The top reported proficiency rate is 78% in Science. The lowest is 59% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Windom Elem
Windom Elem is a small rural school serving prekindergarten through sixth grade in the tiny community of Windom, Kansas. The school is part of the Little River–Windom USD 444 district, which consolidated secondary education out of Windom years ago; the district’s high school sits in the neighboring town of Little River. For families considering this school, the setting is important to understand. Windom is an extremely small place, with a population that has fluctuated sharply in recent years—the 2020 census counted roughly a mid-sized crowd, and later estimates show it even smaller. The town is residential and car-dependent, with no walkable downtown or public transit to speak of; most employed residents commute, and the drive to nearby McPherson takes a short time on rural roads. Housing values in the area fall around the national median, and the cost of living is modest.
The student body is small and predominantly white, with a small share of Hispanic students and a very small number of multiracial children. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of economic need that is present but not dominant. The school serves the full elementary range through grade six, after which students move to Little River for junior high and high school. Because it does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report.
State assessment results from the Kansas Assessment Program (KAP) are available for math, English language arts, and science across several grade levels, though the school’s size means that small counts of students in each grade can make year-to-year comparisons less reliable. Looking at the most recent testing year, proficiency rates in both math and ELA start modestly in third grade and climb noticeably by sixth grade. In third grade, about two out of every five students scored proficient or above in both subjects. By fourth grade, that figure rose to roughly half. In fifth grade, math proficiency rose to a strong share, while ELA crossed the sixty-percent mark. By sixth grade, the school posted high proficiency in both subjects. Science is tested only in fifth grade, and the result there was also high, with a large majority of students meeting the standard. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index placed it in the top quartile relative to other districts in McPherson County—a strong performance compared with its immediate county peers.
The district actively tracks civil rights and equity topics, but specific data on discipline, chronic absenteeism, staffing, and course access were not available in the records we reviewed. Families may want to ask the school directly about special education services and English learner support, as those counts were also missing from the data. No program offerings such as advanced coursework, career pathways, or extracurriculars were detailed here, which is typical for a school this size and grade band.
Windom Elem’s core strength is its academic performance, particularly in the upper elementary grades, where the share of students meeting state standards in math and reading is well above the county mid-range. The school’s very small size means that each student is likely to be well known to staff, but it also means fewer dedicated specialists on site and a heavier reliance on the district’s central resources in Little River. For families who want a close-knit rural school with solid test results and are comfortable with the limited local services and longer drive for high school, Windom Elem is a school that delivers where it counts.
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