The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Winona El
Winona Elementary sits on Wildcat Drive alongside the district's middle and high school campuses, forming a shared school complex that sits apart from the small civic center on Dallas Street. The town itself is a rural, car-dependent community in northeastern Smith County, part of the broader Tyler metro orbit. Publicly reported sources describe it as a suburban-rural mix where most residents own their homes, with modest commercial infrastructure and a population that has grown gradually since 2020. New residential subdivisions are being developed, including phased projects marketed with USDA financing options, and the proximity to Interstate 20 and to downtown Tyler about fifteen miles away gives the area quiet connectivity to a larger urban hub.
The school serves prekindergarten through fifth grade and enrolls a sizeable student body for its grade band. The student population is racially and ethnically diverse, with Hispanic students making up the largest share, followed by white and Black students. The vast majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning this is a high-poverty school by federal measures. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in the records reviewed.
On the Texas STAAR assessment, Winona Elementary's academic results are a soft spot that parents should look into further with the school. Across all tested grades and subjects, the share of students reaching proficiency is low. Reading and language arts show somewhat stronger results than math and science: the fourth and fifth grade ELA results put roughly a third or more of students at proficiency, while third grade ELA sits well below that. Math proficiency is lower still across all three tested grades, and fifth grade math in particular has very few students reaching the meets-grade-level bar. Fifth grade science results are also low. When the school is positioned against districts in Smith County, its overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile of that nine-district comparison set. The share of students reaching the masters-level benchmark, the highest performance tier, is very small across subjects.
Only one year of state assessment data was available, so it is not possible from this data to say whether results have been improving, declining, or holding steady. Trend information would be an important question to raise with school leadership directly.
On the facilities side, there is a concrete positive development worth knowing. Voters in a November 2022 bond election approved funding for elementary and middle school renovations, publicly reported as delivering a new classroom wing, an expanded cafeteria and kitchen, and playground safety upgrades to the elementary campus. The building had originally been constructed in the late 1970s and had been handling enrollment growth with insufficient space, including a situation where elementary students were eating lunch in the middle school cafeteria at unusually early hours. Those conditions have been addressed. The district also publicly reported approving a reduced property tax rate for the 2022-23 school year, described as the district's lowest rate in roughly two decades, driven by enrollment growth and rising property values.
Home values in the area are meaningfully below both the Texas and national medians, which affects what families moving into the district will encounter in the housing market. Rental cost data was not available for this specific area.
For a family weighing Winona Elementary, the picture is a recently renovated, growing campus in a tight-knit rural community with a diverse student body and real economic challenges reflected in the demographic profile. The academic proficiency data is a genuine concern and warrants direct conversation with the school about what interventions and supports are in place, particularly in math and science.
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