The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in Science. The lowest is 28% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on West Kearns School
West Kearns School serves students from prekindergarten through sixth grade in the Granite District, on the western side of the Salt Lake Valley. The school is located in Kearns, a primarily residential suburb that grew rapidly after a World War II Army air base was deactivated and the old military streets became the template for the town. Kearns has no traditional downtown; civic life centers on Oquirrh Park, the Utah Olympic Oval, and the Kearns Library. The community transitioned from a township to a metro township and was officially incorporated as a city in 2024. Housing in the area is predominantly single-family homes on modest lots, and the typical home value is above the national median but below the state median. Rents are in the middle range for the region, and the area is car-dependent for most errands.
The school serves about five hundred students, making it a mid-sized elementary for its grade band. Its student body is majority white, with a substantial share of students who identify as Hispanic and smaller shares from other racial groups. A large majority of students come from low-income households, as reflected in the free-or-reduced-price meal rate. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the reporting we used; a parent may want to check directly with the school about these supports.
On state assessments, West Kearns School’s proficiency rates for all tested grades are below half in math, reading and language arts, and science. The overall proficiency index across these subjects places the school below the midpoint among elementary and middle schools in Salt Lake County. Because the school ends at sixth grade, there is no high school graduation rate to report. We looked for chronic absenteeism and discipline data, but those fields were not present in the available information.
The school is part of Granite District, a large system that spans much of the Salt Lake Valley. We searched for recent district developments such as bond measures or strategic plans but found little publicly reported on those topics in the most recent few years, so we cannot speak to any current district-level initiatives. The school itself is not a charter or magnet, and its Title I status was not specified in the data.
Kearns is a place with limited land for new development; the last major housing area was built some years ago, and slight population growth has occurred through infill around Oquirrh Park. The Utah Olympic Oval, a venue built for a past Winter Olympics and known for speed skating records, remains a distinct local anchor. The school sits within the residential grid, like other schools in the community, and is a neighborhood school serving a primarily local attendance area.
For families considering West Kearns School, the key factors to weigh are the below-midpoint academic performance on state tests, the high proportion of students from low-income households, and the school’s role as a straightforward prekindergarten-through-sixth-grade elementary within a large district. The absence of data on special education and English learner populations, as well as on chronic absenteeism, means some aspects of the school’s support environment are not visible in this profile. A visit or conversation with school staff would be the next step to fill those gaps.
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