The top reported proficiency rate is 9% in Math. The lowest is 4% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Sequoyah Es
Sequoyah Elementary School, a public school in Tulsa serving prekindergarten through fifth grade, sits within the Tulsa Public Schools district. The most consequential fact about this school, as of early 2024, is that it was voted by the district's board to close at the end of the 2023-24 academic year. The closure was part of a district-wide Portfolio Review process driven by declining enrollment across Tulsa Public Schools, which by 2024 had dropped to roughly three-quarters of its student count from a previous peak. Students who would have attended Sequoyah were reassigned to nearby schools.
That closure decision means Sequoyah Elementary, for the purposes of anyone currently looking for a school, is no longer operating. What was there can be characterized from the available data, but it is a portrait of a school that no longer exists.
Before its closure, Sequoyah was a relatively small elementary school by enrollment. Its student body was heavily Hispanic, making up well over half of the population, with a much smaller share of white students and a modest share of Black students. The remainder was composed of students of two or more races, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Asian students. A free-or-reduced-price lunch rate was not reported, so a direct measure of its economic composition is missing.
State testing results from the 2024-25 school year, which would have been administered in the spring before the planned closure, were nonetheless reported. They show that proficiency rates on the Oklahoma School Testing Program were very low across all tested grades and subjects. In third grade, roughly one in ten students scored proficient or above in English language arts, and roughly one in eight did so in math. By fourth grade, the rates dropped further, with only a tiny share of students proficient in reading and a similarly tiny share in math. Fifth-grade reading and math proficiency were also very low, and science proficiency stood at an even smaller share. These figures placed Sequoyah in the bottom quartile for overall proficiency among elementary schools in Tulsa County.
The district context for these results is important. Tulsa Public Schools itself, as of 2023, had its state accreditation status lowered to "accredited with deficiencies" by the state board of education, a decision tied to low academic performance scores. A major bond package was approved by voters in 2024 to fund facility improvements, safety upgrades, and technology across all district schools, but this investment will not reach a school that has been closed.
The school was located in Tulsa, a city that is the second largest in Oklahoma and has a diversified economy spanning finance, aviation, telecommunications, technology, and energy. Housing in the area around the school is more affordable than in much of the country, with the typical home value in the ZIP code well below state and national benchmarks. Rents are also modest relative to income, making this one of the more lower-cost areas within the Tulsa region.
For a parent or resident reading this, the bottom line is direct. Sequoyah Elementary School has been closed by its district as part of a rightsizing plan. No new students will enroll there. Families in the attendance zone who would have attended Sequoyah were reassigned to other district elementary schools. The data from its final year of operation describes a school with a high-need student population and very low state test scores, but that is historical context for a building that is no longer functioning as a school.
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