Summary:
The Charleston School District in Charleston, Arkansas, serves 912 students across two public schools: Charleston Elementary School (grades PK-6) and Charleston High School (grades 7-12). The district is highly rated, ranking in the 74th percentile among Arkansas districts with a 4-star rating, and offers a mix of strong academic foundations and notable contrasts between its schools.
Charleston Elementary School stands out as a mathematics powerhouse, with 55.5% of students proficient in math compared to the state average of 44.1%, and 3rd graders achieving an impressive 58.1% proficiency rate. It consistently outperforms district and state averages across all subjects and grades, with a student-teacher ratio of 16:1. In contrast, Charleston High School presents a more volatile picture: it boasts a strong 93.9% graduation rate and an exceptionally low student-teacher ratio of 6.3:1, yet its test scores are inconsistent. The high school excels in Biology (51% proficient vs. 42.7% state) but struggles significantly in Geometry (18.8% proficient vs. 26.4% state), and its state ranking has fluctuated dramatically from the 75th percentile to the 42nd and back to the 71st percentile in recent years.
A key takeaway is the district-wide improvement in English Language Arts and Reading from the 2024-2025 to the 2025-2026 school year, with the high school's ELA proficiency jumping from 24.1% to 38.9% and the elementary school's from 38.7% to 44.9%. This positive trend suggests recent instructional changes are benefiting literacy across both schools. However, the high school's low student-teacher ratio does not consistently translate into superior academic performance compared to the elementary school, raising questions about how effectively small class sizes are utilized. Overall, the district offers a strong elementary foundation in math and a high school with excellent graduation rates, though families should note the high school's uneven subject performance and ranking volatility.
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