Summary:
The four elementary schools in Education Service District 159 enroll 260–284 students each. Sieden Prairie and Woodgate serve prekindergarten through grade 5, while Marya Yates and Neil Armstrong serve kindergarten through grade 5. In 2025–2026, the four-school averages were 42% proficient in all-grade ELA, 22% in all-grade math, and 35% in fifth-grade science—below the respective state benchmarks of 56%, 40%, and 48%. The most important takeaway is that these averages hide substantial differences among schools.
Neil Armstrong stands out overall: it led in all-grade ELA at 55%, all-grade math at 32%, and fifth-grade science at 51%. That put it 1 point below the state ELA benchmark and 3 points above the fifth-grade science benchmark. Marya Yates had the lowest results in all three comparisons: 29% in ELA, 12% in math, and 23% in science. The ELA results ranged 26 points between the top and bottom schools; the math results ranged 19 points. Grade-level results add nuance: Woodgate scored 53% in third-grade math, above the 49% state benchmark, and had the highest reported fifth-grade math result at 28%. Sieden Prairie led in fifth-grade ELA at 51%, but its third-grade ELA result was 31%, the lowest among schools with a reported score.
Average results improved from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026: ELA rose 10 points, math 3 points, and fifth-grade science 15 points. The gains were not universal; Woodgate’s ELA result fell 1 point. SchoolDigger’s statewide rankings also show different paths: Neil Armstrong rose 8 percentile points over two years to the 44th percentile, while Marya Yates fell 17 points to the 7th; these are rankings, not test-score percentages. Other measures do not neatly track scores: Marya’s student–teacher ratio is 11, compared with 13.5 at Neil, and its free/reduced lunch eligible share was 66% in 2024–2025, versus 70% at Neil, 73% at Woodgate, and 82% at Sieden. These are contrasts in the data, not evidence that those measures caused test results.
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