Bolivar-richburg Elementary School, Richburg NY

Original Research by School Decision on Bolivar-richburg Elementary School

Bolivar-Richburg Elementary School serves children in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in a rural part of southwestern New York. The school sits in Richburg, a small village of about a few hundred people in Allegany County, though the broader district campus is anchored in nearby Bolivar. The setting is distant rural, and the school draws from a community where most families have modest incomes—a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

The school's most recent test results, from spring 2025, show a pattern worth examining closely. In third grade, the school's math and reading proficiency rates are genuinely strong, both in the range where nearly the vast majority of tested students meet state standards. Fourth grade, however, marks a significant dip. In both math and reading, fewer than half of tested students met proficiency, a substantial drop from the year before. Fifth grade recovers somewhat, with reading proficiency at about two-thirds of students and math proficiency at roughly the same. In fifth-grade science, about three-fifths of students met the standard. Overall, the school's proficiency index places it in the top quartile among districts in Allegany County, which is a meaningful relative strength, but the sharp dip in fourth grade deserves parental attention. A parent may want to look into this further with the school—whether it reflects a particular cohort, a shift in instruction, a testing phenomenon, or something else.

The student population is nearly entirely white, reflecting the surrounding community's demographic composition. The school enrollment is small, ranging by grade from about four dozen to five dozen children per grade, which means a close-knit setting where classroom sizes are manageable and teachers know families personally. However, small size also means the school has limited ability to offer multiple classroom sections or programming variety at any single grade level.

The district has invested substantially in the school's physical plant. A major capital project spanning recent years added STEAM classroom space at the elementary level, modernized utilities, upgraded security infrastructure, and renovated spaces for music, special education, and library services. That infrastructure work aligns with the district's stated curriculum direction: a K-12 STEAM and Agricultural Instruction initiative launched in the 2023-24 school year to weave those themes throughout all grades. These are deliberate, forward-looking choices that shape what and how students learn.

The immediate community is quiet and stable. Richburg's economy is small and most families commute to nearby towns for employment. The village clusters around Main Street with a library, town offices, and a handful of businesses, but the setting is fundamentally rural with little new housing development and a flat population trajectory. What families value about this school will likely be its intimacy, its freshly upgraded facilities, its emerging STEAM focus, and its standing strength in early elementary grades. Parents considering the school should understand the fourth-grade proficiency challenge and ask the school directly what is happening there, whether it is isolated to one cohort or something the school is actively addressing. The small enrollment means parents and school leaders interact regularly, so direct conversation is both possible and valuable.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 395%

School 95% · District 92% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 36 pts above state median · ▲ 44 pts above county median

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 34% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 565%

School 65% · District 63% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 381%

School 81% · District 79% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Grade 432%

School 32% · District 32%

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 62% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Science

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 59% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 586%

School 86% · district not reported

▼ 6 pts below state median

This schoolBOLIVAR-RICHBURG CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, 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 3Lower-income78%Higher-income86%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income27%Higher-income46%19 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income48%Higher-income87%39 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income91%Higher-income100%9 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income27%Higher-income58%31 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income54%Higher-income81%27 pp gap