Sterling

Sterling has two schools in this list: Sterling Grade School, serving prekindergarten through grade 6, and Sterling Junior High/Senior High, serving grades 7–12. In 2025–2026, both schools were above Kansas results in all-grades ELA and math, while their science results diverged. Because the schools serve different grades, their all-grades scores are a broad school-level contrast, not a like-for-like comparison of students. The most important difference is in science: Grade School was 20 percentage points above the state, while Junior High/Senior High was 8 points below it.

Sterling Grade School stands out at the top of this two-school group, leading in all three subjects and exceeding the state by 24 points in ELA, 39 in math, and 20 in science. Sterling Junior High/Senior High also beat the state in ELA and math—by 3 and 16 points—but fell 8 points below in science. The schools’ widest gap was in science: Grade School’s result was 28 points higher. SchoolDigger ranks Grade School 39th of 657 Kansas schools, in the 94th percentile with five stars; it ranks Junior High/Senior High 162nd of 340, in the 52nd percentile with three stars.

Recent results show stronger movement in science than in the other subjects, and not in a positive direction: science fell 16 points at Grade School and 29 points at Junior High/Senior High from the prior year, while secondary ELA rose 2 points and math rose 8. Grade-specific results add useful context: Grade School exceeded state ELA and math results in grades 3–6, but Junior High/Senior High was below the state in 10th-grade ELA and 11th-grade science. Both schools reported lower chronic absenteeism than the state—7% and 8%, compared with 18%—and the high school’s graduation rate was 94%, versus 90% statewide. Grade School’s student-teacher ratio was 12.2, compared with 11.5 at the secondary school; its reported free/reduced-lunch rate was also higher, 42% versus 38%, as context rather than an explanation of results. The two-year score record is short, and results can shift from year to year.