Summary:
ZIP code 84741 has two elementary schools serving kindergarten through sixth grade: Kanab School and Big Water School, both part of Kane District in a rural area. Together they enroll 563 students, although the schools differ greatly in size: Kanab serves 523 students, while Big Water serves 40. Both schools have student–teacher ratios near 20 to 1, and their reported free- or reduced-price lunch rates are similar, at about 42%.
Kanab School has the strongest current academic evidence. In 2025–26, it scored above Utah’s statewide average in every reported grade and subject across English language arts, mathematics, and science. Mathematics was its clearest strength, with an average proficiency rate of about 56%, including an especially strong third-grade result of 70.4%. Kanab also performed well in fifth-grade English language arts and sixth-grade science. Its results were not ahead of the district in every area, however; upper-grade mathematics and fourth- and fifth-grade science were somewhat below district averages. Kanab’s chronic absenteeism rate was 37.5%, higher than both the district rate of 31.2% and the state rate of 23.8%, making attendance an important issue despite generally solid academic performance.
Big Water School is much smaller and has a substantially higher chronic absenteeism rate of 65.9%. Because only 40 students attend, percentages can change sharply when a few students’ circumstances change, and current school-level test results are suppressed for privacy. Suppression does not indicate weak or strong performance, so Big Water should not be academically ranked from this information. Historical rankings show that the school has sometimes performed very well, but those results are more than a decade old. Overall, Kanab is the better-documented academic choice, while Big Water’s most visible priority is understanding and improving attendance.
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