The top reported proficiency rate is 25% in Math. The lowest is 20% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Puterbaugh Upper Elementary
Puterbaugh Upper Elementary serves a narrow grade band, third and fourth grade only, within the McAlester public school system in southeastern Oklahoma. Because the school stops at fourth grade, there is no graduation rate to report and no high school course pathways to consider. The academic picture comes entirely from state assessment results for those two tested grades.
On the 2024-25 Oklahoma School Testing Program, the share of students scoring proficient or above in math fell just below a quarter of tested students in third grade and was a similar share in fourth grade. In English language arts, the rates were lower: roughly one in five third graders reached the proficiency threshold, and fewer than one in five fourth graders did. The school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint among the districts in Pittsburg County, a comparison set that includes sixteen districts and for which the data covered fourteen. That position means the school's results are toward the stronger side locally, though the rates themselves suggest that many students are not yet meeting the state's proficiency benchmarks. The state changed its cut scores for math and English language arts in this testing year, so the results reflect a new standard, and comparisons to prior years are not possible from the available data.
The school enrolls just over four hundred students in its two grades, making it a moderately sized upper elementary. White students make up the largest group, at just under half of enrollment. Hispanic students and American Indian or Alaska Native students each account for roughly one in six. Students who identify as two or more races also make up about one in six. Smaller shares are Black and Asian. The data did not include counts for students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, students receiving special education services, or English learners, so a family would want to ask the school about those supports directly.
The school is part of McAlester Public Schools. The district's brief turned up no recent major changes or initiatives that would affect a parent's decision, so that information is absent rather than withheld. Puterbaugh is not a charter school, and its magnet and Title I statuses were not provided in the data.
McAlester itself is the county seat of Pittsburg County and a historic trade hub in southeast Oklahoma, built around coal mining and railroads. The largest employers today are institutional: the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, a second state corrections facility, and county and school district jobs. The city has a designated downtown historic district with a courthouse, a Scottish Rite temple, and an old theater, but the built environment is auto-oriented, with the city spreading across a large land area at the intersection of two federal highways. The population has been stable but slightly declining over recent decades. Revitalization efforts are centered on the downtown and Old Town areas, and the city has plans for a new library. Housing values in the area are well below state and national benchmarks, and the typical home is modestly priced.
For a family considering Puterbaugh Upper Elementary, the school functions as a focused two-year stop in a child's elementary progression. The data suggests that academic mastery, by state standards, is an area where a parent may want to understand how the school supports students who are not yet at the proficient level, especially in reading. The school's position relative to other Pittsburg County districts is favorable, but that is within a county where overall proficiency rates tend to be low. The McAlester community offers a stable, slow-growth setting with institutional employers and a modest cost of housing, though it is not a place of rapid development or new amenities. The data does not speak to class sizes, staffing, or enrichment programs, so a visit and conversation with the school would fill in those gaps.
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