Boston School, Boston KY - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Boston School

Boston School serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade in the rural community of Boston, Kentucky, part of the Nelson County school district. It is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and its enrollment is modest for a K-8 building. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small Hispanic presence and a very small number of students who identify as two or more races or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. More than half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a moderate-to-high poverty context by national standards.

State assessment results are available for grades three through five, the grade span that Kentucky tests. Performance varies noticeably by subject and grade level. In reading, roughly half of third graders met the state proficiency standard, while fourth and fifth graders scored at lower rates. In math, fourth graders had a somewhat higher proficiency rate than third graders, but fifth graders’ math proficiency was substantially lower. Science results for fourth grade and social studies results for fifth grade were softer, with social studies showing the lowest proficiency rate of any tested subject and grade. Compared with other districts in Nelson County, Boston School’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint of a very small field of two districts. Because the comparison set is limited, this positioning should be interpreted with that narrow context in mind.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, staffing, and special education or English learner populations were not available in the sources provided. A family interested in those dimensions would want to ask the school directly.

Boston itself is not a town in the conventional sense. It is an unincorporated census-designated place along Interstate 65, roughly twelve miles west of Bardstown, the county seat. The population has been declining over recent years. There is no downtown, no walkable commercial district, and no evidence of sidewalks or public transit. The built environment is sparse: scattered homes, church properties, and the major industrial presence, the Booker Noe Distillery operated by Jim Beam. That distillery underwent a substantial expansion announced in 2022, bringing more jobs and a renewable natural gas facility, but the residential growth story is absent. Most civic and government services are in Bardstown, which is a short drive east.

For a parent considering Boston School, the picture is of a small, rural, mostly white elementary and middle school where a majority of students come from lower-income households. Academic performance is mixed, with some grade-level subjects showing a majority of students not yet meeting state standards, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what supports are in place. The neighborhood lacks the amenities of a denser community, and the housing market reflects that rural character. The school is the local option for families living in the Boston area; students who continue past eighth grade attend high school elsewhere within the Nelson County district. There is no indication of recent major changes within the district that would shift the experience at Boston School, according to publicly reported material.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 340%

School 40% · District 40%

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 446%

School 46% · District 42% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 33% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 350%

School 50% · District 39% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 437%

School 37% · District 48% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 37% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median

Science

Grade 437%

School 37% · District 33% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 30% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median

This schoolNelson 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-income30%Higher-income43%13 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income37%Higher-income27%10 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income52%12 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income19%Higher-income36%17 pp gap