The top reported proficiency rate is 53% in English language arts. The lowest is 38% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Highland Elementary School
Highland Elementary School serves students from preschool through fifth grade in the unincorporated rural community of Waynesburg, Kentucky, as part of the Lincoln County school district. The school is a regular public elementary school, not a charter or magnet, situated in a part of the state where the landscape is predominantly farmland and scattered residences along US Route 27 rather than any concentrated commercial core. Waynesburg itself has no downtown; the county seat of Stanford lies roughly twelve miles to the northwest, and that is where most civic functions, including the county library, are located.
The student body here is small for an elementary school, and the population is overwhelmingly white. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a figure that places the school in a higher-need context than many others. State testing data is available for mathematics and English language arts across grades three, four, and five, as well as for social studies in fifth grade. Science results for fourth grade were suppressed, which often happens when the tested group is too small to report publicly. In reading, the school's proficiency rates were mixed: a majority of third graders scored at or above the proficient level, and just over half of fifth graders did as well, while fourth graders were below that mark. Math results showed a similar pattern of variation: fourth graders posted a proficiency rate near half, third graders were slightly below that, and fifth graders landed lower. On the social studies assessment given in fifth grade, just over a third of students were proficient. These results present a picture where a parent would want to look more closely at how the school supports students across grade levels, particularly in math, where performance appears to drop in the upper elementary years.
Because Highland is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to consider. Similarly, the comparison fact-set that would place the school relative to other districts in Lincoln County could not produce a ranking because only one district operates in the county, making any such comparison meaningless. The district brief turned up no recent major changes or strategic initiatives of note, so there is little to report on that front.
The setting is rural and car-dependent, with very limited public transportation and no pedestrian-scale street life. Housing values in the area are below state and national averages, which may be a factor for families considering a move. The local economy is heavily tied to agriculture, and many residents likely commute to larger towns for work. For a family looking for a small, rural elementary school in a quiet part of central Kentucky where the community is tight-knit and the landscape is open, Highland fits that description. The academic data suggests a school where some grade levels are performing solidly in reading while math is an area that merits attention, and where the overall student population comes from a lower-income background.
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