Paola

Paola has four schools serving prekindergarten through grade 12, with 1,732 students enrolled; school sizes range from 373 students at Sunflower Elementary to 567 at Paola High. Cottonwood Elementary serves PK–2, Sunflower serves grades 3–5, Paola Middle serves grades 6–8, and Paola High serves grades 9–12. Cottonwood has no supplied test scores, and the other schools serve different grades, so these all-grades results are broad comparisons. The clearest overall finding is that every school with reported scores is above the state figure in ELA, math, and science.

Sunflower stands out in ELA and math, with 63% and 55% proficient; it leads the next-highest school by 4 points in ELA and 9 points in math. Paola Middle leads science at 55%. It has the lowest ELA and math results among the three schools with scores—50% and 45%—but remains 4 points above the state in each. Paola High is lowest in science at 50%, still 12 points above the state. These results show meaningful differences between schools, alongside above-state performance throughout.

Paola High has made the biggest recent gains, rising 16 points in ELA and 12 in math from 2024–25 to 2025–26. Across the three scored schools, average ELA and math results each increased 7 points, compared with state gains of 1 and 2 points. The pattern is not uniform: Paola Middle’s math was nearly unchanged, while Sunflower’s math rose 9 points and its science fell 4; Middle’s science increased 7 points. SchoolDigger gives the Paola district 5 stars and ranks it 20th of 268 districts. Its ranking history also reflects High’s rise: its percentile moved from 63 to 89 over the past two years, while Middle and Sunflower stayed within narrower ranges. Reported student-teacher ratios among the scored schools range from 12.8 to 14.1, and free/reduced-lunch rates from 31% to 40%; these figures add context but do not explain the score differences.