John M. Stumbo Elementary School, Grethel KY

Original Research by School Decision on John M. Stumbo Elementary School

John M. Stumbo Elementary School serves the rural community of Grethel in eastern Kentucky’s Floyd County, an unincorporated place with no city government and a scattered residential pattern along highways. The school sits on a state route on the edge of a quiet, low-density area where sidewalks and commercial districts are absent. Residents commute about a dozen miles northwest to Prestonsburg or east to Pikeville for more extensive services and employment; within Grethel itself the Mud Creek Clinic, a community health center founded decades ago, stands as the most visible civic institution. Housing values in the area are low compared with Kentucky and national averages, and they have fallen notably in recent years, which reflects the local economic pressures common in this part of Appalachia.

Stumbo is a regular public school serving children from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, which means families will need to plan for a transition to a high school elsewhere after eighth grade. The enrollment is small for a PK-08 building, and the student body is overwhelmingly white with a very small Hispanic presence. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of the community’s widespread economic need.

The school participates in Kentucky’s statewide summative assessment program, and results are available for most tested grades. In reading and language arts, proficiency rates vary considerably by grade from one year to the next, with some grades showing around half of students meeting the state standard and others showing a noticeably lower share. Math results also vary by grade, and in one grade the proficiency rate was particularly low, a pattern a parent may wish to discuss further with the school. Science and social studies results, where reported, were modest. Results for eighth-grade students were suppressed in the publicly available data, likely because the testing group was too small to report.

Because the Floyd County school district is the only district in the county, there is no meaningful comparison available against other local districts; state-level context is the broader frame. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism, staffing, discipline, and program offerings were not available in the source materials used here, so those aspects of the school’s environment remain uncharacterized. A search for recent district-level developments, such as bond referendums or strategic plans, did not yield information, and that gap is noted rather than filled.

Stumbo offers a familiar small-school setting in a rural hollow where the school is both an academic home and a community anchor. The academic picture is mixed, with some grades performing better than others and with reading outcomes generally stronger than math. For a family considering this school, the key considerations are the limited local employment base, the very low housing costs, the rural isolation from larger civic amenities, and the necessity of arranging for high school after eighth grade. The school’s high poverty rate and variable test results suggest that targeted support and individual attention may be important factors in a child’s experience here.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 335%

School 35% · District 36% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 35% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 27% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 31 pts below state median

Grade 632%

School 32% · District 29% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 738%

School 38% · District 33% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 5 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 352%

School 52% · District 37% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 44% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 530%

School 30% · District 43% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median

Grade 668%

School 68% · District 47% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 750%

School 50% · District 46% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Science

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 32% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 530%

School 30% · District 30%

▼ 8 pts below state median

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 38% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median

This schoolFloyd County, 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.