Summary:
College Station, Arkansas, is home to a single public elementary school, College Station Elementary School, which serves students from Pre-Kindergarten through 5th grade within the Pulaski County Special School District.
The most notable story at College Station Elementary School is its dramatic academic turnaround. In the 2024-2025 school year, the school ranked in the bottom 4th percentile statewide, but just one year later it jumped to the 27th percentile, earning a 1-star rating. Proficiency rates more than doubled in every subject, with English Language Arts rising from 13.9% to 32.7% and Mathematics from 10.8% to 30.6%. Despite this impressive progress, the school still trails state averages in all subjects, with the largest gaps in Science (15.4 percentage points behind) and Mathematics (13.5 percentage points behind). A critical area of concern is the "3rd grade cliff," where 3rd grade performance is dramatically lower than 4th and 5th grade—for example, only 14.2% of 3rd graders are proficient in ELA compared to 40.9% of 5th graders.
The school serves a highly economically disadvantaged community, with 86.67% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch. It also boasts a low student-teacher ratio of 12.2:1 and exceptionally high per-student spending of $20,953. This combination of high investment and below-average academic outcomes raises important questions about the effectiveness of resource allocation. The recent improvement is encouraging, but the school still has significant work to do to close the gap with state averages, particularly in 3rd grade and in Science and Mathematics.
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