Jefferson County North Elem/middle, Nortonville KS

Original Research by School Decision on Jefferson County North Elem/middle

Jefferson County North Elem/Middle serves students from prekindergarten through eighth grade in Nortonville, a small rural town in Jefferson County, Kansas. The school sits inside the town itself, part of a consolidated district that formed when Nortonville High School was closed and merged with Winchester schools to create Jefferson County North USD 339. The district’s high school is located elsewhere, so this building covers the elementary and middle grades only.

The school’s enrollment is modest for a PK-8 campus. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small number of students identifying as two or more races and a tiny share of Black or Hispanic students. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of economic need that is typical for a rural district in this part of Kansas. The surrounding community is car-dependent and largely residential; most residents commute to work in other towns, and the local economy leans on construction, manufacturing, and health care. Nortonville itself has been losing population in recent years, and employment has declined, though property values have risen.

On state assessments administered through the Kansas Assessment Program, performance varies notably by grade and subject. In math, the share of students reaching proficiency sits in the mid range for grades four and five but drops off sharply in seventh grade, where the rate is very low. Grades three, six, and eight also show proficiency rates that cluster below the halfway mark. In English language arts, the picture improves in the middle grades: fourth, fifth, and sixth graders post rates that are moderate to solid, while seventh and eighth graders fall behind those levels. Science results follow a similar pattern, with fifth graders performing at a moderate rate and eighth graders considerably lower.

When the school is placed alongside other districts in Jefferson County, its overall proficiency across all tested subjects and grades lands just below the midpoint of the comparison group. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism and discipline were not available. The district brief turned up no evidence of recent curriculum changes, referendums, or other major shifts that would affect families in the near term, so this profile reflects the school as it currently operates.

A parent considering this school should be aware of a few patterns. The steep drop in seventh-grade math and ELA scores is the most striking soft spot in the data, and it would be worth discussing directly with the school to understand what supports are in place. The stronger fourth- through sixth-grade results suggest that for many students the middle elementary years go well, but the transition to upper middle school appears to be a challenge. The school’s size means class groups are small across all grades, which can be a benefit for individual attention but also means that a single cohort’s performance can swing the overall numbers noticeably. The community context of a shrinking town and a long commute for working parents is part of the equation, though how that affects the school day is not captured in the data. Families looking for a very small rural school with a consolidated district structure and a mostly white, low-to-moderate-income student body will find this a straightforward match; those concerned about the weak seventh-grade performance will want to probe further.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 335%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 455%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 5 pts below state median

Grade 638%

School 38% · District 38%

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 710%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 25 pts below state median

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 1 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 20 pts below state median

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 52%

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 644%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 723%

School 23% · District 23%

▼ 18 pts below state median

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 8 pts below state median

Science

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 1 pts below state median

This schoolJefferson County North, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income28%Higher-income39%11 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income55%5 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income40%Higher-income46%6 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income30%Higher-income19%11 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income15%Higher-income38%23 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income36%Higher-income33%3 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income25%Higher-income42%17 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income30%Higher-income42%12 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income0%Higher-income14%14 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income15%Higher-income45%30 pp gap