Lyons Middle School

Lyons Middle School serves 173 students in grades 6–8 in Lyons, Kansas; the only nearby comparison provided, Little River Junior High, is about 11 miles away and serves grades 7–8. In 2025–26, Lyons students were proficient in about 24% of tests in English Language Arts (ELA), 23% in math and 24% in science, compared with 46%, 41% and 38% statewide. The gaps with Little River were also large: Lyons trailed by 41 points in ELA, 37 in math and 41 in science. The most important takeaway is that Lyons’ current proficiency results are substantially below both the state and its nearby comparison school.

Science is Lyons’ strongest subject relative to its district and the state: its 24% proficiency rate was essentially even with the Lyons district at 23.3%, and 15 points below the state. ELA is the weakest relative to those comparisons, with Lyons 9 points below its district and 22 below the state. Against Little River, however, Lyons’ largest gap is in science and its smallest is in math. Eighth-grade math is a particular concern within Lyons: 16% were proficient, compared with 29% in sixth grade and 24% in seventh grade; the eighth-grade result was 24 points below the state. Lyons also trails Little River in both shared grades and across subjects, with same-grade gaps ranging from 37 to 48 points in ELA and math.

Lyons’ proficiency gains have not kept pace with the state: from 2022–23 to 2025–26, math rose 2 points and science 5, while ELA fell 1; the state gaps widened by 7 points in math, 2 in science and 14 in ELA. SchoolDigger places Lyons at the 10th percentile statewide, with 1 star, down 39 percentile points from 2021–22. Its measure for English Language Learner students is a striking exception, at the 97th percentile in 2025–26; its Special Education ranking reversed sharply, falling from the 73rd percentile the prior year to the 0th. Lyons’ student-teacher ratio is 10, compared with 8.6 at Little River, and its free/reduced-lunch rate is 75%, compared with 27%. Chronic absenteeism improved by 6 points to 24%, but remained above the state’s 18% and the district’s 20%.