Sunflower Elem

Sunflower Elem is one of the medium-sized K-5 schools in Lenexa, Kansas, run under Shawnee Mission Pub Sch, with 390 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 6. Compared to the state average of about 313 students per school, that is 25% above typical.

Shawnee Mission Pub Sch runs 45 schools in total, collectively educating 26,330 students. Sunflower Elem is one of those campuses.

On demographics, Sunflower Elem lists that 61% of the student body identifies as White; the rest comes out to 16% Hispanic, 9% Black, 9% multiracial, 4% Asian. By comparison, Johnson County as a whole is about 79% White, so the school skews considerably less White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 14.0:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 13.2:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Around 35% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Johnson County (around 27%), the school's rate is north of typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Sunflower Elem performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 45.3%, the actual is 50.5%, a residual of +5.3 points.

In the area at large, ACS estimates for Johnson County put median household earnings sit near $109,208, 58% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 3% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Sunflower Elem is one of 168 public schools in Johnson County (combined enrollment of about 93,598 students).

Christa McAuliffe Elem is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.9 miles from this campus. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Sunflower Elem at 4th of 9; the average score across the group is 46.3%.

The campus sits in an urban setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Sunflower Elem has contracted 28%, going from 542 students in 2018 to 390 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 12% to 16% across the same window.

On allk12, recent activity here tends to focus on open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.