-grade reading and math also showed a majority proficient, and fifth-grade science posted a similarly solid result. Fourth grade was a soft spot in both reading and math, with proficiency at a much lower level. Sixth grade landed in a middle ground, with reading and math each hovering around the halfway mark. Because the KAP cut scores changed recently, year-over-year comparisons are uncertain, so it is hard to say whether these grade-by-grade differences reflect a pattern or a single year’s snapshot. Overall, when averaging proficiency across all tested grades and subjects, Jennie Barker’s performance ranks above the midpoint among Finney County districts—though the county has only two districts, so that is a narrow comparison.

Enrollment runs remarkably even from kindergarten through sixth grade, with each grade holding roughly the same number of students. The total is small enough that most families will find a close-knit feel. Hispanic students make up a slight majority of the student body, white students account for about two in five, and small shares identify as Asian or two or more races. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about its support for those groups.

The school is located on the northern edge of Garden City, outside the downtown core where the county courthouse and historic Main Street are found. The city itself is car-dependent, with short average commutes, and its economy is anchored by meatpacking, agriculture, and a regional hospital. Housing values in the area sit a bit below the Kansas state median, and the local market has seen modest appreciation. The district recently had no major publicly reported changes or strategic initiatives that would alter a family’s decision-making.

Jennie Barker does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to consider. It is a conventional elementary school with no charter or magnet designation, and the data did not include information on course offerings, staffing ratios, or discipline rates. For a family looking at this school, the key takeaway is a small, stable enrollment in a working-class community, with solid performance in a few grades and a notable dip in fourth grade that is worth discussing with the principal. The school’s overall proficiency picture, while above the local peer set, is driven heavily by the stronger grades.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 346%

School 46% · District 26% · ▲ 19 pts above district

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

Grade 412%

School 12% · District 26% · ▼ 14 pts below district

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

Grade 555%

School 55% · District 25% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 652%

School 52% · District 25% · ▲ 27 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 363%

School 63% · District 43% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 431%

School 31% · District 38% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 557%

School 57% · District 32% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 27% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median

Science

Grade 564%

School 64% · District 34% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

This schoolGarden 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 4Lower-income7%Higher-income58%51 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income0%Higher-income25%25 pp gap