Summary:
ZIP code 67701 has one middle school, Colby Middle School, serving grades 5–8 with 293 students. With no other local middle schools, there is no meaningful school-to-school comparison. The most important finding is that ELA is the clearest concern: in 2025–26, 26% of students were proficient, 20 percentage points below the Kansas rate of 46%.
Among Colby’s subjects, science was closest to the state, while ELA had the largest gap; these are subject comparisons, not local school rankings. Colby’s science proficiency was 35%, compared with 38% statewide, and it was 2 points above Colby Public Schools. Math was 32%, 9 points below the state’s 41%. ELA’s 20-point state gap was especially wide in grade 8, at 23 points, and grade 6, at 21 points. Math varied by grade: grade 6 was 19 points below the state, while the gaps in grades 5, 7, and 8 ranged from 3 to 5 points.
Recent results moved in different directions by subject. From 2024–25 to 2025–26, math proficiency rose 8 points, and its gap with the state narrowed from 15 to 9 points. ELA fell 3 points as the state rose 1 point, widening the gap from 15 to 20 points. Science fell 2 points, but the state fell 3, narrowing the gap from 5 to 4 points. SchoolDigger’s ranking also moved downward: Colby went from 174 of 362 schools, in the 52nd percentile with three stars, in 2023–24 to 296 of 368, in the 20th percentile with one star, in 2025–26. The school’s student-teacher ratio is 13.6, and its 2024–25 free/reduced-lunch rate was 35%; these figures describe the school’s context, not the reasons for its results.
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