The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in Science. The lowest is 40% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Pulaski Middle-high School
Pulaski Middle-High School serves a single combined building housing grades six through twelve for the rural village of Pulaski in northern Oswego County. The school enrolls a small, mostly white population in a region defined by Lake Ontario shoreline, Tug Hill rural character, and a nationally known salmon fishery. The enrollment is stable and reflects the surrounding area: about half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is predominantly white with small representation from other racial and ethnic groups.
The school sits slightly apart from Pulaski's historic downtown core, on Route 11 (Salina Street) near the recently completed Selkirk Landing affordable housing development. The village itself is in active revitalization, backed by state Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding and a new pro-housing designation. Felix Schoeller, a specialty paper manufacturer, anchors employment locally alongside retail and health care. Housing values in the area are moderate relative to state benchmarks, and the region has been stable economically, though the broader Oswego County economy has faced longtime demographic and employment pressures.
Academic performance in the tested grades shows uneven patterns. In eighth-grade science, about three in five students reached proficiency, the strongest area. Seventh-grade math hovered near a half-and-half split. English language arts ranged widely by grade: sixth graders sat around two in five proficient, seventh graders near one in three (the lowest result across tested grades), and eighth graders around one in two. Sixth-grade math was similar to sixth-grade ELA, while eighth-grade ELA and math both tracked below the county median. When these results are averaged across all tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among the county's districts, a positioning that reflects solid performance in science and grade seven, offset by weaker results in grade-six and grade-eight ELA. State testing does not cover high school grades, so no proficiency data exist for grades nine through twelve. A graduation rate was not provided in the available data.
The district recently approved a multi-year capital project funded through state aid and reserves, without raising property taxes, to upgrade HVAC systems, roofs, masonry, auditorium lighting, middle school flooring, and science classrooms at both schools. The district has also adopted the "PACS Plan," a systematic school improvement framework grounded in Robert Marzano's research on high-reliability schools. These changes reflect an intentional shift toward structured instructional improvement over the coming years.
For families, Pulaski Middle-High School represents a small, community-rooted building in a town experiencing revitalization and housing investment. Academic results in middle school show uneven performance by subject and grade, with particular softness in seventh-grade literacy. The school's position in the top quartile countywide reflects strength in science and select grades rather than across-the-board high proficiency. High school programming and outcomes are not represented in the available state testing data; a parent may want to look into the school's course breadth, AP or dual-credit offerings, and graduation outcomes directly with the district. The school is receiving both capital investment and a new instructional framework, factors that may affect learning environments in the coming years.
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