The top reported proficiency rate is 23% in Math. The lowest is 14% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Asher Es
Asher Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in a single campus at the heart of Asher, a small rural town in Pottawatomie County. The school is the center of community life in a town that has seen its population decline over recent decades and where most residents commute to Ada, Shawnee, or Oklahoma City for work. The old downtown along Division Street is largely vacant, and commercial activity is limited to a few highway-oriented businesses. For families considering this school, the context is that of a shrinking rural town where the school itself is the main civic anchor.
State testing data for the most recent year shows a pattern of low proficiency rates, though small class sizes mean that many grade-level results were suppressed to protect student privacy and cannot be reported. In the grades where a result was available, the share of students scoring at or above the proficient level was low across both math and English language arts. In fourth-grade math about a fifth of students met the proficiency bar, and in eighth-grade math about a quarter did. In English language arts the figures were lower still, ranging from roughly a tenth to under a fifth of students across grades three, four, six, seven, and eight. Science results for grades five and eight were both suppressed. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages all reported subject and grade results, sits below the midpoint when compared with other districts in Pottawatomie County. Because Oklahoma changed its cut scores for math and English language arts in this testing cycle, year-to-year trend comparisons are not available, so it is unclear whether these results represent a change from prior years. A parent may want to ask the school about what academic supports are in place and how the school approaches instruction in the core subjects.
Enrollment is small enough that individual grade cohorts range from about a dozen to nearly thirty students, which allows for close relationships between staff and families but also means that subgroup data is often withheld by the state. The student body is predominantly White, with a notable share of students who identify as two or more races and smaller shares who are American Indian or Alaska Native and Hispanic. Information on economic disadvantage, special education services, and English learner status was not reported in the available data, so a full picture of student support needs is not available here. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate or college-career readiness data to consider.
Housing in the Asher area is relatively affordable, with typical home values below both state and national benchmarks. The town has a compact footprint and limited rental market information.
Asher Elementary offers a very small, rural educational setting where most families commute elsewhere for work and where the school has long been described as the center of community activities. The academic achievement data shows substantial room for improvement across tested subjects, and the small enrollment means that some outcomes cannot be publicly reported. For families who value a close-knit environment and do not need a high school on the same campus, this school provides a neighborhood option through eighth grade, but the performance record and the shrinking local context are factors worth discussing directly with the school and district.
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