The top reported proficiency rate is 30% in Math. The lowest is 20% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Miltonvale Elem
Miltonvale Elementary is a small, rural school serving students from prekindergarten through sixth grade in the town of Miltonvale, Kansas. The school is part of the Southern Cloud school district, and the community it serves is a tight-knit, agriculture-oriented town with a population somewhere in the low hundreds, where the local economy revolves around surrounding farmland and an active BNSF railway line that runs through town. The town's population has been declining, and the housing market reflects a very affordable rural setting, with home values well below state and national benchmarks.
The student body at Miltonvale Elementary is small and predominantly white, with a very small share of Hispanic students and a negligible number of students identifying as two or more races. A substantial majority of students come from low-income households, as measured by eligibility for free or reduced-price meals. Because the school serves only through sixth grade, it has no graduation rate to report, and data on special education and English learner populations were not available in the records reviewed.
On state assessments, the school's results are mixed. In the third grade, the only tested grade for which data was available, math proficiency was reported at a level where roughly one in three students met the state's proficiency standard, while English language arts proficiency was lower, with about one in five students reaching that bar. When compared to other schools across Cloud County, Miltonvale Elementary's overall proficiency index fell below the midpoint of the county's districts. The school's very small size means that a handful of students can shift these figures noticeably from year to year, which any parent may wish to keep in mind when interpreting a single year's results.
A much larger story surrounds the district itself. Southern Cloud has undergone a major consolidation. At the end of the 2023-2024 school year, both Miltonvale Junior/Senior High School and Glasco Junior/Senior High School were closed due to declining enrollment. The district was reorganized so that K-5 students now attend the building that had been Miltonvale Elementary, which was renamed Southern Cloud Grade School, while grades 6-12 attend the former Glasco Grade School. Furthermore, the district itself is set to be dissolved before fall 2026, with its territory expected to be absorbed by neighboring districts such as Clay County and Clifton-Clyde. Discussions among five surrounding districts about the exact boundaries of that reassignment were still underway as of early 2025. For any family living in this school's attendance zone, this means the district as it exists today will cease to exist, and students will soon be assigned to a different school system, potentially with a longer commute and an entirely different school community.
Beyond the state assessment data and this fundamental structural change, other indicators that might give a fuller picture of the school's environment were not available. Information on chronic absenteeism, course access, staffing levels, and discipline was not reported in the records examined. The school's Title I status was also not specified. A parent considering this school will want to speak directly with the district to understand how the impending dissolution will affect their child's specific grade, what the transition timeline looks like, and what kind of continuity or disruption they should expect.
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