The top reported proficiency rate is 15% in English language arts. The lowest is 0% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Wynot Middle School
Wynot Middle School is a small regular public school serving grades five through eight in Wynot Public Schools, the K-12 district for this northern Cedar County village. Wynot itself is a compact rural incorporated village along Nebraska Highway 12, where agriculture, the school district, and local government make up most of the employment base. The school sits at a single address on St James Avenue alongside the elementary and high school, so a child moving from one level to the next stays in the same cluster of buildings. The village is very small and car dependent, with residents traveling to nearby Hartington or Crofton for healthcare and other services. The housing stock in Wynot’s ZIP code carries a value that sits below the national median, and home values have been rising at a pace faster than the state average in recent years, which may matter for a family weighing a move into the district.
The school’s enrollment is very small. About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a substantial share that reflects the income profile of this agricultural community. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a very small number of Hispanic students and an even smaller number of students of two or more races. No counts for students with disabilities or English learners were reported in the available data, which may simply reflect suppression in a school this size. A parent curious about special education services or language support would want to ask the district directly, since the data here does not speak to those programs.
State testing results for the 2024-25 school year show a mixed picture. In English language arts, eighth graders posted a proficiency rate that was the school’s strongest result across grades, while grades five, six, and seven each had a rate that was low enough to suggest most students in those grades did not meet the state benchmark. Math proficiency was zero across all four tested grades, meaning no student in any grade who took the assessment scored at the proficient level. Science results were zero in both grade five and grade eight, the tested grades for that subject. These are stark numbers. A parent should understand that the school serves a very small cohort where a handful of students can shift percentages dramatically, and the zero rates in math and science for some grades may represent very small groups of test-takers. Still, the pattern is clear enough that a family considering Wynot Middle School would want to discuss academic support and math instruction with the school.
The multi-year trend data adds context. The same school year produced a range of ELA scores across grades, with the highest and lowest points suggesting inconsistency from cohort to cohort. In math, the lowest point in the trend series was zero, which matches the 2024-25 results. The data does not allow a reliable comparison across years because the test framework may have changed, so it is not possible to say whether this is a decline or a continuation.
When placed against the other districts in Cedar County, Wynot Middle School’s overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile among the small set of county districts. That framing is based on a mean of the school’s reported rates across subjects and grades, and it places the school well below the county midpoint. The comparison set is small, only four districts, so the spread may be tight, but the relative position is consistent with the raw proficiency picture described above.
No course access data, discipline records, attendance rates, or staffing ratios were available in the school’s profile. A family looking for a clear picture of class sizes, curriculum breadth, or student behavior climate will find those topics not addressed here. The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes, such as boundary shifts, program additions, or building projects, so the school appears to be operating without major recent disruption or expansion. What emerges is a portrait of a very small rural middle school where academic outcomes in the most recent testing year are well below typical expectations, and where a family would need to investigate academic supports closely. The school’s place in the community is central, as the village’s civic and economic life is tightly woven around the school district, but the academic data is thin enough that any parent considering enrollment should make direct contact a priority.
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