Broken Bow

Broken Bow has four schools: two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. Results are available for three schools, while Dierks Elementary School has no supplied test scores. Across the three schools with results, average proficiency was 25% in English Language Arts (ELA), 18% in Mathematics and 24% in Science, compared with state averages of 26%, 25% and 30%. The central finding is that there is no all-around academic leader: ELA averages were close to the state, but Mathematics and Science averages were lower, with especially wide differences between schools.

Rector Johnson Middle School stands out in Science, with 47% proficiency—34 percentage points above the next-highest school, Bennett Elementary School at 13%, and 17 points above the state’s 30%. Bennett leads Mathematics at 36%, 20 points above Rector Johnson and 11 points above the state. Broken Bow High School leads ELA at 27%, but its margin is just 2 points over Bennett and 1 point over the state. It is the lowest of the three in Mathematics, at 3%, and Science, at 11%; those results are 33 and 36 points below the respective subject leaders. In grade-matched results, the high school’s 11th-grade proficiency was below the state in all four reported subjects.

Recent changes are mixed: from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, the high school fell 8 points in ELA, 10 in Mathematics and 5 in Science, while Bennett gained 6 points in Mathematics and 5 in Science; Rector Johnson gained in ELA and Mathematics but slipped 2 points in Science. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentiles also shifted: the high school moved from the 42nd percentile in 2024–2025 to the 19th in 2025–2026, while Rector Johnson rose to the 53rd and Bennett to the 48th. As context, all schools reported free/reduced lunch eligible figures for 2024–2025, ranging from 72% at the high school to 89% at Bennett; student-teacher ratios ranged from 14.4:1 to 17.5:1. Attendance was favorable across the area: chronic absenteeism ranged from 1% at Bennett to 8% at Rector Johnson, below the state’s 16%; the high school graduation rate was 85%, compared with 78% statewide. These comparisons describe different measures, not causes of test results, and the schools serve different grade spans.