Central Elementary School, Benton KY

Original Research by School Decision on Central Elementary School

Central Elementary School, a regular public school in Marshall County, serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It sits in Benton, a small county-seat town in far western Kentucky. Benton bills itself as "Kentucky Lake's Downtown," a civic and commercial hub with a traditional Main Street corridor. The surrounding housing market shows home values below the state median, and the local economy runs on retail trade, health care, and educational services. The town is overwhelmingly owner-occupied and predominantly white, and it has seen slow but steady population and employment growth in recent years.

Enrollment at Central Elementary is substantial for a pre-K–5 building, with each grade from kindergarten through fourth grade holding a similar class size, while fifth grade is a bit smaller. A majority of students are white, the population is very homogeneous, and a small number of students identify as Hispanic, Black, or multiracial. More than half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that a significant share of families fall within a lower income bracket. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the source material.

State assessment results for the most recent testing year cover math, English language arts, science, and social studies across grades three through five. In math, performance is mixed: third-grade and fourth-grade students recorded higher proficiency rates, while fifth-grade math was notably weaker. English language arts followed a similar pattern, with fourth graders performing stronger than third and fifth graders. Science is assessed only in fourth grade, where roughly half of students reached the proficient or above threshold. Social studies is tested only in fifth grade, and again about half of students met the proficiency standard. Because Central Elementary is the only school in the district serving this grade band, there is no meaningful comparison to other Marshall County schools—the district has a single elementary configuration. There is no multi-year trend data available, so it is unclear whether these results represent an improvement or decline.

The school itself is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and the district brief did not identify any recent major changes such as boundary adjustments, curriculum overhauls, or facility projects. That means the current academic profile and enrollment patterns likely reflect a stable, ongoing context.

Central Elementary fits the profile of a community school in a small town with limited economic diversity. The student body is largely homogeneous and a substantial portion comes from lower-income households. Academic performance is uneven across subjects and grades, with fourth grade standing out as the strongest year and fifth grade math as a soft spot. Parents looking into the school may want to ask about supports for fifth-grade math and about any school-level initiatives to address the dip between grade levels. The surrounding community offers a slow-growing, car-dependent lifestyle anchored by annual traditions like Tater Day and the Big Singing. For families already rooted in Benton or considering a move to a quiet western Kentucky county seat, Central Elementary is the neighborhood elementary school, and the district as a whole operates a single high school near town.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 356%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 52% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 40% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 345%

School 45% · District 46% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 464%

School 64% · District 55% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 46% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

Science

Grade 454%

School 54% · District 44% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 545%

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

▲ 7 pts above state median

This schoolMarshall 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 3Lower-income31%Higher-income57%26 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income57%7 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income40%Higher-income69%29 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income46%Higher-income87%41 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income33%Higher-income57%24 pp gap