Puls Elementary

Puls Elementary is a small school in Attica, Kansas, serving 122 students in grades PK–8. Its 2025–2026 results vary widely by grade: third graders scored 69% in both ELA and Math, while seventh- and eighth-grade scores were much lower in several subjects. The central finding for families is that this strong third-grade performance does not carry through the school: current all-grades Math and especially Science results are weak compared with the state and nearby schools.

ELA is Puls’s strongest subject relative to the state and its district, while Science is its weakest. All-grades ELA proficiency was 47%, compared with 46% statewide and 40% in the Attica district; the nearby-school average was 52%. Math was 31%, 10 percentage points below the state and 4 points above the district, but about 22 points below the nearby average. Science was 17%, 22 points below the state and 2 points above the district—and below each nearby school, whose average was 48%. Third-grade results are a bright spot: Puls led nearby schools in third-grade Math and ELA. By contrast, fifth-grade Science was 14%, compared with 46% statewide, and seventh- and eighth-grade ELA and Math were also below state results.

ELA has improved considerably, rising 30 percentage points from 17% in 2022–2023 to 47% in 2025–2026; its gap with the state shifted from 16 points below to 1 point above. Math rose 8 points over that period but fell from 38% in 2024–2025 to 31% in the latest year. Science dropped from 50% to 17%. SchoolDigger rates Puls at the 58th percentile with 3 stars, tied with Medicine Lodge Grade School; Anthony Elementary is higher at the 81st percentile with 4 stars. Puls’s student-teacher ratio is 15.5, above the nearby average of 11.4. SchoolDigger’s statewide measure of how well the school serves White students placed Puls at the 38th percentile, 20 points below its overall percentile. Comparisons across all grades have a limitation: Puls serves through grade 8, while nearby schools serve through grade 6.