The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in Science. The lowest is 24% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Wilburton Es
Wilburton Elementary School serves preschool through fifth grade in the Wilburton Public Schools district, a small, rural county-seat system in southeastern Oklahoma. The school enrolls a student body that reflects the town’s demographic makeup, with a roughly even split between white students and American Indian or Alaska Native students, and a much smaller share of multiracial, Hispanic, and Black students. Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students each make up a very small portion of the population. The school’s total enrollment is on the smaller side for an elementary building serving this grade span.
The town of Wilburton itself has been losing population over recent decades, and the local economy now rests primarily on two employers: a manufacturing plant and Eastern Oklahoma State College. Housing in the area is substantially more affordable than the national median, with home values that have seen a modest recent decline. The town’s layout is a traditional Main Street downtown with the college on the west end and school buildings distributed between the downtown corridor and the town’s periphery. The nearest state park sits a short drive north, and the town hosts an annual fall festival.
State assessment results for the 2024-25 school year show math scores that vary by grade. Third-grade math performance was low, with less than a quarter of students scoring proficient or above. That figure rose markedly in fourth and fifth grades, where roughly two in five students reached that bar. English language arts scores were weaker across the board. Around a sixth of third graders were proficient, and that share climbed to about a quarter of fourth graders and a little more than a quarter of fifth graders. Science results, available only for fifth grade, placed roughly two in five students at the proficient level. A parent should keep in mind that Oklahoma changed its cut scores for math and English language arts in this test year, which makes direct comparisons with prior years unreliable. Compared with other school districts in Latimer County, Wilburton Elementary School’s combined proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades ranks in the top quarter of the small cohort.
The district brief turned up little in the way of recent changes or strategic initiatives that parents would want to track, and no information on chronic absenteeism or discipline was available in the data provided. The data also did not include the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, nor the share of students receiving special education services or English learner support. These are common gaps for a rural elementary school with a modest data footprint, but a family looking for a fuller picture of student supports would want to ask the school directly about those programs.
Wilburton Elementary is a building where core academic proficiency is uneven, with math generally stronger than reading. For a family considering the school, the context matters: this is a small district in a shrinking town with limited housing turnover and a stable employer base. The peer environment is predominantly white and American Indian, and the school sits within a community that has seen its population decline over time. A parent looking for a school with a very small, rural character and who wants to ask specific questions about how the building supports early literacy will find this a place worth a close visit.
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