Circle Towanda Elementary

Circle Towanda Elementary operates as a reasonably sized K-5 school in Towanda, Kansas, overseen by Circle. Current enrollment sits at 278 students spanning grades pre-K through 6.

Circle runs 6 schools in total, collectively educating 2,091 students. Circle Towanda Elementary is one of those campuses.

Looking at the student body, Circle Towanda Elementary shows that the student body is overwhelmingly White (90%). Beyond that, the school records 5% Hispanic, 3% multiracial. That composition is broadly in line with Butler County as a whole.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 11.4:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.2:1 average. Around 51% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is noticeably above Butler County's rate of about 37%.

After controlling for student poverty, Circle Towanda Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 37.6%, the actual is 32.4%, a residual of -5.2 points.

Zooming out to the county, the surrounding county (Butler County) logs that median household income runs about $81,610, 32% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. In all, Butler County runs 42 public schools (combined enrollment of about 18,052 students), of which Circle Towanda Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: Circle High, around 0.5 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Circle Towanda Elementary at 5th of 9; the average score across the group is 34.1%.

Geographically, the school is in an outlying area.

Looking at the recent track record. Circle Towanda Elementary's enrollment has held roughly steady since 2018, when it stood at 274 (now 278). Over the same period, the White share shrank from 94% to 90%. Class-load math has tightened: from 15.7:1 in 2018 to 11.4:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.