The top reported proficiency rate is 57% in English language arts. The lowest is 55% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Maplewood Elementary
Maplewood Elementary sits in Kansas City’s Clay County portion, a regular public school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade within the North Kansas City 74 district. The school draws a student body that is majority white, with significant shares of Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students. Its enrollment is modest. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
State assessment results from the most recent testing year show a mixed picture across grade levels. In math, fourth graders performed at a level that would be described as strong, while third and fifth graders posted results that were notably lower. In English language arts, the fourth-grade cohort also performed well, and the third-grade group was lower. Fifth-grade English language arts results were suppressed, as were fifth-grade science results. A parent may want to ask the school for clarity on those missing figures. Looked at across all tested grades and subjects, Maplewood’s overall proficiency index lands above the midpoint among the districts of Clay County. The trend data from a multi-year series show single-year proficiency rates that are lower, but given that they come from just one year of reporting, a parent should not read too much into a single data point.
Kansas City is a large, sprawling urban center with a mix of walkable downtown cores and extensive car-dependent neighborhoods. The school’s address in the city’s 64119 zip code places it north of the Missouri River in a largely residential, suburban-style part of town. Home values in that zip code are near the state median, and rents have seen recent upward movement. The mortgage vs. rent calculation suggests that buying is more expensive than renting month-to-month, which is a typical pattern for the area. The national mortgage rate and unemployment rate were both elevated in mid-2026, which is a broader economic context any family would be navigating.
The district brief yielded little on recent changes such as bond measures, boundary shifts, or curriculum updates. That does not mean nothing is happening; it means publicly available reporting on such items was sparse at the time of research. Families moving into the area would be wise to contact the district office directly about upcoming plans.
For a parent weighing Maplewood, the core takeaway is a regular elementary school in the northern portion of Kansas City that shows solid fourth-grade performance and softer results in other tested grades. The school’s enrollment is small enough that individual teacher and classroom dynamics likely matter a great deal. The high share of students eligible for meal support indicates a community with real economic need, which can shape everything from fundraising to staffing to the pace of academic intervention. The school’s location in a part of Kansas City that is less dense and more suburban-feeling than the downtown core may appeal to families who want a neighborhood school within the city limits rather than in a separate municipality. Without more data on class sizes, teacher experience, extracurriculars, or discipline patterns, a parent should plan a visit and ask specific questions about how the school supports students across grade levels, especially in the early grades and in fifth grade, where results were either lower or unavailable.
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