Tollesboro Elementary School, Tollesboro KY

Original Research by School Decision on Tollesboro Elementary School

Tollesboro Elementary School is a small regular public school in rural northeastern Kentucky serving children from prekindergarten through sixth grade. It sits inside the Lewis County school district and draws its students from the unincorporated community of Tollesboro, an area with a long history—once incorporated as a town, later dissolved—and now a very sparsely populated corner of the county. The school itself is a central civic anchor in a place where a volunteer fire department, a campground, and nearby Maysville and Vanceburg provide the broader community's services.

The academic picture at Tollesboro Elementary comes entirely from state testing, and the results draw a clear line between subjects. In English language arts, the school's proficiency rates are consistently solid across the tested grades, with a strong majority of students meeting or exceeding the state's bar. Reading and writing are clearly areas of relative strength here. Mathematics tells a different story. In every tested grade from third through sixth, proficiency rates are lower than in ELA, with roughly half or fewer students reaching the proficient level. Science and social studies results, tested in specific grades, are comparable to the math profile rather than the reading profile. For a family considering this school, the asymmetry is worth a direct conversation with the principal or classroom teachers about how math instruction is structured and what supports are available for students who need extra help.

The student body is small and almost entirely white, with a very small Hispanic population. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a higher-need economic context than many of its peers across the state. The school's grade band runs PK through six, so students in this area move on to a middle or junior high school within the same district after sixth grade. Because Tollesboro Elementary does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report—that measure belongs to the secondary schools in the district, not to this one.

The housing market in the Tollesboro zip code is modestly priced compared with state and national benchmarks, with home values showing a slight year-over-year decline. The area is car-dependent and rural, with no real walkable street life or downtown district connected to the school. The school sits on a campus that serves as one of the few identifiable gathering places for the community. No recent parent-relevant changes or strategic initiatives were found for the Lewis County district, so the school's operations appear to have been stable in the near term.

Because there is only one school district in Lewis County, the standard comparison against other county districts does not apply in a meaningful way. The state testing data itself, however, gives a parent enough to work with: a school where literacy instruction is a clear strength and where math achievement is an area the school and district will want to keep improving. For a family that prioritizes early elementary reading and writing development, and that is comfortable with a small, rural setting and a high-poverty student population, Tollesboro Elementary offers a straightforward academic environment anchored in its literacy results. Parents who are concerned about math outcomes should ask how the school differentiates instruction and whether intervention programs reach the students who need them.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 39% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 30% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 35% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 43% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 373%

School 73% · District 49% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 26 pts above state median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 49% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 58% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

Grade 662%

School 62% · District 63% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 8 pts above state median

Science

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 31% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 40% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median

This schoolLewis 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 4Lower-income65%Higher-income73%8 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income48%Higher-income45%3 pp gap