The top reported proficiency rate is 25% in Math. The lowest is 7% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Tipton Es
Tipton ES is a public school in the small, rural agricultural town of Tipton in western Tillman County, Oklahoma. It serves students from prekindergarten through eighth grade, which means it functions as both an elementary and a middle school for the community. Because the school does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate data to report here, and readers should not interpret that as a missing metric.
The school has a modest enrollment for a PK-through-8 building. The student body is diverse. The largest single racial group is white students, followed by a substantial share of Hispanic students, a smaller but meaningful population of Black students, and smaller numbers of students who identify as two or more races or as American Indian or Alaska Native. The share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch is not available in the data, which is a notable gap given that this metric is often used as a proxy for the level of economic need in a school community.
On the Oklahoma state assessment results from the most recent testing year, Tipton ES shows a pattern of low proficiency rates that a parent would want to understand better. In math, the share of students scoring at or above proficient was low in third grade, fourth grade showed a stronger result that stood out from the other grades, and sixth and seventh grades both posted low rates. Results for fifth and eighth grade math were suppressed, likely because of small group sizes, so no public figure is available. In English language arts, the pattern was similarly low across the tested grades: third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade all recorded low proficiency rates, and fourth grade results were suppressed. In science, the sole reported eighth grade result was very low, while fifth grade science was suppressed. These numbers place the school below the midpoint among the small number of districts in Tillman County on an overall proficiency index.
A note on context: Oklahoma changed its cut scores for math and English language arts in recent years, so these numbers are not directly comparable to results from prior years. A parent looking at trends should be aware of that break in comparability.
The town of Tipton itself has a long history as an agricultural service hub, with its economy rooted in farmland known for high-quality soils used primarily for irrigated cotton, along with alfalfa, corn, and wheat. The community is also home to Tipton Home, a children's home established by the local Church of Christ. The town's population has been declining for many decades, a trend that predates any current school-related factors and reflects broader demographic patterns in rural Oklahoma. Housing in the area is very affordable relative to state and national benchmarks, with home values a fraction of the typical national level.
The district brief for Tipton Public Schools, under which this school operates, turned up no parent-relevant changes or recent developments of lasting impact. No information was available on program offerings such as gifted education, special education services, or extracurriculars at this school. A parent evaluating Tipton ES would likely want to ask the school directly about academic support structures, the small classroom environments that often come with a school of this size, and how the school approaches instruction given the very low proficiency results on state assessments.
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