West Elk Virtual Academy

West Elk Virtual Academy is a 226-student K–12 alternative school in Howard, Kansas, near West Elk Schools and Rocket Online Schools (ROCS). The academy’s 2025–2026 proficiency was 26% in English language arts (ELA), 12% in math and 15% in science, well below state results of 46%, 41% and 38%. Engagement and completion are also concerns: chronic absenteeism was 53%, graduation was 50% in 2023–2024, and the dropout rate was 12% in 2024–2025. The most important takeaway is that low test proficiency is paired with substantially weaker attendance and completion measures than state benchmarks.

Compared with nearby schools, the academy’s results are mixed, but they remain low overall. Its ELA and science scores fall between those of West Elk Schools and ROCS: 26% versus 46% and 23% in ELA, and 15% versus 34% and 16% in science. In math, its 12% is above ROCS’s 5% but below West Elk Schools’ 37%. It also trails statewide results in all three subjects, with the largest gap in math. Grade-level results vary: eighth-grade ELA reached 43%, slightly above the state’s 42%, while fifth-grade ELA was 8% and fifth-grade math was 0%.

Recent trends offer one modest bright spot: from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, science proficiency rose from 15% to 15% and its gap with the state narrowed by 4 points; ELA declined by 3 points, and math was nearly unchanged as the state improved. Chronic absenteeism rose by 10 points from the prior year. The reported student-teacher ratio increased to 57.9 in 2024–2025, compared with 10.8 at West Elk Schools and 349.2 at ROCS. SchoolDigger ranks ROCS 266th of 268 schools, at the 1st percentile with zero stars, but provides no comparable rank for the academy; the academy’s reported 2% free/reduced-lunch rate is from 2022–2023, while West Elk Schools’ 68% figure is from 2024–2025, so the rates are not a like-year comparison.