The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in Math. The lowest is 27% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Orrick Elem.
Orrick Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through sixth grade in the Orrick R-XI School District, a small rural district about an hour northeast of the Kansas City metro area. The town of Orrick itself is compact and tight-knit, with a population that has been declining over recent decades, and the school sits on the same campus as the district’s other buildings, making it a natural community hub. Families here tend to see the school as part of the town’s fabric, not a separate institution.
The student body is small and overwhelmingly white, with a modest share of Hispanic and Black students. Just over half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that points to a community where many households are working-class or lower-income. The district’s two-school structure—this elementary and a combined secondary building—means students move through with the same peers for most of their school years, which can appeal to families looking for stability and close relationships with teachers.
State testing results are limited, largely because small class sizes mean many results are suppressed to protect student privacy. For the grades where data was reported, third-grade math showed about 40 percent of students scoring proficient or above, and sixth-grade English language arts showed about 27 percent proficient. Those are the only two reported rates; all other grade-level results in math, ELA, and science were suppressed. That makes it difficult to draw a full picture of academic performance, but the district’s overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades placed it above the midpoint among the four districts in Ray County. It is not the strongest performer in the county, but it is not at the bottom either. A parent looking for more granular information would want to ask the school directly about student growth measures or classroom-level assessments, since the public data is thin.
No graduation rate applies because the school ends at sixth grade. Data on chronic absenteeism, staffing ratios, discipline, and program offerings were not available in the sources used here, so this narrative cannot speak to those areas. The district’s website or a direct call to the school would be the best next step for a family wanting to learn about enrichment activities, special education services, or class sizes.
Housing in Orrick is modest relative to the state median, and the town’s rural character means most errands require a drive to a larger town. The community has experienced natural disasters, including tornadoes that have damaged school facilities in past decades, but publicly reported information does not indicate any recent major changes to district operations, curriculum, or funding. The district’s budget and strategic priorities were not found in the search results, so that remains an open question for prospective families.
Orrick Elementary is a straightforward rural school with a small enrollment, limited test data that shows room for improvement, and a community context that prizes familiarity and local ties. It fits a family that values a close-knit environment and is comfortable with a setting where the school’s academic record is not fully visible in state reports and where some answers will need to come from the school itself.
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