The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Math. The lowest is 39% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on General Thomas P Stafford Elementary
General Thomas P Stafford Elementary serves only three grades — second through fourth — so the story it tells is a narrow but important slice of a child’s early education. There is no pre-K or kindergarten here, and no fifth grade; students arrive after primary school and leave before middle school. The enrollment is small for a public elementary that spans multiple grades, and the building feeds into a larger district system in Weatherford.
The school sits in a town that is itself a mix of a college community and an energy-industry center. Southwestern Oklahoma State University is the dominant institution, and the oil-and-gas and wind-power sectors are major employers. The housing market is moderate: home values here are slightly above the state average, though well below the national figure. A large share of residents rent rather than own, and the median age is pulled down by the student population. For a family considering the area, the town is compact and drivable, with Interstate 40 bypassing the downtown core.
Academically, Stafford Elementary shows a clear split between math and English language arts. On the Oklahoma state assessment in the most recent year, math proficiency was solid — it sits notably above the midpoint among all districts in Custer County and lands in the top quarter of that group. The composite proficiency index, which averages across tested subjects and grades, also places the school high relative to its county peers. Both third and fourth graders produced math results that reflect a meaningful share of students meeting the state’s proficiency standard.
The English language arts picture is noticeably softer. In both tested grades, the share of students scoring proficient or above was below the midpoint you might expect for a school that performs well in math. This gap is wide enough that a parent would want to discuss reading and writing support directly with the school, especially for a child who struggles with literacy. The data does not tell us how many students receive special education services or are learning English, so it is not possible to say whether those subgroups affect the overall ELA picture. Those are natural questions for a parent to raise.
Because Stafford serves only second through fourth grade, there is no graduation rate to report and no high school course offerings to evaluate. The district itself, Weatherford Public Schools, appears to have been stable in recent years; a search for recent changes like bond measures or program shifts turned up little that was publicly noted.
The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic presence and a smaller but noticeable share of students who identify as two or more races or as American Indian or Alaska Native. Black and Asian students are present in very small numbers. The free-or-reduced-price lunch data was not available, so the economic composition of the school is not directly measurable from the record.
What Stafford Elementary offers is a clear academic signal in math, and a more uneven one in reading, set within a school that is small, grade-constrained, and part of an established small-city district. Families who value a strong math foundation and are willing to investigate how the school addresses literacy gaps will have the most to go on here. Those looking for a full K-5 or K-8 experience, or for data on special education and English learner services, will find that this school does not provide it, because it does not serve those grades or because that information is not reported for this campus.
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