The top reported proficiency rate is 28% in Math. The lowest is 7% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Bennett Es
Bennett Elementary serves students from third through fifth grade in the Broken Bow school district, a small public school in a rural Oklahoma town whose economy is built around timber, chicken processing, and tourism from nearby Broken Bow Lake and Beavers Bend State Park. The school sits in a town that grew up around a lumber company founded by the Dierks brothers, and that industrial and outdoor-recreation character still shapes daily life. Auto dependence is the norm here. There is no walkable downtown district with a concentration of shops or restaurants within easy reach of the school; families drive.
The student body is diverse. White students make up the largest single group, followed closely by students who identify as two or more races. American Indian or Alaska Native students form a substantial share, and Hispanic students and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander students each make up notable portions of the enrollment. Black and Asian students are present in smaller numbers. The school serves roughly the size of a mid-sized elementary for a grade band that spans only three years, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across grades three, four, and five.
On state assessments administered through Oklahoma’s testing program, proficiency rates varied by grade and subject. In math, the share of students scoring at the proficient level or above was markedly different across grades. Fourth graders posted a notably higher rate than third graders, while fifth graders showed a much lower rate. In English language arts, the pattern was more consistent across grades, with all three grades within a fairly narrow band. Science, tested only in fifth grade, saw a very small share of students reach the proficient threshold. These results place Bennett Elementary’s overall proficiency index above the midpoint among schools in McCurtain County, meaning it performs in the upper half of its local comparison set, though the range across the county is wide and the top of that range is substantially higher than Bennett’s own figure. A parent may want to ask the school how it approaches student progress across the elementary years, especially given the uneven results by grade level.
The school serves only elementary grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and data on chronic absenteeism was not available in the records examined. Information on special education and English learner populations was also absent from the data provided, so it is not possible to describe how the school supports those students from the available evidence. Free or reduced-price meal eligibility figures were not reported, which means the economic makeup of the student body cannot be characterized here.
Broken Bow itself has seen an economic boost in recent years, driven by a major oriented strand board plant on the west side of town operated by Huber Engineered Woods, as well as the expanding tourism sector around the lake and state parks. Housing values in the area are modest relative to national benchmarks, and the local housing market has experienced a slight dip in the most recent data available. The district itself shows no recent parent-relevant changes in the records found, so the picture of Bennett Elementary is largely a static one: a rural public school serving a diverse student body in a town anchored by timber and tourism, with academic results that place it above the middle of McCurtain County schools but with clear variation in how students perform across subjects and grades. Families considering this school may want to visit and speak with staff about how the school addresses those variations and what support structures are in place for students who are not yet meeting proficiency benchmarks.
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