The top reported proficiency rate is 24% in Science. The lowest is 13% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Mcmurray Es
McMurray Elementary School serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in a rural southwestern Oklahoma community. It is part of the Sentinel Public Schools district, and the school sits within the small town of Sentinel, a place where agriculture anchors the local economy and the town’s population has been on a gradual decline for years. The school plant itself dates to the 1960s, and the district draws its roughly several hundred students from Sentinel and the surrounding communities of Port, Rocky, and Carter.
The student body is predominantly white, with a notable Hispanic population and smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races or American Indian or Alaska Native. The school is relatively small in the context of its grade band, and the enrollment is distributed fairly evenly across grades, giving it a feel of a close-knit campus where teachers and students know each other. The school does not serve high school grades, so no four-year graduation rate applies, and state testing data covers only the tested grades within this PK-through-8 span.
On state assessments, McMurray Elementary’s results are low across the board. In mathematics, the percentages of students reaching proficiency are in the single digits or low twenties in the grades for which data is reported. One grade level saw fewer than one in ten students meeting the bar, and another was only slightly higher. In English language arts, the pattern is similar. One grade level had a very small share of students proficient, another was just above a quarter, and others fell well below that. Science results for a single tested grade show roughly one in four students proficient. Several grade-and-subject combinations had their results suppressed for data reasons, a common occurrence in small schools where a very low number of test takers can obscure the picture. The overall proficiency picture, when measured across all tested subjects and grades, places the school above the midpoint among other Washita County districts, a positioning that reflects the relative performance of those districts as much as the school’s own standing.
A parent looking at these scores will want to understand the context. This is a small rural school in a community with a limited tax base and a shrinking population. The district does not serve high school students within this building, so students transitioning after eighth grade move to the high school, which is a separate entity and not covered by these results. The state testing framework in Oklahoma underwent a cut-score change, meaning that comparisons with prior years are not straightforward, and the school’s data reflects the first year under those new standards. That technical change could contribute to lower reported rates, but the available evidence does not allow a parent to untangle how much of the result is a standards shift versus how much reflects long-standing student performance. It is a question worth raising with the school directly.
The school has no charter or magnet designation, and information on Title I status, special education programming, and English learner services was not available in the data provided. That leaves a significant gap for any family trying to gauge the level of academic support the school offers. The district’s publicly reported recent history did not flag any major changes, so the school appears to be operating on a steady footing without recent disruptions to programming or leadership.
Housing in the area is affordable by national standards, with typical home values well below the state and national averages. Rents are similarly modest, and the local economy, anchored by the school district itself and a nursing home, offers few large employers. For a family considering a move, the low cost of living is a clear draw, but the academic data suggests a school that is struggling to meet state proficiency benchmarks. A parent who values small classes and a rural setting may find the school’s scale appealing, but they should plan to engage directly with the school about how it supports students who are below grade level and what academic acceleration opportunities exist for those who are ready for more.
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