Summary
Connally Elementary in Waco, TX, serves 352 students in grades 4 and 5 within the Connally Independent School District (Isd), a district that ranks in the bottom 5% of all Texas school districts. The school faces significant challenges, with over 81% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, and its academic performance has been critically low for years, consistently ranking in the bottom 1-4% of Texas elementary schools over the past decade.
Test scores at Connally Elementary are alarmingly low, often half or less than half of the state average. For the 2025-2026 school year, only 20.35% of 4th graders and 23.13% of 5th graders were proficient in reading, while math proficiency was even lower at 16.96% for 4th grade and just 10.45% for 5th grade. This underperformance is consistent across all student subgroups, with the school ranking in the bottom 1% for female, male, Hispanic, White, Special Education, and low socioeconomic status students. The contrast with nearby Bosqueville Elementary, located just 5.66 miles away in the Bosqueville Independent School District (Isd), is stark: in 2024-2025, Bosqueville's 5th-grade reading proficiency was 78.85% compared to Connally's 28.21%, and its math proficiency was 55.77% versus Connally's 7.05%.
Despite a favorable student-teacher ratio of 13.6 and moderate spending of $10,424 per student, Connally Elementary's academic struggles persist, suggesting that challenges are deeply rooted in the community's socioeconomic conditions rather than simply a matter of resources. The school has shown a slight upward trend from a very low base over the last decade, but the most recent data (2025-2026) shows a drop back to the 0th percentile, indicating that progress is not stable. For parents considering this school, it is important to understand that while the school has a small, close-knit environment, the academic outcomes are among the lowest in the state, and the gap with higher-performing nearby schools like Bosqueville Elementary is substantial.
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