The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in Science. The lowest is 22% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Chisholm Middle School
Chisholm Middle School serves just two grades, seventh and eighth, as part of the Newton school district in south-central Kansas. It is a conventional public middle school, not a charter or magnet, and its roughly 450 students come from the city of Newton itself and the surrounding area. Newton is a county seat with a railroad and agricultural history, a place that has seen a modest population decline in recent years. The city’s strategic plan talks about investing in downtown and revitalizing neighborhoods, which suggests a community focused on holding its ground and improving what it has rather than managing rapid growth.
The student body is majority white, with a substantial Hispanic or Latino population and smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races, Black, or Asian. A little over half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a common measure of economic need. That share is high enough to signal that many families in the attendance zone face financial pressures, and a parent may want to ask what support services the school offers around nutrition, counseling, or after-school care.
On state assessments, Chisholm’s proficiency rates sit in the bottom quartile when compared with other districts in Harvey County. In seventh-grade math, roughly a fifth of students scored at a proficient or advanced level. In eighth-grade math, the figure is about the same. In English language arts, about a third of seventh graders were proficient, while the eighth-grade rate fell closer to a quarter. Science, tested only in eighth grade, came in around a third. These are the most recent results from the Kansas assessment program, and they represent a clear soft spot. The school’s overall proficiency index across tested subjects is well below the county median. It is worth noting that Kansas made some changes to the cut scores for what counts as proficient in math and English language arts for these tests, which means the results may not be directly comparable with prior years. Still, the numbers as they stand are low, and a parent would want to understand how the school is working to move them.
Because the school serves only grades seven and eight, there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, and staffing were not available, so a parent cannot yet gauge how many students miss school regularly or what the student-to-teacher ratio looks like. The district brief turned up little in the way of recent changes or major initiatives that are publicly documented, so this is a school operating without obvious turbulence or headline programs at the district level.
Newton itself is a walkable-enough town along a Main Street spine, but commuting is mainly by car, and there is no fixed-route bus service, only dial-a-ride. Housing in the zip code is moderately priced relative to the state, and rent has risen noticeably over the past year. That matters for a family deciding whether to move into the attendance zone. The city’s employment base leans on BNSF Railway, healthcare, retail, and the school district itself. There is a satellite campus of Hutchinson Community College close to downtown, and Bethel College sits just north in North Newton, so there are nearby options for a student thinking beyond high school.
For a family that values a midsize, traditional public middle school in a stable but slowly shrinking town, Chisholm is an unremarkable building in an unremarkable setting. The academic numbers are the story, and they are not strong. A parent considering this school should visit, ask about intervention strategies for students below grade level, and get a sense of what the school offers for students who are ready for more challenge, since data on advanced coursework or enrichment at the middle school level was not provided. The peer environment is what you would expect in a town of Newton’s size and composition: economically mixed, majority white with a sizable Hispanic minority, and with the dynamic of a single middle school drawing from the whole district. This is not a school that stands out for high test scores, but for a family already living in Newton it is the neighborhood path through seventh and eighth grade.
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