The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in English language arts. The lowest is 38% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Olpe Elementary
Olpe Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through sixth grade in the small rural community of Olpe, Kansas. The school is part of the Southern Lyon County district, and its campus is integrated into the town itself, adjoining the high school and cafeteria. The town has a compact center along Westphalia Street, where city hall and a long-running restaurant, The Chicken House, are located. The restaurant has historically functioned as an informal community gathering place. Olpe is a very small, mainly residential community within the Emporia Micropolitan Statistical Area, and its population has been declining in recent years. A Catholic school in town closed after a recent school year due to economic conditions, leaving Olpe Elementary and the high school as the primary educational options in the immediate area.
The student body is small, with an enrollment in the low hundreds across all grades from PK through 6. The largest single grade is prekindergarten, which draws a sizable cohort, while the elementary grades are more evenly sized. The population is predominantly white, with a modest Hispanic share and very small numbers of Black and multiracial students. About a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that while many families are relatively financially stable, a notable portion of the community works with lower household incomes.
On the Kansas Assessment Program tests for the most recent year, Olpe Elementary’s results show a mixed picture. In English language arts, third graders and fourth graders both posted proficiency rates that were fairly strong, with well over half of students meeting the state’s bar. Fifth graders, however, scored markedly lower, with a little over a third reaching proficiency. In math, proficiency declined across the grades, starting at a moderately level in third grade and dropping further in fourth and fifth, where less than half of students were proficient. Fifth-grade science results were similar to the math and ELA results at that grade, with a little over a third of students proficient. When looking at the school’s overall proficiency across all subjects and grades tested, it lands in the top quartile among Lyon County’s districts. That relative strength should be weighed against the fact that the results are uneven by grade, with fifth grade appearing to be a notably weaker year across subjects. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what might be behind that grade-level dip.
Because Olpe Elementary serves only through sixth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The district brief turned up little in the way of recent parent-relevant changes or initiatives, so this profile does not attempt to describe district priorities or strategic plans that were not found. Housing in the area is valued near the lower end of the national range, and mortgage and rent costs are moderate relative to national benchmarks.
In sum, Olpe Elementary is a small, rural elementary school in a slowly shrinking community, serving a predominantly white student body with a moderate share of economic disadvantage. Its test results are generally strongest in the lower elementary grades in reading, and the school compares favorably across the county overall, though performance drops off noticeably in fifth grade. Families looking at this school should weigh the small-town setting and integrated campus against the uneven academic results by grade level.
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