Mcphee Elementary School, Lincoln NE

Original Research by School Decision on Mcphee Elementary School

McPhee Elementary School serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade and is part of the Lincoln Public Schools district. The school is located on Goodhue Boulevard in central Lincoln, a city that functions as the state capital and the economic and cultural anchor of the metropolitan area. Major employers in Lincoln include the state government, Lincoln Public Schools, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a mix of manufacturing and logistics firms. The city has seen steady population growth and has invested in infrastructure and housing initiatives, including a push for more affordable units.

The school itself is a regular public school and is not a charter or magnet school. The student body is racially and ethnically diverse. The largest demographic group is Hispanic students, followed by white students, Black students, and Asian students. A smaller share of students identify with two or more races, and a very small number are American Indian or Alaska Native. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, receive special education services, or are English learners were not available, so a parent may wish to ask the school about these aspects of student support.

McPhee’s state assessment results for the 2024-25 school year show that in both math and English language arts across grades three, four, and five, the proficiency rate was reported at zero percent. In fifth-grade science, the proficiency rate was also reported at zero percent. The school’s overall proficiency index, which averages scores across tested subjects and grades, placed McPhee in the bottom quartile relative to other districts in Lancaster County. The county comparison set includes 11 districts, and McPhee’s performance was below all of them in this measure.

Because McPhee is an elementary school, it has no high school graduation rate. Chronic absenteeism data for the school were also not provided.

The district, Lincoln Public Schools, has recently undertaken large-scale facility changes. A bond issue passed in late 2020 funded the construction of two new high schools, which opened in 2022 and 2023, a new elementary school, and major renovations. These projects reshaped school attendance boundaries and relieved overcrowding. Starting in 2023, the district began implementing a science-of-reading approach to early literacy across all elementary schools, a district-wide shift in how reading is taught to younger students.

For a parent or resident considering McPhee, the school offers a prekindergarten-to-fifth-grade program within a large, growing urban school district that has invested significantly in new facilities and a new reading curriculum. The school’s student population is diverse, and the classroom environment reflects that mix. The state test results present an unusually low proficiency picture across all subjects and grades tested, which places the school well below the academic performance of other schools in the district and county based on the available data. A parent would want to discuss these results and the school’s current instructional strategies directly with school leadership to understand what academic support and interventions are in place.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 30%

School 0% · District 56% · ▼ 56 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 43 pts below county median

Grade 40%

School 0% · District 55% · ▼ 54 pts below district

even with state median · even with county median

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 52% · ▼ 51 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 46 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 30%

School 0% · District 55% · ▼ 55 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 56 pts below county median

Grade 40%

School 0% · District 57% · ▼ 56 pts below district

▼ 40 pts below state median · ▼ 59 pts below county median

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 52% · ▼ 52 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 50 pts below county median

Science

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 77% · ▼ 77 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 67 pts below county median

This schoolLINCOLN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 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.