Middle Schools in Santa Fe Trail

The Santa Fe Trail area has one middle school, Carbondale Attendance Center, which serves grades 4–8 and enrolls 370 students. With no other school in this list, there is no local school-to-school comparison; the clearest picture comes from comparing results with Kansas and looking at differences across grades. In 2025–26, Carbondale’s all-grade science result was 42% proficient, 4 points above the state’s 38%, while ELA was 42%, 4 points below Kansas at 46%; math was close to the state, at 40% versus 41%. The key takeaway is that science is the school’s strongest overall subject relative to Kansas, while ELA is its largest overall gap.

Within Carbondale, grade-level results vary more than the all-grade figures suggest. Eighth grade stands out in ELA and science: ELA proficiency was 47%, 5 points above the same-grade state result, and science was 47%, 8 points above Kansas. But eighth-grade math was 31%, 9 points below the state. Fifth-grade math was a relative bright spot at 52%, 7 points above Kansas, while fifth-grade ELA was 38%, 13 points below the state, and science was 37%, 9 points below. Sixth-grade ELA was also low at 35%, 7 points below Kansas. These contrasts show why families may want to look beyond the schoolwide subject totals: relative strengths and gaps differ by grade and subject.

Math and science improved compared with 2024–25, while ELA did not keep pace with the state. Math rose from 32% to 40%, narrowing its state gap by 6 points; science increased from 37% to 42% as Kansas declined, improving Carbondale’s relative position by 9 points. ELA edged up from 41% to 42%, but its gap widened by 1 point. SchoolDigger’s school ranking also rebounded to 189 of 368 (49th percentile, two stars) in 2025–26, from 202 of 363 (44th percentile, two stars) the prior year, though it remained below its 2023–24 result of 173 of 362 (52nd percentile, three stars). Chronic absenteeism was 17%, below the district’s 22% and Kansas’s 18%; the school’s student–teacher ratio was 11.6, and its free/reduced-lunch rate was 44%.