The top reported proficiency rate is 46% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Starkey El
Starkey Elementary sits on West Main Street in Kerrville, a Texas Hill Country city built along the Guadalupe River that serves as the county seat of Kerr County. The school runs kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Kerrville ISD.
Kerrville itself is in an active growth phase. City leaders have planned for the population to roughly triple over coming decades, with large workforce-housing developments underway near the district's campuses on the northeast side of the city. Major employers include Peterson Health, James Avery Artisan Jewelry, Schreiner University, and a growing aerospace and aviation manufacturing cluster anchored by Mooney aircraft. The downtown core along the Guadalupe has a pedestrian-oriented district plan and a roughly six-mile river trail that connects parks, the university, and community anchors like the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library. That trail and several riverfront parks sustained heavy damage in the catastrophic July 4, 2025 flood and have been reopening in segments.
That flood reshaped the context for every family in the district. The disaster affected dozens of district families, including employees who lost homes, and the district lost a beloved Tivy High School coach and Teacher of the Year along with his family. For the current school year, Kerrville ISD added crisis counselors and therapy dogs at every campus, provided free backpacks and supplies for all students, and publicly committed to reviewing safety protocols, particularly for bus routes crossing flood-prone areas. No school buildings were damaged, but the community's grief and recovery are real and ongoing. This is something families weighing a move or a school choice would want to understand clearly.
Starkey's enrollment is a mid-sized elementary for its grade band, with a reasonably even distribution across kindergarten through fifth grade. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is split roughly between Hispanic and white students, with small representations of other groups. English learner data and special education enrollment data were not available in what was provided.
On the Texas STAAR assessment, the most recent results show a school where the gap between basic grade-level exposure and actual proficiency is worth a parent's attention. In math, fourth and fifth graders were reaching proficiency at rates well below half the tested group. Third-grade math results were suppressed due to small tested numbers on the Spanish-language assessment. Reading results were somewhat stronger at third grade, with roughly half of tested students reaching proficiency, but fourth-grade reading proficiency fell noticeably below that. Fifth-grade reading was similarly suppressed by small Spanish-assessment counts. Science results at fifth grade mirrored the math pattern, with roughly a third of students reaching proficiency. Across all subjects and grades combined, Starkey's proficiency index sits below the midpoint relative to districts in Kerr County. The "approaches" threshold, which represents the lowest of Texas's three passing bars, is being cleared by a clear majority of students across subjects, so many children are demonstrating some grade-level contact with the material. The "meets" and "masters" levels, which indicate stronger command of content, are considerably lower. Only a single year of data was available, so no trend direction can be established. Parents who want to understand what the school is doing to move students from approaching to meeting grade-level expectations would be well served by asking directly.
The school is not a charter and has no magnet designation. Program offerings were not reported in what was provided. The data sections on this page carry the specific figures.
Kerrville's housing market sits modestly above the Texas statewide median home value, with rents running at a rent-to-income ratio that is relatively manageable by national standards. Values have edged down slightly year over year even as rents have ticked up, which is consistent with the broader growth and development activity underway in the area.
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