The top reported proficiency rate is 64% in Math. The lowest is 61% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Haviland Elem
Haviland Elementary is the only school in the Haviland district, serving children from preschool through eighth grade. It sits in a very small, rural Kansas town of the same name, a place with a distinct small-college-town character because Barclay College, a private Quaker-affiliated college, is located there. The town itself has a sparse built environment and a population that has been slowly declining. Families looking at this school are often considering a tightly-knit, low-footprint community where the school and the college anchor local life. Students who finish eighth grade here move on to Kiowa County High School, a shared facility that Haviland partners with, since the town’s own high school was closed years ago through unification.
The school’s enrollment is small, and the student body is predominantly white. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which points to a modest economic context for many families in the area. The school’s grade span means it does not have a graduation rate, as it does not serve high school students.
On state assessments, the picture is mixed and a parent may want to look into this further with the school. In third grade, the share of students scoring proficient or above in both math and English language arts was very high. In sixth grade, the proficiency rate in math was solid, and it was also solid in English language arts. However, in fourth grade, the share of students reaching that proficiency threshold was markedly lower in both subjects. Because the school is very small, a single cohort of students can swing results dramatically from one grade to the next. The state assessment itself also had a cut-score change that the data flags as having occurred, which can affect year-to-year comparability. Taken together, these results suggest that some grade-level groups perform very well while others struggle, a pattern common in tiny schools where a few students carrying weak scores can shift the whole average.
The school’s overall proficiency index, averaged across tested subjects and grades, sits in the top quartile relative to the two districts in Kiowa County. That means within this immediate rural geography, Haviland Elementary is on the stronger side academically.
Beyond testing, the available data offers very little. Information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, course access, and special education was not provided. The district brief turned up no recent changes or initiatives to report, which is itself a reflection of the district’s size and stability. The housing market in the area shows home values below state and national benchmarks.
For a family, Haviland Elementary is a school in a very small, declining rural community where the college provides an intellectual anchor. Academically, it performs well for some grade levels and less so for others, which likely reflects small-class dynamics more than programmatic inconsistency. A parent moving here should expect a deeply personal school environment where the teacher knows every student, but should also be prepared to ask direct questions about how the school addresses weaker spots in upper elementary performance, since the public numbers show a dip. This is a school that fits families who want a slow-paced, rural setting with a strong college-town element and are comfortable in a district where the numbers are so small that every child’s performance is highly visible.
See more original research from School Decision →