Faris Elementary, Hutchinson KS - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Faris Elementary

Faris Elementary sits in central Hutchinson as a public school serving pre-kindergarten through seventh grade under the Hutchinson Public Schools district. The student body is primarily White, with a notable Hispanic enrollment and smaller shares of Black and multiracial students. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a rate that places the school in a high-poverty context.

The school offers a long run of grades, spanning early childhood through the start of middle school. Most of its enrollment clusters in the elementary grades; seventh grade has a very small number of students, which likely reflects a transitional arrangement rather than a full middle school program. No information was available about special education staffing, English learner support, or disciplinary data.

State testing results for the most recent year come with a complication. Kansas changed its cut scores for both English language arts and math, which means the results cannot be reliably compared to prior years. What the numbers show is a school where proficiency rates are well below state averages in most tested subjects and grades. In math, proficiency fell in the range of roughly one student in five meeting the bar across grades three through six. English language arts results varied more by grade: third and fifth graders posted higher rates than fourth and sixth graders, with fifth grade the strongest. Science results, tested only in fifth grade, were similar to the math rates. The school's overall proficiency index placed it in the bottom echelon among elementary and K-8 schools in Reno County. A parent considering Faris may want to ask the school about academic interventions, curriculum approaches, and how it supports students who arrive below grade level.

The housing market around the school is affordable relative to national benchmarks. Home values and rents are well below the Kansas statewide median, and the estimated monthly mortgage payment on a typical home is modest. The ratio of rent to median household income suggests housing costs are not a heavy burden in this area. For a family moving to Hutchinson, the financial barrier to buying near the school would be low.

Hutchinson itself is a mid-sized city that serves as the regional center for south-central Kansas. It has an industrial base in salt mining, healthcare, and grain storage, and it hosts several regional draws: the Kansas State Fairgrounds, Hutchinson Community College, the Cosmosphere aerospace museum, and the Strataca underground salt museum. The downtown core around the Reno County courthouse has locally owned shops and restaurants, but the city as a whole is car-dependent outside that core. Major employers include the regional medical center, county government, the community college, and the salt companies. The population has been stable or slightly declining in recent decades, and no major new housing developments or growth initiatives surfaced in available records. The district itself, Hutchinson Public Schools, showed no recent major changes or strategic initiatives in publicly reported information.

For a family, Faris Elementary presents as a school where the surrounding community is stable and affordable but where academic outcomes on state assessments are low relative to the county. The student body experiences high levels of economic need, and the school has not reported information on staffing ratios, course access, or support services. Those are gaps a parent would want to fill through a direct conversation with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 318%

School 18% · District 17% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 422%

School 22% · District 16% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 29% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 616%

School 16% · District 27% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 335%

School 35% · District 35%

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

Grade 430%

School 30% · District 33% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 40% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 30% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Science

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 32% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

This schoolHutchinson Public Schools, 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.